*RAVEL. Concerto in D major for the left hand. Concerto in G major. Jacqueline Blancard (piano), L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Ernest Ansermet). Decca LXT2816 (12 in., 36s. 5-id.).

The recording of the D major Concerto made by Jacqueline Blancard, Ansermet and the Suisse Romande Orchestra, and reviewed by me in the June, 1951, GRAMOPHONE, was so bad as to be a dead loss and, though a better recording, the G major Concerto, excellently played by Nicole

Henriot on the reverse of that disc, was not wholly satisfactory. Miss Blancard now undertakes both the Concertos, and the new recording is most successful. The piano tone is mellow and well balanced with the orchestra, the orchestral detail is clear— we do hear the double-bassoon at the start of the D major and not a sound as of a witch's cauldron !—and the climaxes make their full effect. Miss Blancard excels in the sparkling last movement of the G major, is not perhaps quite on such good terms with the second cadenza of the D major as in the earlier disc, but, as a whole, gives two fine performances. These are disturbing works from the psychological point of view, as even I, no disciple of Freud, cannot help feeling, and this excellent disc gives one every chance to study them. A.R.