Satie: Orchestral Works. Jerome Kaltenbach, Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy. Naxos 8.554279.

Satie: Orchestral Works. Jerome Kaltenbach, Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy. Naxos 8.554279.

How can you resist a ballet inspired by Jean Cocteau, whose curtain, costumes and decor were originally designed by Picasso and originally performed by Dyagilev's Ballet russes, with choreography by Massin, all of it accompanied by the sounds of gunshots, sirens, and a typewriter! Actually, the several short ballets by Erik Satie recorded here--Parade, Mercure, and Relache--are rather trivial things, to say the least, not adding up to much more than colorful and forgettable bits of largely unrelated pieces. The real stars of the disc are the three, beautiful Gymnopedies, written by Satie for piano and orchestrated by Debussy and Roland-Manuel. They are sweet, sentimental, melancholy, and nostalgic, and conductor Jerome Kaltenbach plays them appropriately.

Naxos has not only produced an album of unusual, though trifling, music, they have framed it in some of their best sound. The orchestra is probably itself a bit thin in the strings, yet it comes across richly and naturally. There is a small degree of veiling due to the moderate distance at which it is recorded, but to compensate there is a fair amount of orchestral depth and hall ambiance. The overall impression one gets is most realistic. Another budget discovery.