Playing Ravel requires virtuosity, gossamer light virtuosity, transparent virtuosity. Ravel isn’t interested in difficultly qua difficulty, only the sheer sound a piano can generate. If you take the difficulty too seriously; if you play with too much effort you lose the painstaking perfectionism and precision of Ravel. And if you play with too little personality, everything sounds pallid, washed-out, pale.
Miroirs is one of Ravel’s most important works. LaPlante has a beautifully fluid approach to this picture of a ship on the ocean.
