Northern Sinfonia

Wandering the streets of Harlem in 1920,
Maurice Ravel fell under the intoxicating
influence of jazz. He returned to France
with a spectacular sonic souvenir: a
Piano Concerto that took the sexiness
of syncopation and the exoticism of the
blue note and cultivated them in classical
soil. It’s about as agile, lithe and full of
panache as Beethoven’s ‘less-is-more’
Fourth Symphony.