Taking time off from her definitive series of J S Bach recordings, Angela Hewitt here brings us the complete solo piano music of Ravel, and anyone who wondered whether this seemingly dyed-in-the wool Bachian might stumble, should rest assured: this is an absolutely stunning double disc. As Hewitt makes clear in her characteristically illuminating sleeve notes, Stravinsky's jibe that Ravel was "only a Swiss clock-maker" was hopelessly wide of the mark. "One doesn't need to open one's chest to show that one has a heart," said Ravel, and in these often understated recordings one is made to feel his point powerfully. "Scarbo" is all the more dramatic through the suppressed excitement Hewitt's playing exudes; "Ondine" and "Le Gibet" are at once immaculately controlled and intensely atmospheric. In addition to those works most frequently played, we also get rarities such as "Sérénade grotesque", written when Ravel was 18, and not published until 1975. As Hewitt points out, Ravel's favourite composer was Mozart, and she plays him with a positively Mozartian subtlety of nuance. --Michael Church