Sunny Schubert and iridescent Ravel: album of the week
Grade: A Maurice Ravel was tougher than he looked. True, he dressed like a dandy and wrote an opera about a dancing teapot. But when he was rejected for military service in the first world war (he was 39 and 5ft) he practically forced his way to the front line as a lorry driver – sheltering for days in a forest near Verdun after his truck was disabled by shrapnel. Apparently, when he visited Vaughan Williams in London he went straight to the Victoria Station grill and ordered steak and kidney pudding. Just when you thought you couldn’t admire the man any more. It’s the toughness that impresses in this
