L’Auditori is a spectacular 42,000 square metre building in Barcelona that is home to the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra of Catalonia (OBC). Completed in 1999, it comprises a concert hall, three smaller performance spaces, a museum, research centre and runs a variety of inclusive outreach programs. L’Auditori also has a dedicated record label that is releasing the results of an ambitious project with the OBC: recording all the orchestrated works of Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) across six CDs by the end of 2026. 

At the helm of the OBC is Ludovic Morlot, Ravel specialist and winner of five Grammy Awards during his earlier time as Music Director at the Seattle Symphony. Morlot is also involved with the Ravel Edition, which since 2018 has been producing newly revised, historically informed editions of the composer’s scores in conjunction with musicologists and musicians. 

This second and latest volume in the L’Auditori recording project opens with a bang: a ‘Fanfare’ for the ballet L’éventail de Jeanne (1927) that is short, explosive and full of rhythms that seem to presage Ravel’s famous Bolero