For those who don't have either pockets deep enough for an original, or the astonishing luck in finding one that I've had, there is a re-issue on 180g vinyl, which, although replicates these original release details (labels etc.) can be distinguished by not having flipbacks, and the inclusion of the additional cat number: "009 2296" under the main cat number on the labels.
(careful nobody tries passing off a re-issue as an original - and with original prices!)
ReviewThis is a release with several different tricks up it's triple flipbacked sleeve...
Firstly, you could ask the question: When is a Ballet not a Ballet?
...To which, you could answer: When it can be listened to as a stand alone orchestral work in it's own right... which is to say, that you can listen to this as you would a symphonic work, without losing anything from the experience by not having the context provided by the addition of the theatrical staging of a dramatic narrative and dancers to carry the whole thing forward.
(There are a few Ballets that have, I've found, prolonged segments of nothing apparently happening at all, but where a live performance with dancers and story would fill in the blanks, but a purely audio experience makes for a stultifyingly boring experience, while you are waiting for something to happen)
This doesn't suffer in this way at all, and also, while it is clearly Spanish in flavour, doesn't lean so heavily on that one leg, and can be appreciated as generally classical in tone (largely "nationless")...
But it's greatest trick lies in the recording...
What they have done is melded, by some genius alchemy, the expansive sense of the live recording, with the immediacy, and clarity of a studio recording, without making any of it sound "tacked-on", or either of these aspects suffer through contrast and comparison with the other. I don't know how this was achieved, but as a purely sonic experience, it's jaw-dropping, especially when Teresa Berganza's ethereal vocal begins, drifting in chillingly from somewhere in the middle distance, and slowly growing to encompass the entire space.
And I think it's probably these last qualities that once earned this album's inclusion on the (In)famous TAS list (always a fine excuse to bump the value up! :)... but here the sound of this entirely justifies it's acknowledgement in this way.