Ravel needed only two weeks of intensive concentration to orchestrate his piano suite Valses nobles et sentimentales, which was given its premiere performance in March 1911. Consisting of seven waltzes and one epilogue, the work stamped Ravel as a creative personality whose masterpiece breathed an “unbelievably new kind of musicality and incredibly intensive poetry.” Let us not forget that this was twelve years before La Valse, with which it shares a number of similarities.

The new edition of...