1975 Penguin Guide, review of an old LP included on CD:

The performances here have a certain style, but Parade is rather slow. Certainly the special-effects department is on top form, and the clarity of the Everest recording helps. The highlight of the disk is an excerpt from the cantata Socrate which is sung very well by Denise Monteil.



New Statesman, 2 October 1970, Michael Nyman:
"Satiety"
(also reviews the Vanguard orchestral recordings.)

Not surprisingly Parade, conducted by Maurice Rosenthal, comes closer to recreating the original excitement of the score <compared to Abravanal on Vanguard> - partly it is true by a probably unintentional recourse to Dada. The famous typewriter and siren appear to have been taken out of the commonplace sound-effects cupboard, cleaned up and recorded separately closer to the mike than the band, so that they jump out of the grooves pretty startlingly.

This disc also includes a very smooth performance of the last part of Socrate (in which Satie renounced almost everything but time) which compares very favorably with a re-pressing of the classic Liebovitz (complete) version which now sounds dated, if not archaic in quality and presentation, making difficult listening even more difficult.

Gramophone Dec 83, Max Harrison:

(Review of old LP's, most of which are on the CD)
These recordings are far from new, having first visited us on the Everest label and having subsequently appeared briefly on Adés. <Everest-Socrate notes> It is good to have a part - the last movement - of Socrate back in the catalogue. It is a unique and elusive work, and Denise Monteil and Manuel Rosenthal do well to make such positive contact with it; too bad they did not record the complete score. Parade, another difficult piece to bring off, is less happy. Its non-musical sounds (typewriter, siren, pistol, etc.) are recorded with unapologetic clarity, but as a whole the music is presented as a sequence of effects rather than as a significant ordering of outwardly disparate elements. It lacks the poetic atmosphere of Entremont's reading (CBS) which has remained the best locally obtainable version since it appeared in 1971.

Rosenthal is back in form with the Trois petites piéces montées and En habit de cheval. The latter, a set of two chorales and two fugues, contains music that is grave and serene, intense despite its outward simplicity, and the conductor understands something of this. He is sympathetic, also, to Petities piéces, especially the "Marche de Cocagne", even if slightly less acute, a little heavier than Friedrich Cerha <VoxBox Review >, whose account of "L'enfrance de Pantagruel", first of the Piéces, was among the finest Satie orchestral recordings of that time.

The piano LP of this two-disc set <most of it not on CD> is also uneven……In the Morceaux en forme de poire, one of Satie's finest works, Février is joined by the late Georges Auric for a performance which has many virtues but is in places unduly vehement.


Gramophone Feb 91, Christopher Headington:

Manuel Rosenthal was born in 1904 in Paris and grew up in the French capital that Satie knew in the last 20 uears of his life. His performances therefore have a certain air and style which one instinctively feels is right. Although from the initial brass chords in Parade it is clear the playing is not very sophisticated and the recording rather shows its age, after a while this matters less and the curious charm of this ballet score - whether stiffly archaic, ruthlessly modern, or touchingly tender - is conveyed with a sure hand. The special effects of sirens, typewriter (complete with bell and manual carriage return), pistol shots, etc. come over with infectious gusto, as does the composer's liberal use of more conventional percussion.

En habit de cheval and the Petites pièces montèes are less interesting but doubtless worth hearing once in a while: both collections were written for piano duet but are played here in the composer's own orchestral transcription. With the "Pear-shaped Pieces" played by Auric and Fèvrier, we remain in the capable hands of artists who knew Satie's world and can convey the occasional sharp sadness of his quirky invention. If their ensemble is unrefined and their sound hard in forte that is not unidiomatic.

As some of the music on this disc shows, Satie did not always know when tor how to stop, and the cantata Socrate sharply divides musicians, some finding its lengthy simplicity profound and others (including this one) thinking the emotion too neutral by far and the invention too thin; for those needing persuasion, doubtless the third part which is given here, which describe the death of the philosopher and is scored for wind, timpani, harp and strings, is the most moving, especially in a performance as quietly committed as this one by Denise Monteil.

The alternative mid-price Parade with Louis Auriacombe and the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra <EMI, not available> dates from the late 1960's but is well recorded though less sharply characterized than Rosenthal's. While for a reliable digital account of this witty ballet score Ronald Corp and the New London Orchestra (Hyperion CD) may be preferred. But the present issue has its own special value; however its usefully informative booklet is only in French and no text is given for La mort de Socrate.