“…Incidentally, I am more and more convinced that, in essence, music is not something that could be poured into a strict, traditional form. It consists of colors and time expressed in rhythm…” (Claude Debussy, 1907) These words essentially summarize a whole movement- the movement of musical Impressionism. Claude Debussy is responsible for the fact that the newer French piano music of his time came to be highly regarded. After the age of Liszt, he developed in essence a newly independent style of piano music, and gave French Impressionism an exalted position in the field of music. Both of the books of Preludes by Debussy are an expression of this style. The first book was written between 1909 and 1910. The second, between 1910 and 1912. In total there are 24 compositions with which Debussy continued- if only superficially- the tradition of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier or Chopin’s 24 Preludes. Eloise Bella Kohn is a regular guest of France’s most prominent concert venues and festivals such as Salle Gaveau and Lille Piano Festival. Being awarded Young Talent by the renown cultural magazine Diapason in 2016 and “Yamaha Artist” since 2018, the young French pianist shows an extraordinary depth of musicality and is leading a promising career.

Catherine Kautsky is professor of music and chair of keyboard studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and boasts an enviable multi-faceted resume of performing and writing credits. Nearly everything about her recording of Debussy’s 24 Preludes is just right, from the relaxed animation and subtle gradations of tone throughout Danseuses de Delphes to Feux d’artifice’s combination of neo-Lisztian bravura and dry wit. The flickering quality of Voiles’ double notes somehow lightens the static whole-note-scale harmony.

Kautsky ‘s intimately scaled reading of Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir brings out the music’s implicit minuet feeling that we don’t hear in heavier interpretations. In Des pas sur la neige, Kautsky not only makes the soft left-hand triplets and expressive right-hand melody timbrally distinct, but her faster than usual tempo also conveys a lighter, more floating ambience than today’s solemn, bleaker norm. Kautsky also communicates the ragged dance qualities of La serenade interrompue, La danse de Puck, Minstrels, and General Lavine–eccentric to perfection, although La puerta del vino moves too fast and impatiently for its habañera rhythms to seduce.

While many pianists make mush out of Brouillards’ middle-register chords, Kautsky clarifies their inner rhythms, although her very capable handling of Book 2 No. 10’s alternating thirds yields to Steven Osborne’s brisker, more shimmering rendition. Her lovely account of La cathedral engloutie observes the unmarked yet implied tempo changes Debussy made in his 1913 Welte-Mignon piano roll recording (as do Osborne and Paul Jacobs, but not, interestingly enough, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli). If the tumultuous Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest lacks Osborne’s super-precise dynamic calibration and surface sheen, the sensitively nuanced Ondine and La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune compensate. The engineering’s warm piano sonority and discreet resonance befits Kautsky’s intelligent and insightful Debussy artistry.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

After the five-volume complete recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Paavali Jumppanen’s new recording on Ondine turns attention to Claude Debussy’s (1862–1918) piano works. This release includes complete Préludes together with the Children’s Corner. Debussy’s oeuvre has been explored both by the amateur pianist and the most legendary virtuosos of the keyboard. Throughout his career Debussy sought new ways to express his musical vistas. He began numerous large compositional projects and between these big ventures wrote miniatures such as songs and piano pieces. Debussy’s 24 piano preludes were published in two sets in 1910 and 1913. These miniatures are varied in character and style, and include, among others, references to literature, poetry, nature, the Mediterranean landscape and the events in Paris during Debussy’s lifetime. The six pieces forming the cycle Children’s Corner (1908) evoke adult recollections of childhood. The set bears a dedication to Debussy’s daughter Chouchou and includes some of Debussy’s most well-known piano pieces, including The Snow is Dancing and Golliwogg’s cake walk. A dedicated performer of French music, Paavali Jumppanen often performs the large cycles of Debussy’s late period, namely the Préludes and the Études.

REVIEW:

This fascinating new set, superbly recorded, presents the bona fides of the Finnish pianist Paavali Jumppanen as a musician of keen intelligence and almost preternatural sensitivity. One of the most striking aspects of his approach to this thricefamiliar repertory is a predilection for extremely spacious, unrushed tempos. Yet as soon as you notice this, it becomes apparent that his choice of tempo is perfectly conceived for what he has to say in the music, which is a great deal indeed. Although a first listener response to any given piece may be to wonder at the particular interpretative choices, after only a few bars it becomes difficult to imagine how it could be played any other way.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

Debussy: Piano Music, Vol. 4

DEBUSSY: Piano Works, Vol. 3

The CD contains piano music Debussy wrote prior to 1901 and we are given "Suite bergamasque", "Nocturne", "Danse boh�mienne", "R�verie", "Mazurka", "Arabesqe 1 & 2", "Valse romantique", "Ballade", "Danse", and the "Suite: Pour le piano", first performed in 1904.

Classical Music

When Debussy completes the score, based on the eponymous symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck, of Pelleas et Melisande in 1902, the world of opera still abides by Richard Wagner and the upheaval he caused with Tristan und Isolde. But Debussy decides to stand on the exact opposite side, and uses his new opus to preach a new aesthetic creed. In depicting the forbidden love story between the timid Pelleas and the beautiful Melisande, kept apart by an unfortunate marriage, the French composer brings us back to the immortal legend of Tristan and Isolde, but this time showing the world that the future of music could very well lie far away from Wagner’s overwhelming lyricism and outsized rhetoric. This new production, created by one of the rising stars of French stage direction Benjamin Lazar for the Malmö Opera (headed by Ingmar Bergman from 1952 to 1958), encapsulates all the different aspects of this mysterious work, from the oniric poetry invented by Maeterlinck and Debussy to the realism, poignant because openly simple and even mundane, of these profoundly human beings lost in a forest full of sound and symbols that will never let them escape. The young French conductor Maxime Pascal, the Orchestra of the Malmö Opera, and an almost all-French cast (among which the excellent Marc Mauillon and Jenny Daviet), bring forth with intelligence all the refinement and all the vitality this unique and fascinating score has to offer.

English translation by Hugh MacDonald.

"...The casting shows the depth of ENO 30 years ago, with Eilene Hannan as Mélisande, more knowing, less naive than some portrayals, the baritone Robert Dean a Pelléas with just the right mix of muscularity and lyric grace, Neil Howlett the conflicted Golaud and John Tomlinson the pontificating Arkel." - Andrew Clements, The Guardian U.K.

These recordings were made during live stage performances as well as studio sessions at the Opéra de Lille in France.

An important marker in Debussy’s compositional development, the Fantaisie reflects something of the influence of César Franck’s Symphonic Variations yet embodies his own new aesthetic. Unpublished in Debussy’s lifetime, it is heard here in its 1968 revision. The delicately evocative Rapsodie for saxophone is an exotic work with an ‘oriental’ atmosphere and Spanish or Moorish associations. Although composed as a Conservatoire test piece, the Première Rapsodie for Clarinet has long since entered the repertoire as an important addition for the instrument. The glittering Danses for harp and strings recall Satie’s Gymnopédies, with the Danse profane in particular calling for a degree of virtuosity. Volume 6 of this much-admired series (Naxos 8.572583) was praised for its ‘subtle and sensitive readings’. (Gramophone)

"We've reached Volume 7 in Naxos's superb Lyonnaise exploration of Debussy's orchestral works with the thrilling Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra, superbly played here by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. It's a grand showpiece, reminiscent of César Franck's Symphonic Variations but painted in Debussy's inimitable palette."

-- Stephen Pritchard, The Observer [11/19/2011]

The fourth volume in Naxos’s highly praised series of Debussy’s Orchestral Works presents music drawn from three of his theatrical ventures and from one of his Prix de Rome entries. The prelude, fanfares and four symphonic fragments from Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien were taken for concert performance from Debussy’s incidental music for Gabriele D’Annunzio’s scandalous mystery play. While rarely heard today, the ‘danced legend’ Khamma, set in ancient Egypt, and incidental music for Shakespeare’s King Lear, provide suitably atmospheric music, as do the Cortège et air de danse from The Prodigal Son, the cantata which gained Debussy the Prix de Rome in 1884.

There are times when a disk drops through my letterbox and, after tearing the wrapping off the parcel, I look at the CD and despair, wondering do we really need yet another, in this case, recording of Debussy’s popular orchestral works? Then I play the disk and am pleasantly surprised. So it is with this disk. Märkl’s up against very stiff competition – Ansermet, Barbirolli, Boulez and Martinon to name but a few – but he’s his own man and gives us his own view of the music.

The Prélude is very well done. The solo flute is suitably sensuous, and is ably complemented by the solo oboe. Also, I have never heard the two solo violins, at the end, sound quite as winsome as they do here. The big tune in the middle is allowed to expand as it should and the delicate final pages, with slightly too reticent antique cymbals, is well controlled.

La Mer is almost as fine a performance. Starting very mysteriously, Märkl builds up the tension until the music bursts forth with animation. It’s a fine achievement. However, when the second part of the first movement begins, with cellos in eight parts, it’s too reticent and lacks the momentum required to push the music forwards. When Satie first heard this movement, From Dawn to Midday on the Sea, he quipped that he especially enjoyed the bit at a quarter to eleven. Strange as this may seem I think I know the moment he means – at four bars after rehearsal number 13 there is a static section where cor anglais and two solo cellos play a long breathed theme over sustained chords, it’s a magical moment which prepares us for the build up to the climactic final bars. Märkl makes these few bars quite magical and the calm is quite stunning. The coda is well built but the final three chords – which should beat us about the head with their power – fail to completely satisfy. The scherzo, Play of the Waves, is too heavy handed and the important colouristic glockenspiel part all but inaudible. The tension and suspense of the final movement, Dialogue between the Wind and the Sea, is very well done. The climaxes are well developed and the changes of mood and tempo very well handled. There is one strange moment – at rehearsal number 53 the horns play a triplet, followed, in the next bar, by two minim chords. In this recording we are treated to an extra triplet chord! I’ve played this moment several times, thinking my ears were deceiving me, but no, it’s there, an extra triplet beat. As it’s an exact repeat of what they played six bars earlier I’m mystified by what happens. Why is this extra chord there and what is the purpose? I doubt it’s an editing error so the conductor must have heard it as the horns played the passage. Curiouser and curiouser. Better news is that four bars after rehearsal number 59, under the big chords for winds and strings, Märkl plays the brass fanfares which, more often than not, are ignored by conductors as not being in a real Debussy style. Perhaps they are somewhat unsubtle for Debussy, and for this moment, but without them the music suddenly stops dead, it seems empty, something has to be played there and if these fanfares are all we have then we have to have them. It’s a good performance but it lacks that final insight, that ultimate injection of energy which makes the Hallé/Barbirolli recording so memorable and compelling.

Jeux is one of Debussy’s most elusive scores (it was his last orchestral work). It’s a ballet which concerns a lost tennis ball and a boy and two girls who look for it, as they play hide and seek, try to catch one another, quarrel and sulk without cause. Their games are interrupted when another tennis ball is mischievously thrown in by an unknown hand which surprises and alarms them and they disappear into the nocturnal depths of the garden. The story isn’t important. Debussy’s music is. It receives an excellent performance here – Märkl fully understands what is going on in the music and leads his players through the myriad tempo changes, keeps the ever changing orchestral colouring alive and generally makes clear music which so often sounds confused and muddled. You’d be hard pressed to find a finer performance on disk.

André Caplet was a close friend of Debussy and worked on the orchestration of the latter’s incidental music for Gabriele D’Annunzio’s play Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien and the ballet La Boîte à joujou. He also made two, superb, reductions for two pianos, four hands and six hands, of La Mer, and made orchestral transcriptions of several piano works. Children’s Corner is a delightful six movement suite for solo piano; it’s light hearted, full of fun and several of the movements have become popular independently of the suite – The Little Shepherd and Golliwog’s Cake-walk in particular. Caplet’s orchestration has always struck me as being rather heavy handed – odd for so skilful an orchestrator – but here he has met his match with perfect piano music which does not lend itself to orchestration. Märkl does his best but, ultimately, it’s still too heavy and much of the humour is lost.

Apart from Jeux, which is superb, I would not put these performances of La Mer and the Prélude ahead of other recordings which are currently available - those conductors listed above - but they are very serviceable and if you’re on a tight budget, or just wanting to dip your toes in the Debussian water for the first time, then at the bargain price you’ll get much from these atmospheric readings.

-- Bob Briggs, MusicWeb International

Debussy wrote songs throughout his career, beginning at the age of 18 with Nuit d’étoiles, with which this collection also begins. Most of his vocal output was inspired by the singers he encountered as a young man in the fashionable salons of fin-de-siecle Paris, and in particular the soprano Blanche Vasnier: from that time, Debussy’s songs resembled an amorous diary of dreams and desires of infinite sweetness, entrusted to a voice capable of the utmost seduction. The epilogue to his love story with Vasnier is heard in Apparition, after which Lorna Windsor moves to the years of Debussy in Rome, and in particular his sumptuous settings of Baudelaire. There follow the much more elusive settings of Verlaine and Rimbaud, dating from his ‘impressionist’ and even ‘post-impressionist’ late years, and often inspired by his encounter with the soprano Mary Garden, the first Mélisande. Lorna Windsor has established a reputation as a specialist in contemporary music: her catalogue on Brilliant Classics includes the songs with piano by John Cage (8850) and a more recent, wide-ranging album of solo-vocal music by Feldman, Kagel, Kurtág and others. She also has considerable experience in French repertoire, having studied with the doyen of French baritones, Gérard Souzay, and given performances in France of Offenbach and Satie, as well as recording the songs of Satie. A further point of interest to the album concerns the piano used by Antonio Ballista: a 1923 Pleyel. Ballista himself was born just 13 years after the piano was made, and for more than half a century he formed half of one of the best-known and most recorded piano duos of their time, in partnership with fellow Italian Bruno Canino. Though he has accompanied many eminent singers such as Cathy Berberian, Anna Caterina Antonacci and Kim Criswell, his work with singers has been very rarely represented on record, making this album a collector’s item in Ballista’s distinguished career as well as a ravishingly idiomatic record of French song.