RCA's new Classic Library series hits a high mark with this excellent Debussy/Munch collection. Charles Munch's Debussy performances always have been treasured for their color, vitality, and seeming oneness with the composer's conception. It's hard to imagine finer performances of Images or the two Nocturnes. Munch's rhythmic sense and timbral distinctiveness vividly render Debussy's multi-layered textures and subtly varied moods. Then there's the Boston Symphony, captured at the height of its glory, offering vibrant, virtuoso playing from all sections. Listen to the burnished brass in the first movement of Iberia, the lively woodwinds in Fêtes, or the silken strings in Nuages. Munch's suave La Mer is at a slightly lower level of intensity and must yield to Boulez's brilliant Cleveland performance on DG.


RCA's sound for the most part is so vivid and dynamic (La Mer carries a bit of tape hiss) that you hardly can believe the recordings are more than 40 years old. If only the missing Sirènes movement from Nocturnes had been included, this would serve as a Debussy orchestral-music library staple. As it stands it's a great--and essential, if supplemental, collection. [5/19/2004]
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

This coupling offers two youthful concerto works and a solo interlude. The most substantial work is the Britten Piano Concerto (placed last on the disc), written in 1938 when the composer was 25. It is a boisterous piece, unstintingly virtuosic and with clear overtones of Prokofiev. It suits Douglas well, and he tackles the relentless passagework with spirited enthusiasm. His tone is rather hard, particularly in the fortes, but this is not entirely unsuitable given the steely, driven quality of the music. The first-movement cadenza is genuinely exciting, and the point when the orchestra re-enters in a moment of calm retreat (track 7 at 9'21''), with Douglas providing a rare beauty of tone and colour in the following lyrical passage, is beguiling... The Debussy Fantaisie (1890), which despite the composer’s efforts remained unperformed during his lifetime, receives a strong performance with crystalline clarity in the passagework... His playing breathes with natural phrasing and articulation, and has a sure-footed integrity...

-- Tim Parry, Gramophone [10/1997]

The result of the turbulent 1950s in Denmark's second largest city, Aarhus, was the foundation of a symphony orchestra, spearheaded and forcefully directed by conductor Thomas Jensen. His pioneering early Danish TONO recordings, comprising popular orchestral music, were a triumph and were re-released even in the US by the Mercury label. They are all here, collected together for the first time. In frustration, Jensen left Aarhus for a new job as head of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, however he returned to conduct two concerts which are here presented for the first time.

With the present release, Pascal Rophé and his Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire pay tribute to their great countryman, Claude Debussy – but not with the standard orchestral fare. Debussy Orchestrated paints a portrait of a light-hearted composer, seen through the eyes of two of his collaborators, Henri Büsser and André Caplet, who transferred the works recorded here from the keyboard to the orchestra. In Petite Suite, composed for piano four hands in 1899, Debussy makes allusions to Fêtes galantes by Paul Verlaine, the poet who so often inspired him. Büsser’s orchestration of this light and pleasant suite was made in 1907, and obviously pleased Debussy, as he later entrusted him with making an orchestral version of Printemps. As for Children’s Corner and La Boîte à joujoux, it is probably fair to say that the composer’s main inspiration was his own daughter, Claude-Emma, born in 1905. Both works are dedicated to her, and it is easy to imagine that some of the characters that appear in Children’s Corner had their counterparts among her toys. Letting toys come alive in a ballet was the idea that illustrator André Hellé a few years later presented to Debussy with La Boîte à joujoux. The piano version of the piece was published, with Hellé’s illustrations, in time for Christmas in 1913 and Debussy began orchestrating it the following year, but died before he could complete the task. His friend André Caplet – who had already orchestrated Children’s Corner – took over and the ballet was finally premièred in December 1919.

REVIEWS:

Both "La boite a joujoux" and the similarly enchanting "Children’s Corner" are performed with deft panache by this quality orchestra. There are outstanding individual players, among them the principal oboe, whose haunting contribution to ‘The Little Shepherd’ in Children’s Corner is a special moment.

-- BBC Music Magazine

This is a fine orchestra… and the playing is exquisite. The woodwind sound particularly lovely… it’s a wonderfully engaging disc of great charm.

-- Gramophone

The Mandelring Quartet's current double release is dedicated to French repertoire. The first CD, released in April 2021, presents Maurice Ravel's seminal string quartet and the equally colorful one by his contemporary Fernand de La Tombelle. This second release now juxtaposes Claude Debussy's quartet with Jean Rivier's two sister works rooted in neoclassicism - an exciting combination! The immense variety of colors in Claude Debussy's Opus 10 continues to fascinate to this day. Paul Dukas compared the unusual harmony to a "magnificent, artfully patterned carpet"; chromaticism and whole-tone scales, echoes of Javanese gamelan music, pizzicato and the play with mutes wrap the work in a shimmering sound garment. This "classic" of the quartet literature is followed by a premiere recording of the first of Jean Rivier's two string quartets. The composer, born in 1896 and died in 1987, led a low-key life, "no scandals, no highfalutin titles," according to a 1972 magazine article. Perhaps that's why his name has largely disappeared from the scene - even though he was successful with his compositions early on. He wrote more than 200 works of almost all genres; and although he remained committed to a neoclassical aesthetic throughout his life, his oeuvre is extremely diverse and varied. This is also reflected in the two quartets from 1924 and 1940. Masterly architecture, complex contrapuntal voice leading, richness of contrast and strong emotions characterize Rivier's works. Or as the great music publicist Paul Landormy put it in 1943: "Jean Rivier enchants us, touches us, moves us [...]. But sometimes he grabs us hard, shakes us, presses us, and we are forced to bend to his almost tyrannical will. Let us not complain about this. No art will give us as much as that which subdues us in such a way."

Weightless, floating sounds, far removed from any earthbound striving for a home key and eluding any measurable emphases; a dazzlingly bright play of colors in instrumentation and impressionist tones, combined with that affectionate, softly melodic character of the French language – that is what constitutes the special charm of the French art-song. Audibly very different from the German Lied of the Romantic and Late Romantic periods, its extremes are filled with tensions and delightful contrasts. In the concert repertoire on the German side of the Rhine, however, French solo and choral songs have remained something exotic. This selection of the finest examples from the oeuvre of both brilliant composers, written at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, offers music full of grace and impressionistic esprit that remains unique in the history of composition and art. The cantata La Damoiselle élue was the first major success of the young Claude Debussy; appreciated for its beauty and tenderness, it is heard here for the first time in Howard Arman's version with two pianos, based equally on the orchestral score and Debussy’s own, independent piano version. It is joined by several of Debussy's solo and choral songs. "L'ombre des arbres dans la rivière embrumée", the poem by the symbolist lyricist Paul Verlaine, also hinges equally between Debussy and Hahn: it was masterfully set to music by both within a brief time period. The solo songs are performed by renowned soprano Christiane Karg, accompanied by Gerold Huber on the piano. In his song and choral cycle Études latines, Reynaldo Hahn resurrected antiquity. Recreating such music not only gave the composer inspiration but also great freedom. The piano accompaniment is restrained as far as possible. These serious and tender songs reflect on the life journeys taken by a person.