Regular duet and two-piano partners Hélène Mercier and Louis Lortie have returned to the studio for this all-Debussy program. The album features duets written by the composer himself -such as the Petite Suite, the Six Épigraphes antiques and the Marche écossaise sur un thème Populaire; as well as a number of arrangements of his solo piano pieces (the Première Arabesque, La Fille aux cheveux de lin and the "Slavic" Ballade). The album ends with André Caplet’s monumental arrangement of Debussy’s best known orchestral work, La Mer. Stripped of its orchestration, this two-piano version allows the listener to more easily appreciate Debussy’s ground-breaking harmonic innovation. The album was recorded in the concert hall at Snape Maltings in Suffolk, using a pair of Bösendorfer 280 VC grand pianos.

REVIEWS:

Regular duet and two-piano partners Hélène Mercier and Louis Lortie present this all-Debussy program, starting and ending on the water. The duo characterize Debussy’s impressionism well with playing that is sensitive and charming.

The album ends with André Caplet’s monumental arrangement of Debussy’s best known orchestral work, La Mer. Stripped of its orchestration, this two-piano version allows the listener to more easily appreciate Debussy’s ground-breaking harmonic innovation.

-- Cumbria Times (Andrew Palmer)

The playing by the two distinguished pianists is faultless, distinctly outlining the notes with a clarity of separation; the recording in the superb acoustic of the Snape Maltings captures the sound ideally; the presentation of the booklet, with extensive and informative notes in three languages by Roger Nichols, is excellent; and the music itself, I need hardly add, is marvelous.

Most frustratingly then, is that Debussy’s masterpiece for the two-piano repertoire, his late En blanc et noir, is missing. That, however, is not to say that the purchaser of this very full disc is under-compensated. Nevertheless, there might be something to be said for letting us hear Debussy’s music in two-piano and piano-duet arrangements, especially those published during his lifetime, even when we may suspect that reasons of commercial necessity may have prompted their original issue.

-- MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Debussy: Nocturnes, L. 91, La damoiselle élue, L. 62 & Le ma

Septura turns to one of the most groundbreaking periods of music history: France at the onset of the twentieth century. In this fertile compositional field, solo brass instruments flourished, but the chamber music landscape was barren. And so the group re-imagines works by three composers who defined France’s unique musical direction: Faure, Debussy and Ravel. Conjuring the full kaleidoscope of colors possible from seven brass instruments, they trace the origins of Impressionism, from Faure’s masterful melodies through to the iconic piano works of Debussy and Ravel.

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REVIEW:

The Fifth in this series from the quite remarkable London-based Septura is a disc full of innovative ideas of re-scoring familiar music made by members of the septet. The most extended section of the disc comes with six of the Preludes Debussy wrote for solo piano arranged by Simon Cox; here Septura embellish the music with the sonorities Debussy would no doubt have used. Indeed the arrangement of La Cathedral engloutie, which ends the disc, emerges as one of the finest pieces the composer never actually wrote. The virtuosity that the group display is quite remarkable, technical challenges never existing in their elevated musical world. The recording quality is equally superb.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

With mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena and pianist Mitsuko Uchida, two world stars join hands on L'extase, a collection of songs by Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen. Debussy was Messiaen's life-long idol, and their songs are equally colourful, sumptuous, sensual, and occasionally exotic. The album derives it's name from the sultry song 'C'est l'extase langoureuse' from Debussy's Ariettes oubliees, and this song cycle is combined with his Chansons de Bilitis and Cinq poemes des Baudelaires, while Messiaen is represented by the second book of his Poemes pour Mi, a declaration of love for his first wife Claire Delbos. This recording demonstrates the profound affinity of both performers with French music, as well as their congeniality as musical partners. With L'extase, star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena presents the seventh album of her exclusive collaboration with Pentatone, after having presented Il giardino dei sospiri, Soiree (both 2019), Nostalgia (2021), Folk Songs (2023), the title role in Handel's Alcina and Czech Songs (both 2024). One of the most revered artists of our time, Mitsuko Uchida is known as a peerless interpreter of the works of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Beethoven, as well for being a devotee of the piano music of Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and Gyorgy Kurtag. She makes her PENTATONE debut.

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Works For Two Pianos

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This CD contains both DDD and ADD recordings.

Includes work(s) for pno by Claude Debussy. Soloist: François-Joël Thiollier.

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Selection includes An Introduction to Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande.
This CD contains an original commentary and analysis of this work, written by Thomson Smillie and narrated by David Timson.

Includes work(s) for piano by Claude Debussy. Soloist: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet.

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PIERRE MONTEUX EDITION VOL 6 -

The orchestrations are colorful, subtle and brilliant. A joy to hear. Equally delightful is the playing. The Lyon National Orchestra under Jun Märkl captures the subtlety and beauty of tone throughout every piece and the recorded sound is really first rate.

The Debussy Orchestral Works, Vol. 6 from Naxos offers a nice mix of familiar and rare works, all in exquisite orchestrations by musicians who either knew Debussy or admire his works. Debussy himself wrote all of this music for the piano 4 hands. The orchestrations are colorful, subtle and brilliant. A joy to hear. Equally delightful is the playing. The Lyon National Orchestra under Jun Märkl captures the subtlety and beauty of tone throughout every piece and the recorded sound is really first rate. Orchestrating piano music requires an understanding of both keyboard and orchestral techniques in order to rethink the piano music for an ensemble. It requires interpolations that are natural to the spirit of the music without imparting on the orchestra a pianistic left and right hand. These arrangements make the music sound as if it has always been for orchestra.

The selections range from pops concert favorite, Clair de lune, in a luminous classic arrangement by Andre Caplet to Debussy's early Symphony, of which he completed only the first movement, orchestrated by Tony Finno. With Clair de lune we also get the entire Suite bergamasque from which it comes, the other movements colorfully arranged by Gustave Cloez. The total effect of the suite in this orchestral form is much like a ballet score, performed with lyric grace by Lyon musicians. This is a particularly fine and sensitive performance of Clair de lune. This heartstrings pulling performance of moves at a slightly faster pace than some of the others but remains quite lovely within its own world in the suite.

The Symphony is actually rather good. Its swaggering main theme is a bit repetitious but the overall style is much more romantic than impressionist and reminiscent of perhaps d'Indy, Faure or the rarely heard symphony by Dukas. I've heard one other chamber ensemble arrangement of Debussy's sketches and this version for full orchestra by Tony Finno is far and away the best.

Henri Busser's arrangement of the Petite suite, which certainly has much orchestral competition with performances recorded by Martinon, Tortelier, Ansermet, Dutoit and many more is aided here by superb sound quality and excellent, sensitive artistry. Busser's other orchestration is Printemps, a two movement piece with one foot in the late-romantic era and the other feeling around in the new musical impressionism. The music is played with shimmering beauty. Probably the clearest and most sparkling recorded performance of Printemps I've heard.

En blanc et noir, orchestrated by Robin Holloway is not just black and white as the piano key title implies, but quite colorful. The arrangement was commissioned in 2002 by the San Francisco Symphony. The music is more boisterous and exuberant,sounding at times as if it is about to turn toward Debussy's Iberia but with the Spanish atmosphere replaced instead by a somewhat mischievous quality which grows on you with repeated hearings. The last movement Debussy dedicated to "mon ami Strawinsky"‘. With performances that treat the older works as if they were newly discovered and the unknown works with a sense of magic and wonder, this album is definitely a winner.

- Greg La Traille, ArkivMusic.com

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The most compelling item in this collection is En blanc et noir, not only one of Debussy's most advanced instrumental works (composed for two pianos), but the orchestral arrangement sounds closest to the composer himself. Robin Holloway drew upon Debussy's contemporaneous Jeux as a model, with numerous passages in the first and third movements replicating that work's uniquely colorful sound world. In the reflective middle movement Holloway's orchestral dress evokes the dreamy atmosphere of Les parfums de la nuit from Iberia. Jun Märkl and the Orchestre National de Lyon offer a sparking performance, playing the music with real verve, as if they had discovered a heretofore unknown Debussy masterpiece.

Debussy only completed one movement of his proposed Symphony in B minor (1880), and then only as a piano duet. Tony Finno's orchestral arrangement emphasizes the music's Russian influences (it was composed around the time he was employed by Tchaikovsky's patron Nadezhda von Meck), though there are occasional pre-echoes of the mature Debussy. Märkl and his band perform this and the remainder of the program (the familiar Suite bergamasque, Petite Suite, and Printemps arrangements) with the same vitality and commitment afforded En blanc et noir. The spacious recording is a bit over-reverberant, but nevertheless provides solid presence and impact. Debussy fans will find this release a real delight.

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

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Other review quotes:

"Subtle and sensitive readings" - Gramophone.

"This is bewitching music-making that should on no account be missed. One of the finest discs Naxos has ever released." - Classic FM (about Volume 1 (8.570759).

"Volume 6 in Naxos’s popular series presents five highly diverse works in gorgeous orchestrations by Debussy’s colleagues or later admirers. Indeed, pieces such as Clair de lune and Printemps may even be better known in these seductive guises than in their original forms. Of particular interest is Debussy’s sole attempt at composing a symphony, a youthful work imbued with the spirit of French Romanticism, only the first movement of which he completed." - Naxos

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.

DEBUSSY:POEMES-LIEDER

Two well-known and two less-familiar orchestral works by Debussy • A new recording from the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and Heinz Holliger, following up on their globally acclaimed Koechlin series • A continuation of the orchestra’s exploration of the French orchestral repertoire that began with their CDs of the music of Koechlin • May 21st 2014: Heinz Holliger’s 75th birthday The "Afternoon of a Faun“ together with the orchestral "Images" are among Claude Debussy’s best known and most popular compositions. Both works show different side of the composer: "Afternoon of a Faun" is a textbook example of musical impressionism, while about the "Images", the composer himself said that his goal was to “try to achieve something different – an effect of reality”. The scores contrast well with the two Rhapsodies: the one for clarinet, called the "first" Rhapsody, was sketched out within a few weeks at the end of 1909, while the "second" Rhapsody for saxophone was only completed and orchestrated after the death of its author. The Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR) and conductor Heinz Holliger manage to bring out the evocative, dynamic colors and peculiarities to be found in all of these works with precision.

The Avalon String Quartet, “a remarkably fine ensemble” (The Strad), makes its Cedille Records debut with an irresistible and richly varied program of captivating works by Claude Debussy, Benjamin Britten, Osvaldo Golijov, and rising American composer Stacy Garrop. The ensemble presents the world-premiere recording of Garrop’s String Quartet No. 4: Illuminations, a tantalizing, Pictures at an Exhibition-style tour of spectacular illustrations from an ornate medieval manuscript. Debussy’s lush, exotic String Quartet in G minor unfolds through iridescent quasi-orchestral textures. Golijov’s lyrical, deeply moving Tenebrae (Latin for “shadows”), written for the Kronos Quartet, pays tender tribute to the earth, depicted in its remote celestial beauty, haunted by undertones of human discord. Britten’s youthful, energetic Three Divertimenti and Alla Marcia are alluring, rarely recorded studies in inventiveness and perpetual motion.

The Avalon is quartet-in-residence at the Northern Illinois University School of Music. “…an ensemble that invites you — ears, mind, and spirit — into its music.” (Chicago Tribune)

REVIEW:

The folks at Cedille seem to have mastered the art of putting together classical music collections that make good musical sense. Debussy’s String Quartet is, of course, standard fare, and it usually appears in tandem with the Ravel and something else French. Not here. Instead, we have two Britten rarities, the entertaining Three Divertimenti and the lone Alla Marcia (the first of the Divertimenti is also a march, so you can see the logic), a self-described “Pictures at an Exhibition” type piece by Stacy Garrop, and a moving conclusion in the form of Osvaldo Golijov’s single-movement Tenebrae. The entire program provides consistently interesting and entertaining continuous listening, and the sonics are drop-dead gorgeous.

So, for that matter, is the playing of the Avalon String Quartet. The group’s corporate sonority is warm and mellow, but with just a touch of “rosin” in the tone. They attack rhythmic moments such as the scherzo of the Debussy, the Burlesque and the marches in the Britten pieces, and Garrop’s musically impossibly named “Mouth of Hell” with plenty of guts and precision, but no unpleasant hardness in the tone. The slow music is simply luminous. I am not generally a fan of pseudo-religious programmatic stuff such as Garrop offers here, but it’s awfully well done, and the booklet provides well-produced, full-color reproductions of the illustrations from the late medieval Book of Hours that Garrop took as her inspiration. They are exquisite, as is much of Garrop’s writing more generally.

Here, in short, is another excellent program that chamber music fans looking to venture off the beaten path will surely relish.

- ClassicsToday.com (10/10)