If asked to sit down and make a note of
everything you would like to see in an introduction to
Debussy, filling an 80-minute CD as nearly as possible,
most people would come up with a list substantially the
same as we have here. I certainly would, especially if
told that the recordings should also illustrate the strengths
of Chandos’s near-complete 4-CD set of the orchestral music
with the Ulster Orchestra and Yan-Pascal Tortelier (CHAN10144X).
Probably I’d have dropped some of the shorter
pieces in order to include the too-little-known minor masterpiece
Printemps,
though Tortelier’s performance of that work still leaves
me missing something of what I found in Munch’s recording
from which, in its incarnation on the RCA Victrola label,
I first discovered it. The Munch is currently unavailable
but a strong candidate for reissue: RCA please note. In
order to fit in
Printemps, you’d need to drop
Children’s
Corner or all three of the shortest works, including
Clair
de Lune, which many would name as their most archetypal
Debussy work.
You can’t fit what I would call the essential
Debussy orchestral works on one CD – where are
Jeux,
Images and
Nocturnes,
for example? You’d need two CDs to fit them in. There
are some good 2-CD sets of Debussy, but I can’t think of
one which quite combines all these works. Volume 1 of
Martinon’s two Gemini 2-CD sets of Debussy comes closest
(
3 65235
2 – see review by
PSh of this ‘amazing bargain’).
Completing the information at the head
of the review serves as a reminder of how many of Debussy’s
best-known ‘orchestral works’ were actually orchestrated
by others, not least by his friend André Caplet, a very
decent composer in his own right and someone closely in
touch with the Debussy idiom. Turning from the orchestrated
Children’s
Corner which opens this CD to the piano original is
rather like the transition from Ravel’s orchestration of
Pictures
from an Exhibition – why do the BBC and record companies
keep getting the title of that work wrong? – to Mussorgsky’s
piano original. I, for one, have simply become too accustomed
to the orchestration to listen with much enjoyment to the
original.
I haven’t yet heard Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s
recording of
Children’s Corner (CHAN10467); perhaps
that might change my mind, though I note that DM was not
as bowled over by this recording as some other reviewers
were – see
review. In
any event, the orchestrated version of this light-hearted,
but by no means light-weight, music makes an excellent
opening to an enjoyable CD, just as
la Mer makes
an ideal close.
Caplet features again as the very able
orchestrator of
Clair de Lune – again, the orchestration
is the version most people will know – and Büsser’s version
of
Petite Suite is equally authoritative, while
Molinari’s
Isle joyeuse is not far behind.
Recently the Hallé, on their own label,
have offered some of Colin Matthews’ arrangements of other
Debussy piano works (CDHLL7513). Perhaps future generations
will come to regard those versions as authoritative, as
we have come to regard Caplet’s
Children’s Corner. Those
that I have heard were very convincing – not quite in the
same league as Caplet or Büsser – and that Hallé recording
well worth considering. (See also IL’s recent
review of
Three Preludes orchestrated by Matthews on a super-budget
5-CD set of Debussy and Ravel from the CBSO and Simon Rattle,
EMI 5 14565 2.)
Whether orchestrated by Debussy himself
or by others, all the music on this recording is very well
performed. My own preference for the
Prélude à l’Après-midi
d’un faune might be for a little more magic – more
languor in the more languorous moments, such as Serge Baudo
achieves with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra: his slightly
more leisurely time of 9:30 against Tortelier’s 9:19 pays
dividends, but it’s not much use telling you that when
his Czech Phil recordings of Debussy are unavailable. Supraphon
really ought to restore them a.s.a.p.; the part-LPO/Baudo,
part-LSO/Previn Debussy programme on Classics for Pleasure
(5 86167 2) is only partial consolation for their absence.
Not that I want
l’Après-midi to
be too slow, as all too many conductors are inclined to
take it: Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos with the LSO on an otherwise
very recommendable super-budget Regis CD (RRC1177, formerly
Pickwick) is just too slow – almost two minutes slower
than Tortelier. Rattle, on the 5-CD set referred to, comes
in between them at 10:17.
In
La Mer, too, most conductors
are inclined to slightly slower speeds than Tortelier:
Frühbeck de Burgos and Rattle both give the music a little
more time to breathe. Much as I enjoyed hearing Frühbeck
de Burgos’s account of this work, Tortelier offers that
little bit more energy without ever sounding rushed. The
Regis CD, offering
La Mer,
Nocturnes and
l’Après-midi,
might be regarded as a low-price competitor for this Chandos
CD but it’s not such good value (just 58:37 against Chandos’s
77:52) and, with these rather extreme tempi, best regarded
as an alternative view for the seasoned Debussy-lover rather
than as an introduction.
You won’t find any of those extremes with
Tortelier and, though you wouldn’t think of the Ulster
Orchestra as natural Debussy players, they
are for
Tortelier. Add good quality recording and you should have
a winner, as indeed you have if this is the only Debussy
that you want.
Like all the
Introduction to ... series,
this recording is available on a budget-price CD and as
mp3 or lossless download. I sampled downloads of the whole
4-CD set from which these recordings were taken, partly
in mp3 and partly in wma format. The mp3 recordings, at
320k, are very good; the wma versions fully the equal of
CD quality - to be honest, the mp3s are so good that I
can’t now remember which was which. If you are planning
to purchase the whole set, the savings obtained by downloading
are probably worthwhile; if you just want the sampler,
there’s very little advantage.
Downloaders – and even non-purchasers – have
access to the programme notes, which are good enough to
put most budget-price recordings to shame. The cover is
very attractive, too.
Why no accolade? For the simple reason
that, having heard this introductory CD, you’ll probably
want to go right out and buy the complete 4-CD set: there
isn’t a single dud performance in this introduction or
in that whole set, even given my earlier reservations about
Printemps,
and the recording quality is as good throughout as it is
on this sampler CD. You should be able to find that complete
set for around £25 in the UK, which makes it excellent
value.
Then, having got to know the orchestral
Debussy, you ought to move on to his String Quartet. My
loyalty to the classic Quartetto Italiano version is unshaken
(Philips 50, 464 699 2) but I know that many would regard
the Belcea Quartet’s less expensive version as the one
to go for – and you get Dutilleux’s
Ainsi la Nuit thrown
in, as well as the Ravel Quartet which is common to both
recordings. CC unhesitatingly recommended this Belcea
version (EMI Début 5 74020 2) – see
review – and
it went on to win a Gramophone award.
Brian
Wilson
Colin
Fleming (solo flute); ** Derek Bell (solo cimbalom) 
