A friend of mine mentioned recently that there were precious few
original orchestral works by Debussy. So many of them were either
orchestrations of piano works or had had their orchestrations
completed, or undertaken, by other hands. He’s right – there’s
only the Nocturnes, Prélude
à l'après-midi d'un faune, La Mer,
Danse sacrée et danse profane and Images, and a couple of smaller pieces. On the other hand,
there’s a list as long as your arm of orchestrations and arrangements
by others, ranging from Caplet and Büsser
to Colin Matthews, Niels Rosing Schouw,
John Barbirolli, Hans Zender and Robin Holloway. It is to be hoped
that this Debussy series – this is the second volume of the orchestral
music – will embrace the various versions made by others.
This
disk makes a very good start on the arrangements with Marius
Constant’s Symphony, based on music from Debussy’s only
completed opera. Mainly using the instrumental portions of the
score Constant has fashioned a large-scale piece, which is fascinating.
It makes me sad that I cannot, and have never been able to,
enjoy the stage work. There is real symphonic growth in this
piece, and as the work progresses there’s tension and drama.
It makes one wish that Debussy had written a Symphony of his
own for the development in this work shows how his mind worked
and how he could bring together the right material for such
a project. It also proves just how symphonic Pelléas et Mélisande really is. This is a major addition to the small catalogue of orchestral
works of Debussy and it receives a fine performance here, which
will, I hope, win it some friends. Incidentally, in case you’re
wondering why the name of Marius Constant is so familiar, it’s
because he is the composer of the famous theme music to the
TV series The Twilight Zone.
The
Nocturnes is one of Debussy’s first major orchestral
achievements. The three movements are mysterious, fantastic
and elusive. Nuages is a depiction of clouds, but it’s
not cloudy music in any way, more a depiction of the sky as
they pass over. Fêtes is a carnival day with a procession coming from afar – a
dazzling, fantastic vision as the composer put it – and taking
over the scene before being swallowed into it. The final movement,
Sirènes is a picture of the sea with a wordless female
chorus singing an alluring song but being gradually left behind,
and not bringing us to grief on the rocks. There is stiff competition
in this work, not least from Ansermet,
Boulez, Haitink and Martinon
and Monteux, but Märkl directs a very good performance, perhaps missing the last
ounce of subtlety and not quite making the most of the procession
in Fêtes but these are small matters. This is a very satisfying performance
indeed.
The
other pieces require little comment. Berceuse héroïque is a rather un–Debussyian piece,
a reaction to the war and dedicated to “His
Majesty King Albert I of Belgium
and his soldiers”. Caplet’s orchestration of Clair de lune
is a delight and the three Études orchestrated by Michael Jarrell, a Swiss composer born in 1958. These
work rather well for orchestra
– which one might not have expected given that they are studies
for the keyboard – but he misses the point of the climax in
the final piece.
Märkl’s first disk of Debussy’s orchestral music failed to really
impress me, by the side of the competition, although I found
his performance of Jeux to be very fine indeed. I have
no reservations about this disk. It’s well worth having and
the Pelléas et Mélisande Symphonie should be heard by all lovers
of this endlessly fascinating composer.
Bob Briggs
see also Review
by Kevin Sutton
