MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CD: Crotchet AmazonUK AmazonUS

 

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
An Introduction to Claude Debussy
Children’s Corner (1906-8), (orch. André Caplet, 1910) [17:16]
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, after Stéphane Mallarmé (1894) [9:19] 
Petite suite (1889) (orch. Henri Büsser, 1907) [13:01]
La plus que lente (1909)** [5:25]
L’Isle joyeuse (1903) (orch. Bernardino Molinari, 1916) [6:19]
Clair de lune (1890) (orch.André Caplet) [4:19] 
La Mer: Three symphonic sketches (1903-5) [22:11]
Colin Fleming (solo flute); ** Derek Bell (solo cimbalom)
Ulster Orchestra/Yan Pascal Tortelier
rec. no details given - (P) 1989-93. DDD.
CHANDOS CHAN2024 [77:52]
Experience Classicsonline

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
 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.