SACDs - Debussy

Young flautist Katherine Bryan is rapidly establishing her place as one of Britain’s bright musical stars of the future.

For her second recording on Linn, the in-demand concerto soloist performs a selection of 20th century concertos plus Debussy’s Syrinx and Frank Martin’s Ballade.

The Flute Concerto by American composer Christopher Rouse is among his most successful and widely performed works since its debut in 1994. Rouse’s concerto calls for astonishing pyrotechnics for both the flute and the orchestra; Katherine is able to showcase the sheer quality of her technique and her playing.

French composer Jacques Ibert’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra is one of the best-loved and most frequently performed concertos in the flute repertoire. Full of humour, virtuosity and intense technical challenges for the soloist, it is characteristic of Ibert’s eclectic, versatile compositional style.

Despite being only a little over three minutes long, Debussy’s Syrinx has achieved iconic status and is regarded as an essential piece in any serious flautist’s repertoire.

Martin’s Ballade features wide harmonic leaps and tests the full range of the instrument, not least with a memorable section for the low register which sees Katherine relish the challenge.

Katherine Bryan is a rising star having appearing as concerto soloist with leading orchestras worldwide, as well as being principal flautist with the RSNO.

Katherine has appeared at major international festivals as both concerto soloist and recitalist. She has given live broadcasts on Classic FM, BBC Radio 3 and BBC television.

Katherine was a prize-winner at the Royal Overseas League Music Competition in London, the Young Concert Artists International Competition in New York and was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year for three consecutive competitions. She was also awarded the Julius Isserlis Scholarship by the Royal Philharmonic Society.

A tribute to Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, a veritable mythic and unpredictable Italian pianist,; a perfectionist with a carefully chosen repertory in which Scarlatti's works joined those of Debussy and Ravel, while the great German romantics, from Beethoven to Brahms, were magnified and exalted, showing the soundness of their construction. The number of his recordings is limited, with mostly works by Debussy and Ravel and a few by Beethoven. He used to buy pirate live discs of his concerts as presents for his friends instead of his 'official' recordings! Here is a French anthology collecting legendary renderings of his inimitable touch easy to recognise by its ductile nature and the purity of his style. A revived masterpiece.

Recorded Live May 22 1960 London [Gaspard, Concerto], February 12 1952 [Valses], June 3 1960 [Debussy]

On this new disc, Maxim Rysanov and Ashley Wass present works illustrating the striking affinity between the timbre of the viola and the colours in French music.

The disc includes arrangements of music by Ravel, Fauré and Debussy: Alongside two Pavanes, the programme includes perennial favourites such as Après un rêve and Clair de lune.

Rysanov and Wass also perform two contemporary pieces by the Swiss-French composer Richard Dubugnon. Incantatio and Lied, both for viola and piano, are adaptations by the composer of existing works made especially for Maxim Rysanov.

For BIS Rysanov has previously recorded a solo disc with three of Bach’s cello suites and his own arrangement for viola and orchestra of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations.

Recognised internationally as a conductor of the highest calibre, Stéphane Denève took up the post of Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in 2005, and has since attracted attention from audiences and critics alike. This May, the conductor bids a fond farewell to Scotland and the RSNO with a series of ‘Au Revoir’ concerts, and of course, this disc of orchestral works by Debussy.

After the impact made by the production of Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902, the next orchestral work by Debussy was awaited with intense interest. La Mer did not disappoint, and is today widely considered to have been crucial in its influence on twentieth-century music. After completing this work, Debussy spent no fewer than seven years wrestling with what were to become Images for orchestra. Some critics were puzzled by the work and suggested that Debussy’s talent might have dried out. They were promptly put right in an article by Ravel, who accused them of ‘slowly closing their eyelids before the rising sun amid loud protestations that night is falling’.

With a sultry flute solo, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune opened an astonishing new world for western music. Debussy based this composition on a poem by Mallarmé, who wrote to the composer: ‘I have come from the concert, deeply moved: A miracle! that your illustration of L’Après-midi d’un faune should present no dissonance with my text, other than to venture further, truly, into nostalgia and light…’

The three Nocturnes feature some of Debussy’s most imaginative orchestral writing. In the words of the composer, ‘the title Nocturnes is… not meant to designate the usual form of a nocturne, but rather all the various impressions and the special effects of light that the word would suggest’. Debussy provided descriptions of the three movements. ‘Nuages’, for example, depicts ‘the slow, melancholy procession of the clouds, ending in a grey agony tinged with white’, and also the experience of standing ‘on the Pont de Solférino very late at night. Total silence. The Seine without a ripple, like a tarnished mirror’.

Mono recordings