Debussy: 6 Epigraphes antiques

The recent discovery (2008) of the Première Suite d’orchestre for piano, four hands, is a large-scale, sonorous work which reveals Debussy’s interest in constantly evolving form. Derived in part from his incidental music for the Chansons de Bilitis, an evocation of poetic scenes from an ancient pagan world, Six Épigraphes antiques is a colourful work of considerable creative freedom. The Petite Suite includes such well-loved movements as En bateau and Cortège, while the Marche écossaise is heard on this recording in its rare first version.

For the final volume in his Debussy edition for ONYX, Pascal Roge is joined by his wife Ami in a collection of works for piano 4 hands and for 2 pianos.

Since the release of Volume 1 Preludes I & II in 2005, Roge’s recordings of Debussy have been received with critical acclaim. He is the quintessential interpreter for this repertoire.

Following on the heels of its recent portrait CD of the Ensemble Pyramide (CDX21006), Divox presents another recording by the Zurich-based chamber ensemble. Suites Françaises unites arrangements of works by French composers whose paths crossed repeatedly, and are arranged here by the ensembles flautist, Mark Brönnimann. Debussy, Ravel and Pierné are the composers whose pieces convey a vivid overview of French music at the turn of the 20th century.

Volume 5 of Naxos’s acclaimed series of Debussy’s orchestral music presents a potpourri of works that were either left incomplete by the composer or were orchestrated by others who greatly admired his music.

The rarely-heard children’s ballet The Toy Box, dedicated to Debussy’s daughter Emma-Claude but not premièred until after the composer’s death, recalls the innocent world of his popular Children’s Corner suite.

Based on Pierre Louÿs’ Chansons de Bilitis, Debussy’s Six épigraphes antiques evoke poetic scenes from the ancient world, as does the sole surviving portion of The Triumph of Bacchus.

This volume of Debussy’s dramatic works and ballet music is dedicated, by and large, to ‘rarities’ by the composer. Few of Debussy’s works have divided critical opinion more than Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, banned as it was by the Archbishop of Paris six days before its premiere. The beautiful, rarefied Six Épigraphes Antiques were orchestrated by Ernest Ansermet himself and both the Egyptian-based Khamma and La Boîte à joujoux, a ballet based on the secret life of toys, are very rare indeed. Trifle though it might be, the Marche écossaise receives its first release on CD – significant, given the conductor recorded it only once.

This well-filled disc also includes a rarely heard 13th étude, the Étude retrouvée discovered only in 1977. Another late work is Six Épigraphes antiques. These short pieces originated as musical renderings of six poems from Pierre Louÿ’s collection Chansons de Bilitis, purportedly translations of ancient Greek texts by a Greek courtesan. Originally written for two pianos, the Épigraphes were later arranged for a single player by the composer himself. The remaining pieces on the disc come from opposite ends of Debussy’s career. Intermède is the piano version of a movement from his Piano Trio No. 1 from 1880, while Les Soirs illumines from 1917 is Debussy’s last completed work, written as a token of gratitude to his coal merchant, a Monsieur Tronquin, for having provided the household with precious fuel during the wartime winters.

Musical compatriots. Collaborators. Teachers. Friends. Pianists. These are the links that bound the four remarkable 20th century composers, whose one-piano-four-hands works are brought together by Sono Luminus on this first CD from the dynamic ZOFO duet. Whether performing public duet concerts together or using the piano four-hands form to explore their symphonic visions, Bernstein, Shapero, Debussy and Stravinsky all understood the musical power of sharing the bench.

When internationally acclaimed solo pianists Eva-Maria Zimmermann and Keisuke Nakagoshi joined forces to form ZOFO duet in the spring of 2009, their goal was to explore and enrich the one-piano-four-hands repertoire by performing and recording existing and new works at the highest level of musical excellence. The pieces they chose for their first public performance as a professional ensemble at the San Francisco Conservatory in the fall of 2009 were by Leonard Bernstein, Harold Shapero, Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky – four highly influential composers of the 20th century who knew each other, learned from each other, sometimes performed together, and embraced the piano four - hands form. Since their concert debut in 2009 ZOFO has performed dozens of concerts with repertoire ranging from Johannes Brahms to Tomohiro Moriyama, and in venues from San Francisco to Carnegie Hall to Osaka Japan. But for this, their first CD, Eva-Maria and Keisuke return to the four composers and magnificent pieces that launched them on their career as ZOFO duet.