Debussy: Trois Nocturnes

Russian pianist Alexei Lubimov, recognised as an outstanding advocate of post-Soviet composition – performing Schnittke, Pärt, and Silvestrov amongst his acclaimed ECM New Series recordings – now turns his talents to Debussy in the year of the 150th anniversary of his birth. On this 2-CD set Lubimov plays both books of Préludes and, with his young student Alexei Zuev, the Trois Nocturnes in Ravel’s two-piano transcription as well as a two-piano arrangement of Debussy’s seminal orchestral masterpiece, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.

Debussy decried the concept of musical impressionism because he feared, rightly, that superficial refinement would degenerate into musical mist, concealing the subtleties of a new musical idiom and its structural logic. So, for example, instead of heading his 24 Préludes with programmatic titles, he appended them at the bottom of the individual pieces. Even though their popularity makes it almost impossible, perhaps listeners ought simply to forget about the titles and recall something else that Debussy once said: “Music is a free art gushing forth, an open-air art boundless as the elements, the wind, the sky, the sea.” It is in this manner – sans rigeur, as Debussy repeatedly marked his music – that Lubimov performs the Préludes.

Searching for an inspiring special sound – he wanted to hear Debussy in a different timbral guise, cloaked in early 20th-century colours – Lubimov “stumbled on two excellent pianos that truly seduced me and breathed fresh life into the music. The stunning beauty and nobility of their sound and their highly distinctive voices prompted me to find new solutions and gave me new levels of pleasure. I decided to record the two volumes of Préludes on two different pianos: a 1925 Bechstein (clear, sharply etched, translucent and light, even in complex textures) and a Steinway from 1913 (divinely soft in pianissimo, resonant and marvellously suitable for unexpected colours). It is said that the great Polish pianist Paderewski chose this Steinway and played it in his recitals.”

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’.

When Claude Debussy (1862-1918) composed his Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune in 1894, nothing quite like it had been heard before. At the time it totally revolutionised music and set a new path for music in the century to come.

It was during 1905 that Debussy spent some months residing in Eastbourne in England where he completed one of his greatest works – La Mer (The Sea). He had taken refuge in England with his pregnant mistress, Emma Bardac, to escape the scandal caused by the attempted suicide of his then wife. Shortly after returning to Paris, Bardac gave birth to Debussy's only child, Claude-Emma, to whom he dedicated the piano original of his Children's Corner.

The Ballet score Jeux was Debussy's last orchestral work, being written in 1912 for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes with choreography by Nijinsky. It is a complex piece, made up of many small musical cells and changes of tempo.

This volume of Debussy’s orchestral works under Ernest Ansermet brings together all of the composer’s acknowledged masterpieces together with some of the shorter pieces. The rare 1951 recording of Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and the 1949 recording of the Images make their first appearance on CD. Ansermet’s second recording of La Mer – he also recorded the piece for Decca in 1947, 1957 and 1964 – his first of the Nocturnes, and the early stereo version of Jeux are, likewise, all rarities. The anthology is completed with an authentically French-sounding Rapsodie pour clarinette as well as a lush Clair de lune and a delectable Petite suite.