Claude Debussy - La Mer; Première Suite d'Orchestre (François-Xavier Roth)

Information

Composer: Claude Debussy

• Première Suite d'Orchestre, L. 50a
• La Mer, L. 109

Les Siècles

François-Xavier Roth, conductor

Date: 2013 / 2022

Label: harmonia mundi

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Review

Many a disc of Debussy’s La mer has popped through the letterbox over the past few years but this version is both unusual and stimulating. The distinguishing feature of the orchestra Les Siècles under François-Xavier Roth is that the musicians play on instruments of the period, which, in terms of the woodwind and brass, are specified by date and maker at the back of the accompanying booklet to this disc. In 2011 Les Siècles released a recording of Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony (9/11) which, despite the roomy acoustics of Paris’s Saint-Sulpice, had a visceral thrill and polished orchestral warmth.

Here they couple La mer with Debussy’s Première Suite for orchestra, composed two decades earlier. The manuscript of the suite only came to light recently. Les Siècles gave the first performance of it in Paris last year and this is its debut on disc. Early Debussy it might be but already it has fingerprints of the mature composer, in the clear definition of orchestral colour, in the energy of the opening ‘Fête’ and in the originality of the second-movement ‘Ballet’. ‘Rêve’, the third movement, has been orchestrated from the piano score in presciently veiled sonorities by Philippe Manoury.

The performance of the Première Suite by Les Siècles is luminous, rhythmically acute, atmospheric and full of character. So, too, is the interpretation of La mer. The instruments from around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries lend the music a mellow glow, and Roth has full measure of the music’s ebb and flow.

— Geoffrey Norris

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Claude Debussy (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer who was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His orchestral works include Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894), Nocturnes (1897–1899), Images (1905–1912), and La mer (1903–1905). His piano works include sets of 24 Préludes and 12 Études. Throughout his career Debussy also wrote mélodies based on a wide variety of poetry, including his own. His works have strongly influenced a wide range of composers including Béla Bartók, Olivier Messiaen, George Benjamin, and the jazz musician Bill Evans.

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François-Xavier Roth (born 6 November 1971) is a French conductor. He graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris, and has served as an assistant conductor to John Eliot Gardiner. In 2003, he founded Les Siècles, an orchestra which performs on instruments appropriate to the period of composition of each piece, from late Baroque and Classical to 20th century music. Roth was the last chief conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg (2011–2016), and Generalmusikdirektor of the city of Cologne (2015–2024), which includes duties as Gürzenich-Kapellmeister and chief conductor of the Cologne Opera.

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