Winning the Prix de Rome, a subsidized residency at the Villa Medici giving the artist four or five years to compose, was a rite of passage for French composers for much of the 19th century. The process of competing for the prize, and then producing a required number of works while in Rome, created a substantial body of music, particularly since composers frequently had to make a number of attempts before winning. This two-CD set includes most of the surviving music Debussy wrote for the competition and as part of his ...
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Winning the Prix de Rome, a subsidized residency at the Villa Medici giving the artist four or five years to compose, was a rite of passage for French composers for much of the 19th century. The process of competing for the prize, and then producing a required number of works while in Rome, created a substantial body of music, particularly since composers frequently had to make a number of attempts before winning. This two-CD set includes most of the surviving music Debussy wrote for the competition and as part of his residency. Three of the works, L'Enfant prodigue, his winning 1884 cantata, and Printemps and La damoiselle élue, which he wrote in Rome in 1887 and 1888, are fairly familiar, and recorded with some frequency, but the remaining pieces are obscure and some are recorded here for the first time. The earliest work is Salut Printemps, the qualifying, first-round piece for the 1882 prize, an attractive and warmly lyrical piece for soprano, women's chorus, and orchestra. Le gladiateur, a...
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