This may be the first recording together of Debussy's and Schoenberg's renderings of Maurice Maeterlinck's murky, sexy play Pelléas et Melisande , a work that was in the air all over artistically progressive Europe around the last turn of the century. There hasn't been any reason to record them on a single album; Debussy's work, of course, is an opera, and although there was an existing orchestral suite, it was primarily drawn from orchestral passages, not from the vocal meat of the opera. For many listeners, the new ...
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This may be the first recording together of Debussy's and Schoenberg's renderings of Maurice Maeterlinck's murky, sexy play Pelléas et Melisande , a work that was in the air all over artistically progressive Europe around the last turn of the century. There hasn't been any reason to record them on a single album; Debussy's work, of course, is an opera, and although there was an existing orchestral suite, it was primarily drawn from orchestral passages, not from the vocal meat of the opera. For many listeners, the new version of Debussy's work here, made by conductor Jonathan Nott, will be reason enough to check the album out. It is based on prominent vocal passages, with the voice parts transferred to a variety of solo instruments, and while Nott's task was a difficult one, the results give a feel for the flow of the opera. But there's more. Nott has configured the track divisions and track titles of Schoenberg's single-movement Pelleas und Melisande in a novel way. In part, he seems to have...
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