Customer Reviews

Debussy: Images / Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune / Printemps - The Cleveland Orchestra / Pierre Boulez

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If your idea of Debussy is lush orchestration, sensuous moods and seeing a Monet or a Renoir behind every note, then Boulez's interpretations of Debussy won't be for you. Although Boulez first recorded Debussy in the 1960s for Columbia (now Sony and still available; get the 2-CD set if you can find it), his way with Debussy hasn't really changed much. It might not be as detached, but it's wonderful just the same. Basically, Boulez sees Debussy as a great COMPOSER, not just a "Master of Impressionism." Boulez's legendary ear for sonority and balance decongests Debussy's music into something that is more commonly known as the cool, clear Boulez sound. You HEAR every note, every phrase, every progression. So instead of being coaxed into benign sublimity by other conductors when it comes to Debussy, the listener is forced to realize the enormous inventiveness Debussy had to get his musical ideas across. You discover Debussy is not just another cleverly skilled orchestrator, e.g., Rimsky-Korsakov, but one of the greatest composers who ever lived. The DG recording process, of course, is without peer, and the Cleveland Orchestra, naturally, plays superbly. But Boulez's way with his fellow Frenchman is simply uncanny. It might not be as beautfilly done as say Toscanini, Reiner, Karajan or Stokowski would. But if Boulez's real aim is to present Debussy clearly, effectively and without distorted tempis, he has succeeded immensely. Boulez's other recent DG recording with the Cleveland Orchestra with La Mer and Jeux is just as fine.

Debussy's orchestral works provide some of the most alluring and luscious sounds in all music. Sonority and textual clarity are wonderfully impressive in this recording of three of them conducted by Pierre Boulez. The Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune - occupying from eight to eleven minutes in the various versions in my collection - runs for nearly nine minutes here. Alert listeners might recognize the English folk song "The Keel Row" darting in and out of the dance that opens Images. I especially like Printemps, the earliest known Debussy orchestral work, dating from his 25th year. In this work, the orchestral forces include a piano.

The Cleveland Orchestra under the French conductor was recorded by the German DGG technicians in Cleveland in March 1991.

Pierre Boulez may not be everyone's ideal of an impressionist conductor (think Charles Münch) but when it comes to allowing the inner ear to appreciate the intricacies of why Debussy was such a profound influence on contemporary music, Boulez (and Esa-Pekka Salonen) are the maestros to address.

After experiencing a performance by Salonen and the LA Phil of the 'Printemps' (perfection!) the question arises 'why are there so very few recordings of this early work by Debussy?'. While there are many recordings of the other two works on this CD, there are only a few worthy samples of 'Printemps'. The work is a suite in two parts: though Debussy loathed the idea of putting word descriptors for his tone poems, he claimed this work was not about 'Spring' but instead about the creation of life and then a celebration of that creation. The first movement opens with a piano four-hands melody that is slowly absorbed by the entire (large) orchestra. Once the melody has bloomed into full embodiment of life, the second movement uses the motifs to create a sensuous dance.

Boulez finds the subtleties in this youthful work, pointing out how Debussy's gifts were present from the beginning and what better way to make his point than to join the 'Printemps' with the later 'Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune' and 'Images'. The Cleveland Orchestra responds to Boulez in a fluid and otherworldly sound. This is a fine recording and given the paucity of other examples of 'Printemps' it is one of the best. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, April 07

Spring is the world reborn according to an exuberant mediaeval Latin poem the Pervigilium Veneris - ver renatus orbis est. For me it is a little bit of a personal renewal, via this record and literally. The spring comes slowly up this way in the Pennine hills, and the time of year thou mayest in me behold is not exactly spring, but the sense of it is here. Included in the music is the Rondes de printemps, the final number in Debussy's orchestral Images, and also a welcome out-of-the-way piece his early 2-movement `symphonic suite' Printemps. The moment therefore seemed right to obtain this disc, especially as the two `springtime' works were unaccountably missing from my collection.

There was something else I wanted to renew, and it was my acquaintance with the work of Pierre Boulez. Years ago I had formed an impression of him as a martinet - very exact and therefore a natural for Stravinsky, but slightly forbidding. Whether this had anything to do with his early personal association with Stravinsky, or with his uncanny resemblance when young to Marlon Brando, or with his own very uncompromising compositions, or whether it was just something that I had been told, I don't now remember. However when I recently obtained his set of The Rite of Spring and Petrushka I was struck indeed with his exactness, but also with the beauty of the works as they came from him. Time to try him in Debussy then, and none too soon as it turns out.

You would expect top-class playing from the Cleveland Orchestra, and you would be right to. You would not be surprised if even in Debussy you heard more orchestral detail from Boulez than you usually do from other conductors, and you will not be surprised in that way here. Where you might be surprised is at the sheer beauty of the tone and phrasing, depending on what you had been led to expect. The superb balance of the orchestral tones, the strength of line without rigidity, the affection accompanying the perfection in the phrasing - all this was reminding me of someone else. Could I be listening, at long last, to a successor, the very last successor I might have been expecting - to Beecham?

That question is obviously rhetorical, and I can pay no greater compliment to any conductor. The first item on the disc is the evergreen Prelude a l'Apres-midi. How many performances of this I own I am not sure, including no mean renditions from Britten and Cantelli. However one performance has always served as my benchmark, and I expect you can guess by now whose performance that is. I am not suggesting that Boulez is any kind of clone of Beecham. He is his own man entirely, but here again is the wonderful sense of erotic languor in the heavy noonday heat. The interpretation is different in numerous respects, but what the two have in common is that marvellous atmosphere that I sense from no other accounts. Warm, soporific and all, it still reawakened in one listener a response to the music that I had not expected to experience again.

Other than Les Parfums the rest of the music is more lively, although I can never help smiling at the composer's repeated edicts against overdoing things - tres modere, modere, assez anime, moderement anime, tres modere, modere. The virtues usually to be expected from Boulez are here to satisfy expectations and more. Clarity and strength sure, but also the exquisite phrasing and heavenly orchestral tone that I was talking about above. I suppose Les Parfums might be a bit more `lent et reveur' as marked, but even here I think the composer's instruction needs a bit of interpretation, because I don't sense that his Spanish scene was entirely asleep, whatever he says.

The Images are a collection, not a set. They complement one another, and a certain variety is needed in their presentation. Rather than plod through details I shall say only that you will find exceptionally thoughtful readings in all of them. With music as great and visionary as this we can expect interpreters who are visionaries in their own right to have different things to tell us, and I like what I am being told here. The Printemps suite makes an imaginative conclusion to the concert, lightening the atmosphere, but not unduly. It seems to be to be in a slightly anonymous late romantic idiom, with just occasional hints of the great Debussy voice as we were to learn to know it. No problem for this maestro, and a welcome new acquisition for one collector at least.

The recording is from 1992, and it is a bit of a shock to realise how long ago that was now. However the quality is well up to any standards we would expect in the new millennium. The liner note is of a rather average-upmarket kind, but it contains some useful comment although in very small print. I guess that in 1992 I was not awake to everything I should have been awake to, and I welcome this springtime revival.

One is immediately impressed with the recording quality here -- vivid, up-close and intimate -- combined with precise ensemble playing which allows the various shimmering colors of Debussy's orchestral palette to be clearly delineated. Whether this is how one wants to hear this music is, of course, a personal matter. For these particular pieces, Boulez's "cool & clinical" approach works well enough to present a well-lit canvas, one which allows the active listener to venture unimpeded inside the music to revel in its inventiveness, but which might leave the passive listener emotionally unaffected. Having heard most of Boulez's Debussy, I've concluded that it probably has its place in a collection beside the likes of Martinon, Dutoit, and others; if for no other reason than for the pure sound of it all...and to hear all the notes.

I'm not surprised that Boulez's Debussy is greeted with utmost praise by a circle of critics, including Amazon's, who barely seem to have listened to it. Are they really in love with such cool, detached performances? Boulez has a relationship with the Cleveland Orch. that goes back decades, and the precision and clarity of these readings is beyond reproach. So is DG's detailed sound, which applies x-ray vision to Debussy's very beautiful orchestrations.

But this version of Afternoon of a Faun couldn't be less erotic. The solo flute follows Boulez's lead with a straitlaced reading that doesn't remotely evoke the awakening of a pagan creature on a sultry day. It's more like the ice cream truck moving slowly down the street. The expansive canvas of Images has always been a tough sell when performed as a whole. The first two parts are by far the most popular. Gigues vaguely evokes jigs from the British Isles and is based on Debussy's memories of England. Iberia, in three movements, is Spanish filtered through Debussy's very un-Spanish imaginaiton, with delicate evocations of lingering perfume, nights in the garden, and dances heard from a distance. It's the third section if Images, Rondes de printemps, that taxes the listener, its three parts being amorphous, although two are based on actual French folk songs. Even when isolated and programmed on its own, this section offers no real anchor, either to spring or round dances.

In the best performances these impressionistic "images" are fleshed out with drama, color, and strong rhythms. Compared to the superlative James Levine account on Sony with the Berlin Phil., Boulez's England and Spain are too neutral and lack color. The conductor's reputation is so high that many listeners, I think, take his way with Debussy to be the real thing, period. It isn't. No doubt he is masterful in the night music of Iberia, which is exquisitely refined, and he solves the problems of Rondes de printemps as best as anyone can. But I find myself feeling as detached in praising this CD as Boulez was when he made it. For the three most popular works here -- Faun, Gigues, and Iberia -- I will stick with any number of rivals, including Stokowski and Karajan.

Pierre Boulez is known as a conductor who emphasizes precision and a certain level of detachment in his interpretation. That general rule is true in this fine CD, where he is joined by the Cleveland Orchestra in the orchestral Images (1908-12), the Prelude to the afternoon of a faun (1894) and the early `Springtime'(1882) by Claude Debussy. This is recording predates the later DG Boulez recording with the Cleveland Orchestra of "Jeux", the "Nocturnes" and "La mer" -- for me one of the most inspired classical recordings I have heard. If this disc doesn't quite measure up to that second release, that is a tall order to fill that doesn't negate musicmaking as strong as this.

The "Prelude" is perhaps the most famous single piece penned by Debussy and dates from a very productive period in his life, the beginning of the 1890s, when he was writing the String Quartet and the bulk of his only opera, "Pelleas et Melisande." I see Boulez's interpretation as a more "objective" Gallic take on the "Prelude," as distinct from a lush or particularly romantic one. The "Images" is the latest set of compositions on the recording, and consists of two flanking, faster works, the "Gigues" and the "Rondes de printemps" surrounding a particularly inspired recreation of Spain, the multimovement "Iberia." "Iberia" is varied and wonderful music, ranging the big, aggressive dance opening with blaring clarinets to the delicate evocations of Spanish gardens and night. While this is not my favorite recording of the "Images", it is carefully considered, technically outstanding and enjoyable. In pure performance terms, the two-movement formative work "Spring" maybe turns out the best. It has a soft opening depicting the emergence of spring from winter, wonderfully evoked by Boulez and the Cleveland players. The second movement is unfortunately a bit mawkish, with a style that has ex post facto become trite through overuse in film scores, but the first movement is inspired and lovely.

The crack performance and audiophile-level sonics make this a winner. Some listeners may prefer a more romanticized Debussy. For those with a preference for a typically French, drier version, or are interested in a variety of interpretive styles, the sheer quality of execution and consistency of vision makes this an outstanding disc.

Debussy: Images is a 1992 Deutsche Grammophon recording featuring the Cleveland Orchestra being led by Pierre Boulez. Jeremy Noble has written the music notes. The sound quality is superb and it verily feels as if one is listening to this recording live. Truly a magnificent listening experience. Highly recommended indeed. 5/5.

This Deutsche Grammophon CD represents Pierre Boulez's early 1990s approach to conducting the music of Claude Debussy. It forms a pair with a 1995 release featuring four other orchestral works. While Boulez has famously cooled down over the decades since he recorded a number of 20th century composers for Sony, his current style is perfect for Debussy. That's especially true for "Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune", a piece which Boulez has suggested as the first "modern" composition of them all. The score opens with gentle flute and harp, and Boulez's conducting and DG's mixing present the piece with such gossamer-like fragility that it is an incredible sonic experience on a good stereo system; out of my entire collection this is perhaps the music least fit for listening to on headphones while walking downtown.

This is a good program, because if the "Prelude" initiated Debussy's mature orchestral style, the three orchestral "Images" (1905-1912) are as far as he took it before changing course in the revolutionary "Jeux" of a few years later. Of these three distinct pieces under one heading, I especially love the three movements of "Iberia", where Debussy offers some of his most distinctive orchestration with bells and castagnets.

This disc also includes "Printemps", a bit of juvenalia that Debussy wrote at while a Prix de Rome scholar. Originally written for piano, it appears here in a much later orchestral arrangement by Henri Büsser and the rich timbres allow it to fit in with the other pieces -- and disguise its relative immaturity -- over the piano original.

I discovered classical music with the Darmstadt modernists and only years later did I work backwards to Debussy and give his music a fair shake. Debussy's music has too often been performed as if it were "light music" or empty exoticism, and there's little compelling in those recordings. But Boulez conducts Debussy in clear and honest fashion, revealing him for the genius of form and harmony he was.

(Verified purchase from FNAC, Madrid.)

Pierre Boulez and the Cleveland Orchestra deliver another top shelf performance. Having purchased Boulez other Debussy recording on DG with the Cleveland Orchestra (which i enjoyed), I felt this cd was a safe bet, and I was not dissapointed.

Boulez once made the remark that the Cleveland Orchestra sounded more French than the French corchestras. While it can be debated whether or not this is true, the Images and Prelude on this disc are outstanding, with the Printempts as a nice bonus.

My only gripe with the disc (a minor gripe), is that DG could have included another small Debussy work on this CD, as at 59 minutes, the disc seems a little short. However, that does not change my belief that this is an excellent disc, on par with Boulez earlier recordings for Sony.