Debussy

The Brodsky Quartet celebrates its fortieth anniversary this year. Formed in 1972, the Quartet quickly emerged at the forefront of the international chamber music scene. It has performed more than 2000 concerts and made more than fifty highly acclaimed recordings. Now exclusive Chandos artists, the Brodsky players are releasing their second disc on Chandos with guest soloists Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and the harpist Sioned Williams.

Momo Kodama - Point And Line - Debussy & Hosokawa (2017) {ECM New Series 2509}
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© 2017 ECM Records | ECM New Series 2509
Classical / Early 20th Century / Present 21th Century / Solo Piano

Born in Osaka, educated at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, Momo Kodama is well-placed to approach music from both Eastern and Western vantage points, as she does in this album which interweaves etudes of Claude Debussy (1862-1918) and Toshio Hosokawa (born 1955). Both composers have similarly been border-crossers. Debussy, pointing to music of the future, looked to the Orient for inspiration. Hosokawa has combined aspects of Japanese and European tradition in his contemporary compositions.

A century after his death on 25 March 1918, many harmonia mundi artists are eager to pay tribute to Claude Debussy, the magician of melody and timbre, the great ‘colourist’ and father of modern music.

Claude Debussy, who died 100 years ago in March 1918, is one of history's greatest composers and the most influential of all French composers. A father of modern music, Debussy lived in the early days of the recording era.

This album of works by Debussy, Prokofiev and Barber aims to show not only the fascination of the increasing complexity of musical language in the 20th century but also the desire to preserve the ideas and achievements of previous musical epochs. The expansion of tonality and the search for new rhythmic and acoustic solutions in the first book of Debussy’s Préludes are followed by Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives , perhaps his only work that was clearly influenced by Impressionism. Some pieces from Visions fugitives could seem to be part of Debussy’s cycle, although Prokofiev’s famous Feroce offers electrifying rhythms and sharp dissonances. I have chosen Barber’s Piano Sonata as my final work. This unique masterpiece literally sprouted from the soil of 20th century musical discoveries but still retained Baroque and Classical structures. The stunning fugue that concludes the sonata sounds like a manifesto: no matter how far the creative process takes us, there is always something constant to which we will always return.

Radu Lupu recorded batches of Mozart and Schubert violin sonatas with the great violinist Szymon Goldberg (regrettably unavailable at present, but watch for them). This seems to be his only other recording of violin sonatas with someone else. Kyung Wha Chung is a powerful virtuoso who can play all the great showpieces, but she scales down her approach to express the muted beauty of the Debussy. Of course, she gives a powerful, extroverted reading to the Franck Sonata, which demands such an approach. Lupu collaborates all the way in both expressive worlds. The additional Debussy and Ravel, from a 1962 LP, are tasty bonuses.

This collection includes songs from pretty well the whole of Debussy’s composing life, some of them well-known and acknowledged masterpieces, and some of them much less familiar though no less worthy of inclusion. Most of them, though, date from the 1880s and early 90s. Nuit d'étoiles is in fact Debussy's first published composition, dating from 1880 when he was eighteen. The Trois Ballades de François Villon date from 1910.