Et Après... V D B

Marius Constant, who had an intimate knowledge of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, published Impressions de Pelléas, published in 1992 an abridged version (95 minutes instead of 150) for six singers and two pianists. In an intense flow of music, he telescopes the five acts with great finesse, removing a few scenes and making a fair number of cuts and a few minimal adjustments to the musical material. For the scenography, he suggested, ‘We are in an early twentieth-century salon’ This reflects the fact that during the genesis of Pelléas, Debussy regularly played fragments of it for his circle of friends. In this version, both listeners and performers are involuntarily swept towards the origin and essence of Debussy’s masterpiece: a ‘music of the soul’ in which we can all recognise our own Mélisande, Pelléas, Arkel, Geneviève, Yniold and Golaud. This chamber version of the opera is completed by the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune in Debussy’s own transcription for two pianos and the suite En blanc et noir. The two pianos used are the new straight-strung instruments built in Belgium by Chris Maene at the request of Daniel Barenboim.

For 30 years Michel Plasson has recorded French music exclusively for EMI Classics. This exclusive box is truly unique as it covers all the masterpieces of French repertoire: concertos by Ravel, Fauré's Requiem, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Bizet's only symphony, L'Arlesienne; Lalo's Symphony; etc . . .

For 30 years Michel Plasson has recorded French music exclusively for EMI Classics. This exclusive box is truly unique as it covers all the masterpieces of French repertoire: concertos by Ravel, Fauré's Requiem, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Bizet's only symphony, L'Arlesienne; Lalo's Symphony; etc . . .

Anticipating the developments of his maturity, Franz Liszt's Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is an important transitional piece, if not especially coherent or profound. Liszt's sentimentality and chronic showmanship prevent this set of pious reveries from achieving the deepest spiritual dimensions. But there are many reflective moments in this work that indicate a growing seriousness and even presage the dark emotions and austerity of his final period. While the Invocation, Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, and the Cantique d'amour are predictably ecstatic in their climaxes, each contains sustained passages of calm introspection.