Olivier Robin

This 33-CD set stands as the most complete collection of recordings of Debussy’s music ever made: it comprises all his known works, including four pieces in world premiere recordings which were made especially for this edition. Compiled in collaboration with renowned Debussy expert Denis Herlin (responsible for several critical editions of Debussy’s music for Durand, the composer’s publisher), the box comprises recordings carefully chosen for their artistic quality and their authenticity of spirit. They span more than a century, even including recordings made by Debussy himself – he was a superb pianist. Many other distinguished names are among the performers, including a suitably impressive contingent from France.

What is the use of limiting one's imagination to what one already knows? This question, posed by the character incarnated by Robin Mercier, is central to the artistic approach of Valentin Ceccaldi and the Grand Orchester du Tricot. Atomic Sputnik is like a kid's dream put into music, a dreamlike journey in which one follows, in parallel, the odyssey in the space of a child and the spatial fantasy of an adult having visibly refused the constraints of the world. Quite a bit of narration strictly speaking, but the interventions of Robin Mercier and André Robillard suggest this duality within this ambitious fresco where clash the naive melodies and the contemporary bursts.

French soprano Patricia Petibon is known for recordings with ambitious, original programs, spaced several years apart. This is one of her most ambitious, and one of her best, even if some might find it a bit outrageous. Petibon approaches the French art song of the late 19th and 20th centuries from the perspective of popular song, suggesting that the boundary is blurry (noncontroversial in itself), and adding a few songs by Léo Ferré, the vastly underrated older contemporary of Jacques Brel. Where things start to get wild is not with the inclusion of popular songs, or even with the heavy emphasis on the music-hall rhythms of songs going back as far as Gabriel Fauré.