Pelleas Wilson Dvd

Written only six years apart, these two works share a common narrative of frustrated love, and the concept of the forest as a metaphor for the subconscious mind. Musically they are wildly different, however; Pelleas, which Schoenberg wrote in his late twenties, is the epitome of his late romantic style, indebted to Richard Strauss. Erwartung (his first work for the stage) was written after his conversion to atonality. Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Pelleas et Melisande fired the imaginations of several of the greatest composers of the time. Debussy began writing his opera almost immediately after its publication in 1892, and within a decade or so Faure and Sibelius had created elaborate incidental scores for different stage productions of the play.

No sooner had Sibelius moved to the town of Järvenpää in 1904 than he was commissioned by the Swedish Theatre to write incidental music for Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande. At the time it was his most ambitious undertaking in the genre of incidental music and his setting included ten scenes, only one of which was cut when he adapted the piece as a concert suite. Dating from the same year, Musik zu einer Szene was originally intended to accompany a tableau and is full of striking contrasts. The two waltzes of 1921 are transcriptions of piano pieces, and reveal the potent influence of Tchaikovsky.

The Pelléas Ensemble’s debut album illustrates the many possibilities offered by the unique combination of flute, viola and harp. It presents a rich and expressive collection of repertoire spanning three centuries. Debussy, Rameau and Bax all shared an appreciation of science and nature which they combined in their art with elements of improvisation, mystery and spirituality.

In the history of ‘Pelléas da Mélisande’ there is a lot of mystical, encrypted, unsaid. The fictional kingdom of Alemond exists outside of a certain era, outside of reality and time. The strange and infantile characters in the play live in their own temporal dimension. The events are driven not by the actions of the heroes, but by their reflections, spontaneous impressions, reasoning, exchange of emotions, clarification of relationships.

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916.

Newly remastered. Rare live recording conducted by Karajan during his Golden Age in Vienna Opera.

Sir John Barbirolli heads the Hallé Orchestra in this legacy performance of orchestral works from Jean Sibelius!