Vision Radio

No fewer than four major composers — Fauré, Debussy, Schoenberg and Sibelius — were inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Pelléas et Mélisande (1892). Given that we celebrate anniversaries of Fauré and Schoenberg in 2024, Paavo Järvi offers his reading of their settings of Pelléas et Mélisande with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, whose Music Director he was for almost ten years. Debussy was so involved with his own operatic setting of Pelléas et Mélisande that the famous English actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell turned to Gabriel Fauré to write incidental music for the play; this music then became an orchestral suite in four movements that is considered to be Fauré’s symphonic masterpiece. Schoenberg followed advice given by his much-admired role model Richard Strauss in 1902 and composed his own symphonic poem based on Pelléas et Mélisande. Its complex combinations of musical motifs and the rich fabric of the large-scale orchestra not only captivate us but also reveal his own vision of this archaic and yet universal story.

When the Nazis invaded Denmark in 1940 Koppel, a Jew, immediately evacuated to Sweden. The post-War return to his native land coupled with the unfolding of the true nature and extent of the horrors perpetrated on the Jews and many other peoples drove Koppel back to the Old Testament. Three works, all from 1949, resulted: Three Psalms of David for tenor, choirs and orchestra and two song cycles - Five Biblical Songs and Four Love Songs from the Canticles of Solomon.