Favourites,
Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy's fame rests primarily on a few well-known works - the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, La mer and Clair de lune are well-known and well-loved favourites. Yet his output is much more extensive than this, with an enormous range of vividly impressionistic solo piano and orchestral music complemented by sophisticated and subtle chamber and solo vocal works - and an opera that stands apart from any other operatic works before or since.
Orchestral
If you only buy one album of Debussy orchestral music, this is a very good bet! Comprising his best-known works at an excellent price, it's a great starting-point around which to build a library of top-notch Debussy recordings. Bernard Haitink's Concertgebouw players are exquisitely sensitive to the nuances that make Debussy's music come alive.
Available Format: 2 CDs
Debussy's unashamedly sensual music for Gabriele d'Annunzio's play about the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian caused considerable controversy at the work's premiere in 1911. Written in extreme haste with the assistance of the composer's friend Andre Caplet, the music betrays no hint of its frantic genesis. Daniele Gatti, the Choeur de Radio France and the Orchestre National de France give a sensitive performance in support of soloists Sophie Marin-Degor, Kate Aldrich and Christine Knorren.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
The first in a new series from Glossa, this is an intriguing collection of relatively early and little-known works, mostly orchestral, that formed Debussy's submissions for the prestigious Prix de Rome competition in composition. Hervé Niquet conducts the Flemish Radio Choir and Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra in performances that bring these forgotten gems to vivid life.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Solo Piano
Despite the name, Debussy's Préludes are no dry set of academic exercises, but a vividly imaginative series of twenty-four Impressionistic sketches in music. They cover an extraordinarily wide range of moods and emotions, from sprightly playfulness to wistful romance to the majesty of the Cathédrale engloutie (the Sunken Cathedral). Various orchestrations of the Préludes exist, but in Krystian Zimerman's hands the original piano versions have as broad a palate of colours as one could wish for.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is probably today's foremost interpreter of Debussy's solo piano works. He has recorded the entire spectrum to great acclaim, and here tackles the notoriously demanding Études (which explore the potential of the simplest of musical elements, intervals and rhythms) with aplomb. A sensitively textured set of Images is the perfect complement.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The young pianist Rafał Blechacz makes his mark on the Debussy landscape here, with a nimble rendition of the suite Pour le piano, coupled with the three Estampes and the haunting L'isle joyeuse, in many ways reminiscent of both the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and La mer.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
If Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has a rival in the arena of Debussy's piano works, it is his compatriot Jean-Yves Thibaudet - who has also recorded a complete set of Debussy's oeuvre for solo piano! Here he performs some of the less well-known miniatures such as the Mazurka and the Hommage à Haydn, alongside such well-established favourites as Children's Corner and the Suite Bergamasque (from which the famous Clair de lune originates).
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Chamber
Debussy's chamber music often seems to exist in the shadow of his orchestral and solo piano output. This enchanting collection of his chamber works featuring the flute redresses the balance and makes the case for Debussy the chamber composer, with a delightful performance of the sonata for flute, viola and harp and a haunting Syrinx from Philipp Bernold.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
The sonatas for violin and cello were, along with the sonata for flute, violin and harp, conceived as the first three in what would ultimately be a cycle of six instrumental sonatas. Debussy died before completing the cycle, but the surviving sonatas show his adventurous late style in full flower. Raphael Wallfisch and Hagai Shaham give elegant performances, each accompanied by Arnon Erez at the piano.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Debussy's single string quartet, dating from 1893, has overtones of César Franck yet the voice is unmistakeably Debussy's. Motifs are treated playfully, with what was a melody one moment becoming an accompaniment pattern the next. The Melos Quartet's reputation is second to none, and it's no surprise that this Penguin Rosette-winning recording is characterful and convincing.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Vocal & Opera
In many ways, Pelléas works better than most operas without the visual element; Debussy's setting of the words is speech-like and uncluttered, and the imagination can take full flight to imagine the myth-like setting. Boulez allows every detail of this intricate score to shine through, with Elisabeth Söderström is a poised, elusive Mélisande, George Shirley an unusually virile Pelleas, and Donald McIntyre a frighteningly intense Golaud.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Debussy's solo songs possess an easy, lyrical charm, dealing with mystical, impressionistic subjects that sometimes turn towards the sensual. Hyperion's complete set are really the only Debussy song recordings you're ever likely to need; though the songs aren't specifically allocated to voice types, this volume comprises songs that seem particularly to suit female voices - here the mellifluous tones of Lorna Anderson and Lisa Milne, accompanied by Malcolm Martineau.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Baritone Christopher Maltman takes up the baton in this volume, which includes fives settings of poemes by Baudelaire and three by Verlaine. Accompanied again by Malcolm Martineau, they're nuanced and sensitive performances.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
David Smith - Head of Digital
