Recording of the Week, Pelléas et Mélisande from Jonathan Nott and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande

When I first heard word that Jonathan Nott and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande were releasing a recording entitled Pelléas et Mélisande this autumn, I assumed that we’d be getting a studio version of his recent account of Debussy’s opera from Geneva – instead, this new set features the world premiere of Nott's own superb symphonic synthesis of that work, coupled with Schoenberg’s suite from three years later, and it’s a palpable hit on all counts.

The British conductor (who hails from Solihull, just down the road from Presto HQ) is especially well-placed for such a project: as he mentioned in an illuminating interview for Classical Source in 2005, Nott initially trained as a singer and began his transition to conducting during his time at the National Opera Studio after finding himself increasingly drawn to ‘what’s happening on the other side – or, rather, down in the pit’. Given how much of the drama in Pelléas takes place ‘on the other side’, it’s easy to see why the score holds such fascination for him, and this recording will doubtless have special appeal for anyone who caught that live-streamed Geneva performance in February: numerous reviews praised Nott’s conducting to the skies whilst lamenting that the rather convoluted staging pulled focus from the music, especially during the choreographed interludes.

Whilst those interludes were the cornerstone of previous conductors’ orchestral suites from the opera (most notably Erich Leinsdorf’s popular 1946 version), Nott’s significantly more expansive approach draws heavily on the sung scenes, specifically those focusing on the central love-triangle between the title-characters and Mélisande’s volatile husband Golaud. (The material involving Geneviève, Arkel and Yniold is largely excised, which makes for a taut symphonic narrative - though it’s rather a pity to lose that disturbingly tense scene in which Golaud coerces his young son to spy on his ‘petite mère’ and uncle).

And this particular opera lends itself uncommonly well to such treatment: as it’s the orchestra itself which is often the driving-force behind the narrative, there are many passages where Nott’s able to dispense with the vocal lines altogether without any loss in atmosphere or dramatic impetus. In the opening scene where Golaud encounters a mysterious young woman alone and distressed in a forest, for instance, one barely notices the absence of the two voice-parts, and Arkel’s lament over Mélisande’s body is no less moving without the singer’s recitation.

One instance where the vocal line is indispensable is Mélisande’s ‘Mes longs cheveux’ (perhaps the closest thing to an aria in the opera), the Rapunzel-esque central episode in which the heroine lets down her hair from her tower-window, and Nott’s allocation of her music to the cor anglais here is a little masterstroke: not only does it mirror some of Schoenberg’s choices in his own suite, but it also draws an interesting parallel with another opera involving an illicit nocturnal meeting between two ill-fated lovers, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. The woodwind-playing throughout, in fact, is one of the glories of the recording - though the strings are scarcely less impressive, whether conjuring the uncanny forest in the shimmering early scenes or digging into the strings with real ferocity for Golaud’s explosive interruption of the lovers.

If Nott’s approach to Debussy’s music is closer in spirit to the clear-eyed vision of Pierre Boulez rather than the churning romanticism of Simon Rattle’s 2016 recording, he really lets his players off the leash in Schoenberg’s suite from 1905, particularly in the love-scenes (wonderful work from the orchestra’s eloquent concert-master here) and the vicious hair-pulling episode at the centre of the piece, where the edge on the brass sound is downright terrifying. And the coupling of the two works itself is inspired: Nott has evidently taken Schoenberg’s structure as the cue for compiling his own suite from the Debussy, and the pairing offers a fascinating opportunity to compare the two composers’ approaches like-for-like.

A brilliantly-conceived and executed project all round, then – Nott’s symphonic synthesis will surely enjoy a long life beyond this recording, and I can only hope that the conductor might afford similar treatment to one or two of the Wagner operas which have featured prominently in his repertoire over the years…A Nott Tristan paraphrase would certainly be an intriguing prospect.