It’s like listening in black and white rather than colour. The music’s generally soft-toned orchestral landscape is both vivid and beautifully shaded...sensitively played and paced under Roth’s direction, and conveying like few other recordings the work’s unique and poignant emotional charge.

This latest version has a superb orchestra in the period instrument band Les Siècles, with its vast range of Impressionistic colors carefully led by Roth. This is a pleasure to hear. Also a pleasure is the Francophone cast, as the text, so important in this work, is so clearly and deftly sung, especially by the two main leads. This must be a version to have alongside your favorite Pelléas et Mélisande.

I enjoyed the orchestral contributions of Les Siècles and the lucidity that period instruments bring to Debussy’s score. Roth doesn’t cut string vibrato entirely, but there’s an almost clinical clarity to their playing.

Two features particularly characterize François-Xavier Roth’s deeply felt and precisely communicated account: the astonishing intimacy of the instrumental wrap-around and the devastating clarity of Debussian musicodramatic purpose which in context it is used to sustain...even the most recording-savvy Pelléas-lover will surely want to get hold of this latest addition to the work’s discography.

The metaphorical curtain has barely risen on Debussy’s uncanny forest before the special magic created by the use of early twentieth-century wind and brass instruments kicks in. The other striking aspect of this recording is the slightly unorthodox characterisation of the three main roles: this is a very human Pélleas rather than an interpretation which cloaks the central relationships in mysticism, and though some listeners may baulk at that as tantamount to heresy I found it ultimately all the more moving.

Roth makes Debussy’s handling of orchestral colour seem more magical than ever, and even though his orchestra lacks the sheer tonal heft of a modern band, the great climaxes seem more intense than ever, while the moments of quiet lyricism are wrapped in textures of extraordinary delicacy…In an opera in which words matter so much, it’s a huge advantage having an entirely Francophone cast. Here every single syllable is distinct.

Roth’s conducting brings new magic into Debussy’s music. He conducts it more dramatically than many other conductors, and thus drives the action ceaselessly forward. The period instruments of Les Siècles provide wonderful colours, perfect clarity and the greatest possible transparency.