Help
Skip to main content

US TARIFFS UPDATE | August 2025 | No impact expected on your Presto orders | Read full details

Schoenberg & Fauré: Pelléas et Mélisande

Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Järvi

Schoenberg & Fauré: Pelléas et Mélisande

Awards:

What makes this performance especially persuasive is Järvi’s ability to control the constantly fluctuating tempo changes in Schoenberg’s score without losing sight of the music’s structural...

Schoenberg & Fauré: Pelléas et Mélisande

Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Järvi

Purchase product

CD

$18.75

2 in stock: usually despatched within 1 working day

Download

From$9.25

Download

Audio formats guide

48 kHz, 24 bit, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

$18.25

44.1 kHz, 16 bit, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

$13.75

320 kbps, MP3

$9.25

This release includes a digital booklet

Stream now Hi-RES 48 kHz, 24 bit

Awards:

What makes this performance especially persuasive is Järvi’s ability to control the constantly fluctuating tempo changes in Schoenberg’s score without losing sight of the music’s structural...

About

No fewer than four major composers -- Faure, Debussy, Schoenberg and Sibelius -- were inspired by Maurice Maeterlink's play Pelleas et Melisande (1892). Given that we celebrate anniversaries of Faure and Schoenberg in 2024, Paavo Jarvi here offers his reading of their settings of Pelleas et Melisande with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, whose Music Director he was for almost ten years. Debussy was so much involved with his own operatic setting of Pelleas et Melisande that the famous English actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell turned to Gabriel Faure to write incidental music for the play; this music then became an orchestral suite in four movements that is considered to be Faure'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 Pelleas et Melisande. 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.

Contents and tracklist

I. Die Achtel ein wenig bewegt – zögernd
Track length3:45
II. Heftig
Track length3:15
III. Lebhaft
Track length4:10
IV. Sehr rasch
Track length6:53
V. Ein wenig bewegt
Track length1:26
VI. Langsam
Track length3:13
VII. Ein wenig bewegter
Track length4:08
VIII. Sehr langsam
Track length4:27
IX. Etwas bewegt
Track length2:30
X. In gehender Bewegung
Track length2:20
XI. Breit
Track length5:41
I. Prélude. Quasi adagio
Track length5:47
II. Fileuse. Andantino quasi Allegretto
Track length2:31
III. Sicilienne. Allegretto molto moderato
Track length3:47
IV. La mort de Mélisande. Molto Adagio
Track length4:53

Awards and reviews

  • Gramophone Magazine
    August 2024
    Editor's Choice
  • BBC Music Magazine
    October 2024
    Orchestral Choice
  • International Classical Music Awards
    2025
    Nominated - Symphonic Music
  • BBC Music Magazine Awards
    2025
    Shortlisted - Orchestral

October 2024

What makes this performance especially persuasive is Järvi’s ability to control the constantly fluctuating tempo changes in Schoenberg’s score without losing sight of the music’s structural cohesion.

August 2024

All credit to Järvi’s Frankfurt orchestra for their total immersion into two such stylistically different sound worlds – a reminder, if such were needed, of music’s ability to move us in mysterious ways with the same story from different storytellers.
View download progress