Artist: Philharmonia Orchestra, Pablo Heras-Casado
Album: Debussy: La Mer, Le Martyre De Saint Sébastien
Genre: Classical
Release Date: 2018
Audio Format:: FLAC (tracks) 24 bit, 48 kHz
Duration: 57:02
Total Tracks: 8
Total Size: 510 MB

Tracklist:

1-1. Philharmonia Orchestra And Pablo Heras-Casado – Claude Debussy: Prélude À L’après-midi D’un Faune, L. 86 (09:47)
1-2. Philharmonia Orchestra And Pablo Heras-Casado – Claude Debussy: Le Martyre De Saint Sébastien, Fragments Symphoniques, L. 124, I. La Cour Des Lys (03:44)
1-3. Philharmonia Orchestra And Pablo Heras-Casado – Claude Debussy: Le Martyre De Saint Sébastien, Fragments Symphoniques, L. 124: II. Danse Extatique. Final De L’acte I (06:35)
1-4. Philharmonia Orchestra And Pablo Heras-Casado – Claude Debussy: Le Martyre De Saint Sébastien, Fragments Symphoniques, L. 124: III. La Passion (06:22)
1-5. Philharmonia Orchestra And Pablo Heras-Casado – Claude Debussy: Le Martyre De Saint Sébastien, Fragments Symphoniques, L. 124: IV. Le Bon Pasteur (07:05)
1-6. Philharmonia Orchestra And Pablo Heras-Casado – Claude Debussy: La Mer, Trois Esquisses Symphoniques, L. 109: I. De L’aube À Midi Sur La Mer (08:37)
1-7. Philharmonia Orchestra And Pablo Heras-Casado – Claude Debussy: La Mer, Trois Esquisses Symphoniques, L. 109: II. Jeux De Vagues (06:43)
1-8. Philharmonia Orchestra And Pablo Heras-Casado – Claude Debussy: La Mer, Trois Esquisses Symphoniques, L. 109: III. Dialogue Du Vent Et De La Mer (08:06)

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2018 marks the centenary of the death of Claude Debussy. Considered by some to be the father of modern music, Debussy’s highly original system of harmony and musical structure expressed in many respects the ideals to which the Impressionist and Symbolist movements of his time aspired. Alongside two shimmering masterpieces, La Mer and the celebrated Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, the Symphonic Fragments from Le Martyre de saint Sébastien receive loving attention from the distinguished musicians of the Philharmonia Orchestra – making their harmonia mundi label début – conducted by Maestro Pablo Heras-Casado.Moving from Palestrina to Boulez with stupefying ease, Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado is interested in all music, beyond boundaries of epochs and styles. For this album, recorded as part of the publications planned by French label harmonia mundi to mark Debussy’s centenary, Heras-Casado is conducting the famous London Philharmonic Orchestra, which, much like him, can happily play all sorts of music. It’s a classic programme: the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, which shows off the splendour of Samuel Coles’s flute, and La Mer, shimmering and diaphanous, but whose rising tide gracefully carries all before in the train of the the London orchestra’s flamboyant brass. Rarer are the symphonic extracts from the The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, a somewhat ill-starred work, a kind of ballet-oratorio for solo vocalists, mixed choir and symphonic orchestra that Debussy had written for the dancer Ida Rubinstein, based on a fashionably outdated text by Gabriele D’Annunzio. The original work, in five acts, lasted five hours and was threatened with a ban by the Archbishop of Paris, who was shocked by the heathen representation of the young Sebastian, who resembled a beautiful Adonis. This transfiguration, in fact already made by many painters of the Italian Renaissance, was surely too much for the era, and the work had no success, in spite of the beauty of Debussy’s music. Only the “symphonic fragments”, recorchestrated by André Caplet, survived the shipwreck.  – François Hudry