Nocturnes - La mer - Prélude à l'après midi

Description

Here is Debussy by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos with the London Symphony Orchestra, recorded in 1988, and just reissued by the budget label Alto. An album that went unnoticed in France but won a few accolades in England. The Prélude is lively thanks to a brisk beat. The faun is there, as is his erotic lament, but linking the sections, there slips in a choreographic gesture that Holliger, in his recent recording on Hänssler, set aside. It breathes and takes shape. The Nocturnes are mobile, Sirènes and Nuages fluid, Fêtes with spaces alternating between fury and nocturne, but first and foremost it is an obvious interpretation of La Mer that defines the record. Obvious in the tempi, the articulations, the colors, but also in the marriage between a precise, finely shaped reading and a gesture of golden sensuality that gives Jeux de vagues its scherzo character and makes Dialogue du vent et de la mer a lyrical scene. A fine Debussy record, very much in keeping with the art of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, who it is time to rehabilitate (Discophilia, Artalinna.com). (Jean-Charles Hoffelé)