Claude Debussy
      Orchestral Works

* Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune
* 3 Nocturnes
* Pelleas et Melisande -- Concert Suite (arr. Leinsdorf)

Berlin Philharmonic/Claudio Abbado
Deutsche Grammophon 289 471 332-2  {DDD} TT: 61:54

Summary for the Busy Executive: Pretty and little else.

Debussy's music is, to a large extent, surface.  That is, its effect
comes from beautiful orchestral colors and harmonies.  However, one
largely misses the point if one does not go beyond the surface.  Great
Debussy conductors -- Ansermet, Munch, Ormandy, Boulez, Thomas, Stokowski,
and (yes) Szell -- express a vision that goes beyond the notes.  Ansermet
gives you the fragility and subtlety of the music -- something very close
to Debussy's own view.  Stokowski gives you the passion -- very close
to what we know of Debussy's life.  Szell mines the nervous energy and
the architecture, giving us in orchestral form something close to the
disturbance of the late piano music.  Boulez presents the architecture
and the very French rapture for form.  Munch gets the music to dance.

There's nothing wrong with this CD.  After all, Abbado and the Berlin
are among the best in the world.  However, with the exception of "Sirenes,"
the third of the Trois Nocturnes, nothing comes alive.  The players stop
at the surface and, I would venture to add, phone it in.  The playing
comes across as routine.  Emmanuel Pahud's flute will never sound bad,
but he never seems to fully comprehend the shape of his opening solo
in the Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune.  The Berlin Philharmonic can
get away with this sort of thing, because it has a corps among the most
skilled in the world.  But compare this with the "but-little-lower"
Chicago and Cleveland under Boulez, the San Francisco under Thomas, or
even the scrappy Suisse Romande under Ansermet and you see that Berlin
is an instrument, a mechanism, rather than an ensemble of orchestral
minds.

Almost everything here has been recorded as well or better elsewhere.
The joker in the pack is Leinsdorf's collection (with some additional
music gathered by Abbado) of music from Pelleas et Melisande.  I agree
with Debussy's objections to publishing the instrumental extracts.  The
music is so closely tied to the stage action (such as it is), it tends
to die without the dramatic action to support it.  It's no "Ride of the
Valkyries" or "Siegfried's Rhine Journey." The actions it captures are
far less overt.  Since I have the opera, I don't really need the suite
or this sleepwalking performance, for that matter.

The recorded sound is acceptable, but not outstanding -- a bit boxy for
my tastes.

Steve Schwartz