Claude Debussy
The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian

*  Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien

Ann Murray (mezzo), Nathalie Stutzmann (mezzo),
Sylvia McNair (soprano), Leslie Caron (narrator)
London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra/Michael Tilson Thomas
Total Time: 66:16
Sony SK 48240

Summary for the Busy Executive: Gorgeous.

A major work by a major composer, Le Martyre remains little done
and relatively unknown.  Composed in 1911 and premiered the same year,
Debussy originally created it as music for the production of a gargantuan,
five-act, five-hour spectacle for the dancer Ida Rubinstein, written by
D'Annunzio.  The play (or at least what's survived in recorded versions
of the music) fully deserves its obscurity - another tiresome, decadent
kitsch-fest writers loved to produce around the turn of the century when
they wanted to be especially poetic (think of Wilde's Salome and
Hoffmannstahl's Josephslegende).

D'Annunzio's original sprawl certainly hasn't helped Debussy's music,
while Debussy's music is about the only point in favor of remembering
D'Annunzio's play at all, so the question becomes one of a good performing
concert edition.  There are at least four, none of them really standard:
a suite of instrumental interludes; a performing version by Germaine
Inghelbrecht, I believe recorded by Munch and the Boston on RCA, although
it left out certain numbers; a performing version by Bernstein, at one time
available on a Sony CD; Thomas's version, which claims to present all of
Debussy's music.  The Munch performance is wonderful, but it leaves out
stuff.  Bernstein substituted his own narration, more arch than Eric Idle's
"nudge-nudge" man, and I find it unlistenable for that reason.  Thomas
really does have the edge here.  This version of course lacks the
continuity of the full deal, although it makes use of Inghelbrecht's
narration, drawn from D'Annunzio's text.  However, it's really all you need
and perhaps more, especially if you already know the Sebastian story (he's
the guy with the arrows sticking into him in the Renaissance paintings).
Thomas writes a particularly apt phrase on the effect of this version on at
least me:  "It is like the fragments of an ancient gospel." The fragments
contribute to the mystery of the work.  Unlike a Handel oratorio, which
presents a narrative in full, Thomas's Le Martyre forces the listener to
ponder meaning.  It's as if we were reading a book in which random pages
have been torn out.  Sometimes we get the detail we need, sometimes too
much detail, sometimes too little, and sometimes nothing at all.

But most significant attraction of the work lies in - make no mistake -
the very great beauty of the music itself.  It counts as some of the most
exquisite Debussy ever wrote, which says a lot, because it's Debussy.  I
first heard the work (Munch performance) one Christmas while riding in the
family car.  I turned on the radio at the point of the glorious final
psalm, "Louez le Seigneur dans l'immensite de sa force" (praise the Lord
in the immensity of his power), and I imagined heaven opening up before me,
with celestial alleluias trumpeting from the four corners and disappearing
into the skies.  I had to get to know this score and bought the LP with
my own money.  It was undoubtedly one of the first LPs I ever owned.
Nevertheless, it comes from Debussy's last period, probably the least known
part of his catalogue, boasting such works as Jeux, En blanc et noir, the
Villon ballades, and the sonatas.

In some sense, the music is a sport.  Debussy not only revived his idiom
for La damoiselle elue (deepened by decades of experience) but also came
up with music one-of-a-kind.  Some things are unprecedented and never
repeated.  He wrote the music in a blazing two months, with his disciple
Andre Caplet coming in at the end to help finish the orchestration.  To be
honest, a few of the numbers - most especially the choral hymn to Apollo
by the "Musicians" - definitely show the haste and remind one of a DeMille
epic.  Most of it, however, sings "a new song," at times exhilarating, at
others quietly rapt.  Quiet, slow moments predominate, and Debussy succeeds
not only at keeping your attention, but at overwhelming you with the beauty
of his song.  The music transforms the purple poetry to mystical ecstasy.
I have no idea how Debussy came up with such wonderful music to such a
trashy text, but clearly he had a higher opinion of D'Annunzio's work than
I do, and that's all that matters.

Everything depends on the women soloists, and the trio here helps lift
this performance to an incredible level.  I don't know what it is, but
singers who master French and French song strike me as the smartest of
their tribe - viz.  von Stade, Blegen, McNair, Herbillon, Souzay, Panzera,
Sills, Singher, and so on.  They put out a line of great beauty and great
subtlety, so sensitive to emotional nuance, it almost quivers.  That's
certainly the case with McNair and Murray (no relation to Canada's
"snowbird"), and Stutzmann - while not quite at that level - ain't exactly
Dorito crumbs.  Perhaps the music demands it of them.  In order to get
through the music at all convincingly, one has to sing pretty damn well.

Yet another brilliant piece of casting is Leslie Caron as the narrator.
Of course she speaks French, but without classical stage declamation.
Her movie training serves her very well and also D'Annunzio's text.
Her "natural" delivery takes much of the plumminess off, whereas a stage
actress, trained in, say, Racine, would tend to inflate the doggerel until
it popped.  And, of course, her speaking voice is seven kinds of beautiful
all by itself.

Thomas, the orchestra, and the chorus do this music better than I knew
possible.  As far as I'm concerned, they set the standard.  The work and
the performance are so rapturous, I can't describe what a glory it is just
to listen.  I urge you, however, to pick up this CD before it goes out of
print.

Steve Schwartz