Debussy & Schoenberg: Pelléas & Mélisande (Pentatone) Review

Debussy & Schoenberg: Pelléas & Mélisande

Length: 88 minutes

Conductor: Jonathan Nott

Orchestra: Orchestre de la Suisse Romande

   The new Debussy & Schoenberg: Pelléas & Mélisande album released by Pentatone is quite a nice introduction to the fantastic Opera Pelléas & Mélisande, the only finished opera by legendary French Impressionist composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) (there is three unfinished opera: La chute de la maison Usher, Le diable dans le beffroi, and Rodrigue et Chimène) based off Maurice Maeterlinck’s

play Pelléas et Mélisande. 

    

    The sketch of the opera was completed by the summer of 1895; with several revisions and completion of its orchestration in the following few years, the opera had its premiere at the Salle Favart in Paris by the Opéra-Comique on 30 April 1902 and has since became a stable of the operatic repertoire.

    There had been quite a few purely Orchestral transcription of this opera since its premiere: Gustave Samazeuilh made a piano arrangement of the orchestral interludes; Erich Leinsdorf made an orchestral suite which also mainly drawn from the interludes; other orchestral suites of the opera followed the same structure of these earlier arrangements of either working with the interludes or other purely orchestral passages of the opera. 

    However, this album released by Pentatone features a world premiere recording of Pelléas et Mélisande, Suite symphonique, an orchestral tone poem arranged by English conductor Jonathan Nott, lasting 45 minutes. This orchestral tone poem differs from previous arrangements of the opera in that it draws a lot of materials from the sung scenes of the opera instead of the orchestral interludes.

    Most of the music in this orchestral tone poem comes directly from Debussy's original orchestrations of the opera, with a few linking notes to ease the symphonic flow from one section to the next, in additions to instrumental transcriptions of the vocal lines assigned to different instruments in an attempt to capture the different emotions in the absence of actual lyrics, which it does very well.

    For my review, personally I believe this is a fantastic arrangement of the Debussy's opera, and a great introduction, or even an alternative to the opera. Of course the orchestral arrangement cannot replace the experience of an Opera which I strongly suggest any fans of Debussy to watch the opera on YouTube as it is an absolute masterpiece (although the Boulez recording has atrocious subtitle syncing,) this arrangement is great for those that just wants an orchestral version of the piece, or are unaccustomed to operatic singing or any other reasons.

    The Pelléas et Mélisande, Suite symphonique is paired on this album with Arnold Schoenberg's (1874-1951) Pelleas und Melisande, op. 5, completed in 1905, just 3 years after the premiere of Debussy's opera. 

    The booklet of the album which could be found on the album, and also on IDAGIO in PDF form, goes in depth to Schoenberg's creative thoughts of this piece, his views on Debussy's Opera based on the same material, and other basic analysis of Schoenberg's symphonic poems that would help first time listeners to understand the piece better, including detailed description of what is going on at each movement of both the Schoenberg's symphonic poem and the arrangement of Debussy's opera, and I suggest anyone interested in these two pieces to check out the booklet.

    As to the recording of Schoenberg's piece, this particular recording with the OSR (Orchestre de la Suisse Romande) and Jonathan Nott as conductor is average for me. If anyone wishes to listen to a more outstanding recording I suggest conductor Jonathan Darlington and Duisburger Philharmoniker on Chandos. However, the Orchestral arrangement from the album is definitely worth a listen, and the pairing certainly give us listeners an opportunity to compare both pieces and see how the two composers treated this wonderfully dreamy, surrealist, and haunting story.