Here the work is coupled with two Rhapsodies for solo winds and orchestra, both also strikingly good, although less often heard than many of the composer's other works.
These performances come to us from 1972 and composer-conductor Marius Constant (1925-2004), leading the Orchestre Philharmonique de l'ORTF (the present-day Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France).
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| Marius Constant |
The disk is one of a series of LPs produced by Radio France showcasing its two orchestras - the Orchestre National and the Philharmonique. We most recently heard the former ensemble in music of Gabriel Pierné and Maurice Duruflé. Constant was the music director of French radio when he made this present album.
Constant also was a noted composer who is fated to be most remembered in the popular imagination by the theme from the American television program The Twilight Zone. Ironically, this theme was constructed by combining two pieces of library music that Constant had composed for a fixed fee.
Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien
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| Ida Rubinstein as Saint Sebastian |
The resulting hybrid work was overlong (five hours!), overheated and controversial - the bishop of Paris condemned the idea of the person playing Saint Sebastian being a woman and a Jew.
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| Gabriele D'Annunzio, aesthete and future Duce |
D'Annunzio was allied with the Decadent movement in the arts, which stressed sensuality and mysticism. Debussy, similarly, was influenced by the Symbolist poets Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud and Verlaine. He famously rejected the structural thinking that underlies such forms as the symphony, instead looking to the Russians, Chopin and literature for inspiration.
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| Claude Debussy in 1909 |
The complete Martyre is almost never heard today. Instead, it is usually represented by the four Fragments symphoniques that Debussy's pupil and friend André Caplet assembled from the score.
- La Cour de Lys (The Court of Lilies). Several tableaux depicting Sebastian's life, including his asking for a sign from God as he witnesses two young Christians being tortured to death.
- Danse extatique et Final du 1er Acte (Ecstatic Dance and Finale of the 1st Act). Sebastian dances on hot coals as lilies emerge from the ground.
- La Passion (The Passion). Sebastian experiences ecstasy as he anticipates being put to death.
- Le Bon Pasteur (The Good Shepherd). Set in Apollo's grove, in which Sebastian has a vision of the shepherd and a sacrificial lamb.
Constant himself wrote many ballet scores, and his reading of Debussy's music is entirely sympathetic without any indulgences.
A side note about Gabriele D'Annunzio, a remarkable character. He was to distinguish himself as a Royal Italian Army officer during World War I. Postwar, he marched into Fiume and set up the short-lived Italian Regency of Carnaro with himself as Duce, emphasizing concerts and daily poetry readings. Some of his ideas and symbols were to influence Benito Mussolini and eventually Adolf Hitler.
Première rhapsodie, pour clarinette et orchestre
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| Guy Deplus |
Debussy wrote his clarinet rhapsody in 1909-10 as an examination piece for the Conservatoire de Paris. The critic Trevor Harvey wrote in his Gramophone review of this LP, "Debussy himself thought highly enough of it to proceed to its orchestration, and marvelously he did it, too. Marius Constant realises it most poetically." I might add that the distinguished soloist Guy Deplus is faultless, as well.
Deplus was the professor of clarinet at the Conservatoire de Paris at the time.
Rhapsodie pour saxophone et orchestre
Debussy's rhapsody for saxophone has an unusual history. It was commissioned by the American Elise Hall, who was learning the instrument as a way to fend off encroaching deafness. (It didn't work.) She paid in advance, a mistake because the composer had few compunctions about not completing the piece, even after she showed up on his doorstep more than once.
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| Elise Hall - dressed like an umbrella? |
Debussy somehow acted the aggrieved party in all of this, complaining that Hall was "an old bat who dresses like an umbrella." He eventually finished the short score, selling it to a publisher. Jean Roger-Ducasse finally realized the orchestration in 1919, after Debussy's death, but Hall never heard it.
A shame, because it is quite a good composition. Trevor Harvey's verdict on the performance: "On the whole I just slightly prefer this Erato version to the CBS [Stanley Drucker with the New York Philharmonic] since, while both soloists are splendid, those in the Erato are more integrated into the orchestral texture, yet never failing to speak out loud and clear at the right moments. The general orchestral sound is just right for such music."
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| Daniel Deffayet |
The soloist on this record is Daniel Deffayet, who was professor of saxophone at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he succeeded his teacher Marcel Mule.
The recording of this music is excellent, derived from a flawless pressing. The link below is to a 16-bit, 44.1kHz transfer. A 24-bit, 96kHz version is available upon request.
LINK (16-bit, 44.1kHz)
An Earlier Set of Recordings
My other blog has a new post that presents 1931 recordings by Piero Coppola of some of the music on the Erato LP above. These comprise two of the four Fragments symphoniques from Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien and a performance of the Clarinet Rhapsody with Gaston Hamelin.
