Debussy: La Mer, Jeux, Prelude / Gergiev

Valery Gergiev, London Symphony Orchestra

Debussy
La Mer, Jeux
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune

Valery Gergiev has been performing Debussy's music regularly with the LSO since he became Principal Conductor of the orchestra in 2007. For his latest LSO Live release he records three of Debussy's most well-known works for the first time, including a sensational performance of La mer.
One of the twentieth century's most innovative and influential composers, Debussy was a "musical impressionist", although it was a term he disliked. Despite running to little over ten minutes in duration, the sublime Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune is widely regarded as one of the important and revolutionary of musical works. La mer was completed ten years later whilst Debussy was living in Eastbourne in Sussex and is a spectacular orchestral showpiece. Jeux, one of Debussy's final orchestral works, was written for Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes.
Valery Gergiev's recent releases have included acclaimed recordings of Mahler's Symphony No 5 and music by Debussy's French contemporary Ravel. Also in April 2011, the Mariinsky label releases the thrid instalment of Gergiev's Shostakovich symphony cycle featuring the Third and Tenth Symphonies. Gergiev and the LSO perform in London and Paris in March before embarking on a European tour in May, visiting Germany, Switzerland and theNetherlands.
Reviews
'virtuoso attention to detail and stylistic élan were on show from the start in a pungent performance of Debussy's three orchestral sketches, La Mer' The Times
'For his players, this [La Mer] was a virtuoso orchestral showcase of relentless proportions. It seemed to have been meticulously rehearsed, with the instruments precisely blended and mercurially responsive to Gergiev's tweaks of tempo and mood. This was a characteristic LSO-at-the-Barbican sound: big, bold and glossy in the best sense' The Guardian
'Gergiev and the LSO at their best: a sensual, supremely unhurried reading of Debussy's Prélude à l'après midi d'un faune in which Gareth Davies's flute shimmered into focus over limpid pools of colour from the harp and strings' Independent
'Debussy's Jeux, was conceived by Diaghilev and Njinsky as a homoerotic shocker. But the choreography, and the absurd plot about the fumblings of three tennis players, proved instantly forgettable. Not so Debussy's music, which is pure grace. Magical harmonic and timbral shifts hang off a gently unfolding arabesque, leaving the listener weightless. Such effects, of course, require quite an orchestra. The LSO is just such an orchestra' The Guardian
'Gergiev was an imaginative dance master in Jeux, his hands choreographing every nerve of the music' The Times

Price: $19.98