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Classical

Debussy. Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (arranged for chamber ensemble by David Walter); Sonatas; String Quartet in G Minor. Nash Ensemble

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (arranged for chamber ensemble by David Walter); Sonatas; String Quartet in G Minor. Nash Ensemble.
Debussy. Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (arranged for chamber ensemble by David Walter); Sonatas; String Quartet in G Minor. Nash Ensemble
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Almost providentially, I found myself listening the other day to the 1970 DG recording of Debussy’s late sonatas by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. “Providentially” because just a few days later came this new recording from the Nash Ensemble, coupling the same sonatas with the early string quartet and the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. A comparison across more than a half a century of record-making would seem to be in order.  

The Boston accounts of the three sonatas—the only ones Debussy wrote of an intended six “pour divers instruments”—were highly praised at the time. But as listening made clear, they were very close-miked, oddly balanced (the harp sounds gigantic), and prone to picking up noises from the street outside Symphony Hall. Joseph Silverstein’s playing in the Violin Sonata (1917) still sounds hot and symphonic, as you might expect from a world-class concertmaster. He was able to manage that approach, but the BSO’s principal flutist Doriot Anthony Dwyer, trying something similar in the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp (1915), too often sounds driven and unnuanced. String principals Burton Fine (viola) and Jules Eskin (cello) are adequate if rarely exceptional, while the piano playing of a young Michael Tilson Thomas in the sonatas for violin and cello is admirable and always respectful.

This new recording from England’s Nash Ensemble casts an entirely different light on these works, however. The performances are highly profiled, the conversation between instruments intimate and articulate. The Nash players are very attentive to Debussy’s expressive markings and bowings, and the pairings and “sharings” of figures sound nicely dovetailed and perfectly in tune. In the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp, violist Lawrence Power is not afraid to stand out, swelling his sound, bowing aggressively on the bridge, but only where Debussy’s markings call for it. It’s a risky gambit, but it’s what Debussy wanted (we should remember that Debussy himself coached Darius Milhaud, no wallflower, in the first performance of this part). Elsewhere there is first-rate playing from every member of the ensemble: flutist Philippa Davies and harpist Lucy Wakeford in the aforementioned sonata; cellist Adrian Brendel (son of Alfred) and pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips in a reading of the 1915 Cello Sonata that’s a total gas; and violinist Stephanie Gonley and pianist Alasdair Beatson in the Violin Sonata.

All this would be more than enough, but there’s also a good account of the quartet (with Brendel again doing the honors on cello) plus a rather breathless rendition of the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune for an ensemble of 12, although here, less is not more—Debussy knew what he was doing when he scored the piece for full orchestra. The recordings, made in two venues in London during the winter of 2023–24, are well balanced and very natural except for that of the Prélude, where reflections off the walls (especially with the horn) often harm the clarity of the texture. There is beautiful piano sound in the two sonatas that call for that instrument. 

Tags: MUSIC CLASSICAL

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