Colin Matthews - The Debussy Preludes (Mark Elder)

Information

Composer: Claude Debussy; Colin Matthews

• 24 Preludes by Claude Debussy, arranged for orchestra
• Postlude: Monsieur Croche

Hallé Orchestra

Mark Elder, conductor

Date: 2010

Label: Hallé Concerts Society

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Review

Musical literalists may not be pleased with Colin Matthews' free orchestral arrangements of the 24 movements of Debussy's two books of Préludes pour le piano; this is certainly not the equivalent of Ravel's faithful orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Fans of impressionist orchestral music and some fans of the piano originals, though, may well experience a thrill, as if a lost Debussy orchestral piece had been rediscovered. Matthews has a consummate, almost uncanny understanding of Debussy's orchestrational style, and the occasional sonorities that betray the work's modern provenance clearly sound like intentional artistic decisions and not miscalculations. Debussy was a composer whose language and orchestration were always evolving, and it requires no stretch whatsoever to imagine that these orchestrations could have been his own. Listeners who know the piano preludes will be fascinated to hear the ways in which Matthews has reimagined them, sometimes even adding material, extending their length, and altering note values to make the music fit the orchestral idiom with complete naturalness. Matthews reorders the preludes, mixing the two books, opening with Brouillards, the first prelude from the second book and ending the set with a gorgeous, grand, radiant version of La cathédrale engloutie. He also adds an original postlude, titled Monsieur Croche (the composer's pen name as a music critic), which he describes as being closer to Debussy's style than he had "intended or expected." The commissioners of the arrangement, Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra, perform it with luminous transparency and idiomatic sensitivity to roots in Impressionism. The sound is clean, clear, and present. Highly recommended.

-- Stephen Eddins, AllMusic

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2007/may07/Debussy_Halle_cdhll7513.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/Apr09/Debussy_Matthews_CDHLL7518.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2010/May10/Debussy_Matthews_CDHLL7518.htm

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/miscellaneous/debussy-87/

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/orchestral/debussy-colin-matthews/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/mar/16/classicalmusicandopera.shopping4

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/feb/19/debussy-jeux-12-preludes?CMP=gu_com

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Claude Debussy (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music, though he disliked the term when applied to his compositions. Debussy is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. His innovative harmonies and his use of non-traditional scales were influential to almost every major composer of the 20th century and also some modern music groups. Debussy's music is noted for its sensory content and frequent usage of nontraditional tonalities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy

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Colin Matthews (born 13 February 1946) is an English composer of contemporary classical music. He studied composition at the University of Nottingham and obtained his doctorate at the University of Sussex. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, Britten, Debussy, Dowland, Mahler, Purcell and Schubert. His chamber music includes five string quartets, two oboe quartets, a Divertimento for double string quartet, and a substantial body of piano music. He is founder and Executive Producer of NMC Recordings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Matthews

https://colinmatthews.net/

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Mark Elder (born 2 June 1947) is a British conductor. He attended Corpus Christi College, Cambridge as a choral scholar, and later became a protégé of Edward Downes. Elder was the music director of English National Opera (1979-93), music director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (1989-94), and was appointed music director of the Hallé Orchestra in 1999. He has also been President of the London Philharmonic Choir from 2014 and is currently the Royal Academy of Music's Barbirolli Chair of Conducting. Elder has recorded for the Hyperion, NMC, Chandos, Opera Rara, as well as Hallé Orchestra's own label.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Elder

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