Composer: Claude Achille Debussy
Orchestra: Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire
Conductor: Pascal Rophé
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: BIS
Catalogue: BIS2622
Release: 2022
Size: 1.05 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Petite suite, L. 65
01. I. En bateau
02. II. Cortège
03. III. Menuet
04. IV. Ballet
La boîte à joujoux, L. 128
05. Prélude
06. No. 1, Le magasin de jouets
07. No. 2, Le champ de bataille
08. No. 3, La bergerie à vendre
09. No. 4, Après fortune faite
10. Épilogue
Children’s Corner, L. 113
11. I. Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum
12. II. Jimbo’s Lullaby
13. III. Serenade for the Doll
14. IV. The Snow Is Dancing
15. V. The Little Shepherd
16. VI. Golliwog’s Cake-Walk
With the present recording, Pascal Rophé and his Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire pay tribute to their great countryman, Claude Debussy – but not with the standard orchestral fare. “Debussy Orchestrated” paints a portrait of a light-hearted composer, seen through the eyes of two of his collaborators, Henri Büsser and André Caplet, who transferred the works recorded here from the keyboard to the orchestra.
In Petite Suite, composed for piano four-hands in 1899, Debussy makes allusions to Fêtes galantes by Paul Verlaine, the poet who so often inspired him. Büsser’s orchestration of this light and pleasant suite was made in 1907, and obviously pleased Debussy, as he later entrusted him with making an orchestral version of Printemps.
As for Children’s Corner and La Boîte à joujoux, it is probably fair to say that the composer’s main inspiration was his own daughter, Claude-Emma, born in 1905. Both works are dedicated to her, and it is easy to imagine that some of the characters that appear in Children’s Corner had their counterparts among her toys.
Letting toys come alive in a ballet was the idea that illustrator André Hellé a few years later presented to Debussy with La Boîte à joujoux. The piano version of the piece was published, with Hellé’s illustrations, in time for Christmas in 1913 and Debussy began orchestrating it the following year, but died before he could complete the task. His friend André Caplet – who had already orchestrated Children’s Corner – took over and the ballet was finally premièred in December 1919.