St Petersburg, Concert Hall

Debussy. Ravel. Berlioz

The Mariinsky Orchestra
Conductor: Pablo Heras-Casado

The programme includes:
Claude Debussy
La Mer

Maurice Ravel
Suite No 2 from the ballet Daphnis et Chloé

Hector Berlioz
Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14

The symphonic suite La Mer (1905) was not only the pinnacle of Claude Debussy’s career, but a masterpiece, a symbol, a “style icon” as we would say today of impressionism in music. In art, the impressionists developed a new technique of painting based on short brushstrokes and which stood out for the almost “flickering” quality of the layers of paint, while Claude Debussy created his own, utterly unique fabric of sounds. In counterbalance to classical music, where the work refers back to a precise division of relief and background (accompaniment), the French composer combined the relief and background in colourful textural sound images. The brief melodies appear then quickly disappear, succeeded by similar ones, defining the work no more than the spume on the crest of a wave in the sea. The element of water is an ideal metaphor for Debussy’s style. Later Pierre Boulaise called these sound objects “textural diagonals”; they blend the classical division into the horizontal (the melody) and the vertical (the chords) and open up the path of timbre and sonority in 20th century music. The effect achieved by Debussy was that of ephemera, a sketch, an embodiment of every second, the desire to sense and live every detail and every sound to the full. This is also reflected in the composer’s definition of the genre of La Mer as symphonic sketches. The need to build a classically structured composition falls away: the composer related to form as to a rope of pearls, the sound images following one after another.
The orchestral score of La Mer is one of the most demanding in the international symphony repertoire, and the opportunity to hear this work performed live is tremendous good fortune.
Daniil Shutko

Staged by the Russian ballet-master Michel Fokine, Daphnis et Chloé (1907–1912) was the fruit of the brilliant collaboration between Maurice Ravel and the Saisons russes company headed by Sergei Diaghilev. Free of any specific ballet genre, the music of Daphnis et Chloé is extremely “pliant” and colourful. The libretto of Daphnis et Chloé is based on motifs from a mythological novel about a young shepherd and shepherdess by the Ancient Greek writer Longus (c. 3rd century AD). The outline of the plot is quite straightforward: the young shepherd Daphnis and the young shepherdess Chloé love each other. The hour of their wedding is approaching fast when the beautiful shepherdess is abducted by pirates. Daphnis is inconsolable; taking pity on him, Pan – the god of fertility and protector of shepherds – decides to help the unfortunate young man. He wrenches Chloé from the pirates’ clutches and returns her to her despairing fiancé; the ballet concludes with a scene of dazzling festivities: the shepherds and shepherdesses sing the praises of the god Pan. Ravel composed two symphonic suites based on the ballet music. The second of these, based on the third and final scene of the ballet, is particularly popular; opening with a majestic Sunrise, the enemy forces are vanquished, a new day dawns and the awakening of nature is in harmony with the emotions of the protagonists. From silence and soft rustlings, conveying the mood of the hour before dawn, the music grows into a majestic hymn to love and light.
Yegor Kovalevsky

“A huge symphonic composition in a new genre, by means of which I shall attempt to make a great impression on my audience,” was how Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) described the score of his Symphonie fantastique (1830), a clear manifesto of musical romanticism. The composer was not relying on the imagination of his audience, which had learned the classicist model of the symphony. And as well as the titles of the movements of the Symphonie fantastique he gave it a well-developed literary programme in which autobiographical motifs are reflected: the story of the young composer’s passionate love for the Irish Harriet Smithson, prima donna of an English theatre company on tour in Paris.
In following the programme, the attentive listener will not miss the details of the plot of this musical “novella”, brilliantly brought to life by means of the symphony orchestra. The central image of the symphony, its idé fixe, is the theme of love which cements together the entire cycle. It appears in various forms – ranging from the dreamlike contours of a beautiful and desirable woman in the first three movements to grotesque and caricature in the final two. The Symphonie fantastique was first performed in Paris on 5 December 1830 under the baton of the composer.
Iosif Raiskin

Age category 6+

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