LDV84

PHILIPPE BIANCONI 23 Why did you record André Caplet’s transcriptions of Le Martyre de saint Sébastien ? Was it to present a different image of Debussy, at oncemystical and aesthetic, in these somewhat Wagnerian pieces in which he himself saw the ‘rebirth of a liturgical music’? Having already recorded what, in my opinion, constitutes everything that is most precious in Debussy, I couldn’t imagine coupling the Études with works of a much earlier period, whose somewhat ‘dated’ language would have suffered from being placed alongside this masterpiece of modernity. So I had the idea of performing the transcriptions of Le Martyre in order to complete the programme with what is already a late work, chronologically closer to the Études , but which, as you say, represents a totally different and novel aesthetic in Debussy’s output. One may be surprised at his enthusiasm for a religious subject, but the sentiment seems to have been deep and sincere. His inspiration suddenly found a hitherto unsuspected mystical dimension. His unfailing admiration for Parsifal , even at the height of his diatribes against Wagner, was probably not unconnected with this sudden desire, stimulated by a commission, to penetrate a domain he had left unexplored until then. Debussy composed some of his loftiest pages of music for Le Martyre , some of which were transcribed by Caplet. The Prélude , La Cour des Lys is austere and strikingly beautiful, with its parallel triads (quite close to the prélude Canope , which is almost contemporary with it). The evocative power of La Chambre magique , with its bewitching sonorities and harmonies, is incomparable. In La Passion , Debussy gives us one of his most tragic movements, whose dark, tormented chromaticism sometimes (especially in this piano transcription) recalls some of the late pieces of Liszt.