Lucy Scott - Great Composers in Words & Music: Chopin - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Claude Debussy is regarded by many as the quintessential French composer, with music that invited both warm applause and frosty criticism in his day. While our ears no longer hear him as controversial, his works heralded the dawn of an artistic period founded on innovation and experiment, and a desire to break with the past in search of new expressive means. With never a dull moment, Debussy went from being a musical misfit at the Paris Conservatoire to bohemian life amongst the Symbolist poets with involvement in some scandalous love affairs. The transformative effect of pieces such as the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune eventually saw him awarded the Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneurin 1903. The narrative is illustrated with musical excerpts from Children's Corner, String Quartet in G minor, Images, Nocturnes and Pelléas et Mélisande, among many others.

Famous today for his Trois Gymnopédies, Erik Satie was an eccentric and solitary figure who was nevertheless viewed by some as a prophet of French musical modernism, his striking creativity championed by Ravel and Debussy. From tragedy and trauma in his early years, through his time as a pianist and Parisian provocateur at Le Chat Noir cabaret, and as house composer to the mystical Rose+Croix cult and beyond, Satie's eventful life is told in this fascinating revue of a composer whose unique music is still influential today. The narrative is illustrated with musical excerpts from works including Gymnopédie No. 3, Gnossienne No. 3, Sports et Divertissements, Trois Morceaux en forme de poire and Relâche, among others.

Leif Segerstam - Three Symphonies [COMPACT DISCS] date 02/01/1994