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PACM031:
String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 - Debussy
MP3
price
Quatuor
Pascal
Originally
released circa 1952 on Guilde International du Disque LP MMS-53
Believed to be a transcription of an earlier recording, c.1948
Download ID: 202997/413370
(Duration
25'50")
Jacques
Dumont
- Violin I
Maurice
Crut - Violin II
Léon
Pascal - Viola
Robert
Salles - Cello
Play
sample movement:
For
the first time I somehow felt I was listening to a performance that
reflected what Debussy intended...
- Peter Harrison
Debussy'sString Quartet was among his earliest major composition. Premièred
in 1893, it shows many indications of what was to come with its use of
modal and whole-tone scales, and radical harmony. Although often recorded,
there can be few interpretations as vivid as this one - looking back over
our correspondence since Peter first started working on it, I found an
e-mail from him which read (in part): "I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS
PERFORMANCE. Just ecoutez to the violin tone in the selected passage,
par example. Incroyable. How did he do it?"
With this
in mind I asked Peter to elaborate for this page:
Andrew
recalls that when I first played this LP, I wrote him ecstatic e-mails
declaring that we had to re-issue this at all costs!
Reasonably enough, he asks: Why?
Of course I already knew the Debussy quartet well, on recordings it is
coupled almost inevitably with the Ravel quartet as if they were two sides
of the same coin which - in my view - they most definitely are not. But
here was an astonishing recording stretching back halfway to the date
of composition, in a playing style - the use of rubato and portamento,
for example - which I think no ensemble would attempt today. For the first
time I somehow felt I was listening to a performance that reflected what
Debussy intended. And one where the four players - unusually - were in
complete accord over what those intentions were and how they should be
realised.
This reading by the Pascal Quartet is therefore both stylistically and
technically highly satisying, but for me what makes it so special is that
it is also intensely evocative: within the first five minutes memories
come unbidden - almost tangible - of the languid waters of the Loire drifiting
by on a perfect Summer's day; a glass of chilled wine, the condensation
slowly running down the glass; the glow of the soft skin of a beautiful
girl; time standing still - the moment preserved eternally. A Monet painting
in music. Each movement has its own character and its own power to evoke,
and what you will find will be yours alone. I just know that of the six
or seven other recordings that I have of the Debussy Quartet this, by
the Pascals, is the one that I will choose to return to.
REVIEW
OF DEBUSSY STRING QUARTET Quatuor Pascal (c.1948)
The
Debussy String Quartet, married eternally to the Ravel, has
always been deemed a last early Debussy work, rather a goodbye
to his Massenet period and a kin of works like Printemps and
La Demoiselle Elue. In this magnificent performance of iron
elegance, the Pascal quartet show that it points rather to
La Mer and Gigues Triste.
In
the first movement, the chordal theme is thrown out with terrific
propulsion by the Pascal. These are gray skies--Pelleas and
Nuages--and the Pascal yield very little until the lyric second
theme which is slightly ritenu, but of very little caloric
content. The rest of the movement is velvet and steel. In
the second movement, the pizzicati are there, but not omnipresent.
The melody floats but is very lean.
The
third movement is austere and oppressed. Not sweetness but
gravitas. The middle section brings some relief. Toward the
end there is heart-easing warmth.
In
a letter of July 2, 1893 to Ernest Chausson, Debussy recounts
his difficulties with the finale of the quartet: "I can't
get it into the shape I want, and that's the third time of
trying." Well, it's clear he never made it. The finale
has got a good coda and not much else. The Pascal strive mightly
to minimize its chaos and rhetoric, but somehow their very
greatness in the first three movements make things worse.
Buy
it for the revelatory first three movements and the splendid
sound.
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For
the first time I somehow felt I was listening to a performance that
reflected what Debussy intended...
- Peter Harrison
