Debussy & Schoenberg: Pelléas & Mélisande
Pentatone

Pairing Claude Debussy's and Arnold Schoenberg's musical responses to Maurice Maeterlinck's 1892 play Pelléas et Mélisande is but one of many appealing things about this double-CD set. What recommends it even more, however, is the suite conductor Jonathan Nott created of Debussy's 1902 opera in 2020, here presented in its world premiere recording. Whereas others have concentrated on the work's interludes (e.g., one created by conductor Erich Leinsdorf that he recorded with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1946), Nott brilliantly distills the essence of the opera into a forty-seven-minute tone poem. In fashioning his treatment so that the work's dramatic arc and symphonic development are retained, Nott has created an orchestral arrangement of integrity that honours the original.

While no reworking of Schoenberg's work has been done, Nott has added new track divisions and titles that enable the listener to more easily follow the storyline. Adding to the release's appeal, having the two treatments side-by-side allows for a fascinating comparison study, especially when their duration is comparable and when both are performed by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR). In fact, as Nigel Simeone reports in the liner notes, a guiding aim for Nott was to “produce a version of Debussy's score that would complement Schoenberg's tone poem.” Although the original works were composed at about the same time, the two are noticeably different in tone. Whereas Debussy's atmospheric and sensual treatment evokes a realm that's mystical and dreamlike, Schoenberg's is marked by intense foreboding, bold orchestral gestures, and great dramatic contrasts.

The story, set in the imaginary kingdom of Allemonde, begins with Prince Golaud happening upon a crying Mélisande by a forest stream and then marrying and bringing her to his grandfather's castle. She subsequently develops a relationship with Golaud's younger half-brother Pelléas, which makes the prince jealous and eventually leads to Pelléas's death by a dagger-wielding Golaud. Having been wounded by him, Mélisande also dies shortly thereafter but not before giving birth to a baby girl.

Attending a performance of Maeterlinck's play in May 1893, Debussy immediately recognized its potential for an opera treatment and had a complete sketch in short-score ready two years later. Famously bereft of stand-alone arias, the work unfolds languorously across five acts. As mentioned, Nott's treatment draws not only from the interludes but from the vocal material too; that presented him with certain challenges, including the devising of orchestral colours for the vocal lines and matching the expressive power of vocal passages using instrumental means. The narrative trajectory of the opera remains firmly in place in Nott's suite, as does a distillation into symphonic form of the dynamics between the three main characters. His achievement is remarkable for the fluidity of its design and how seamlessly it impresses as a ‘new' version of an existing work.

Debussy's material is given a ravishing performance by the OSR and the conductor. Extreme sensitivity to texture, balance, and pacing are demonstrated in a rendering so evocative one is able to easily visualize the forest and castle settings. In their rendering of tonal colour, the performers amplify the atmosphere and mood of the original, and all of the emotional drama of the love triangle is conveyed, albeit with subtlety and restraint. Brooding, yearning, portentous, supplicating, and turbulent episodes emerge as the narrative advances, the score tantalizing in the way it mirrors story development and character interaction. While the recording presents the work as fifteen indexed and distinctly titled tracks, the piece unfolds without interruption as a single-movement tone poem, a presentation that enhances the already dream-like character of the material.

According to Simeone, Schoenberg consciously fashioned his own symphonic version, completed in February 1903 (four years after Verklärte Nacht) and premiered in 1905, after the single-movement symphonic poems of Richard Strauss—Tod und Verklärung, for example—and the larger movements of Mahler's early symphonies. In his treatment, Schoenberg uses motifs introduced early, among them: a plaintive theme for Mélisande; youthful and sinister ones for Pelléas and Golaud, respectively; and a dark, punishing motif to evoke ‘Fate' or ‘Destiny.' The dramatic portent with which it begins intensifies thereafter but outpourings of romantic figures reminiscent of Strauss appear too. Expressions of extremely contrasting character emerge, with at one moment the music conveying romantic tenderness or pastoral splendour and in the next crushing doom.

November 2021