Let's talk about Les Siecles for a second.
Suddenly their conductor, Francois-Xavier Roth, is everywhere, and no matter how he divides opinion, he's as good as it gets, but let's not talk about him, let's talk about his orchestra.
Period instrument orchestras are not nearly as revolutionary a change as advertised, but they are a much bigger change in French music than they are in German music. German music, generally speaking, is written with an ear to form and design first, while French music, generally speaking, begins with the sound. What this means in practical terms is that period instruments in Debussy and Ravel, have a much larger impact than they do on Mozart and Beethoven.
Their Berlioz is nowhere near as convincing as Gardiner's (surprisingly), but Les Siecle's recordings of Debussy and Ravel are the best at least in a generation, and perhaps you have to go back to Munch to find someone who sounded this idiomatic.
We have recordings of traditional French orchestras up to the 60s, and it's true, they sound rather different from Les Siecles, but let's face it, there was a reason why every major French orchestra went belly up in the postwar era. It's not that their approach was anything but fascinating, but they were such risible custodians of their own traditions. There were a number of great French conductors, but even after the War was over, most of them stayed away from France. Musicians in French orchestras would not pay attention in rehearsals, then send 'deputies' to cover for them in the concerts who had not been there for the rehearsal, and what a lot of people view as their quirky brilliance was in fact their laziness and hostility to challenge. Sure, they had the right timbre for Debussy and Ravel, but you listen to Cluytens do Jeux with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra and even with Cluytens on the podium - who had nearly the best conducting technique of all time - and it occasionally sounds like they're hanging on for dear life. To hear French music played greatly, you generally had to look to Munch and Monteux in Boston or Paray in Detroit. Even the Concertgebouw played most French music much better than the French orchestras.
Is this exactly how Debussy or Ravel meant their works to sound? Who the fuck cares. This is an entirely new, and in some ways modern, approach that only begins with the instruments of the period and finds entirely new colors and details. Debussy and Ravel work counterintuitively. There is certainly value in playing impressionist music with Monet/Gieseking-like washes of color, but the greatest qualities of Debussy and Ravel are not their color, the greatest qualities are their perfection. In this music, every detail matters, every detail adds up to a whole. In music that rambles, I am not a fan of hearing every detail because that exposes the music's flaws as much or more than its glories, but Debussy and Ravel have no flaws, particularly Debussy. Nearly every choice they make is perfection, and nobody except perhaps Boulez brings us closer to that perfection than Roth, and Roth has a warmth and fun that Boulez, being Boulez, lacks.
The last time French orchestras led the world was probably in the era of Habeneck in the early 1830s. Ever since Mendelssohn trained the Leipzig Gewandhaus to his exacting standard, the zenith of orchestral playing was elsewhere. But when I hear Les Siecles play like this, I hear a beginning, not an end. Perhaps there has been Debussy of this much color, and perhaps of this much clarity, but never have we heard the two together.
It's beginning to seem as though the most interesting large ensemble playing is coming out of France, precisely because they are frankly not bound by quite as distinguished a history of orchestral glories as Germany, Russia, or the US. Time can only tell if that's true, but this musicmaking is unlike anything the world has ever heard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBoY-iE9vW4&fbclid=IwAR2Hh1VF0_AvWiSzhgfw6UwaaxLyth9QstXGtaqSRqozxyYd3OXBkNdglCg
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