Search - Claude Debussy, Andre Previn, London Symphony Orchestra :: Debussy: La Mer; Nocturnes; Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

Nicely done Debussy, and a sliver of history

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 07/16/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The Seventies was a good decade for Previn, who turned in most of his veyr best recordings with the London Sym. I'm not sure this La Mer and Trois Nocturnes is one of them--it's beautifully played and recorded, but Previn's a bit cautious and impersonal He can't quite find a way to imbue the music with any special flavor or presonality of his own. But there's a historical footnote to the 1979 Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, which won a Gramophone Award in 1979. It was EMI's very first digital recording using their own technology. As such, it was hairld as a gorgeous engineering job--it still sounds like one--but for economic reasons EMI adopted equipemnt and technology for outside sources. So a true EMI digital recording is rare. The soundstage is huge, the solo flute is seductively captured--all in all, it's the best thing here."