Daniel Harding / Debussy / Ravel

As part of Santa Cecilia summer season at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, Daniel Harding conducts two masterpieces of the French repertoire that share both the symbolist aesthetic and the orchestral refinement of the early twentieth century: La Mer (Three Symphonic Sketches for Orchestra) by Claude Debussy and the ballet Daphnis et Chloé by Maurice Ravel.

Begun in 1903 in Burgundy, the symphonic poem La Mer was completed in 1905 during Debussy's stay on the English coast of the Channel; the work was conceived by the great French composer not as descriptive music in the traditional sense, but rather as innovative, capable of conveying all the energy and mystery of the sea. According to the dictates of impressionist poetics, in fact, what interested artists was not the imitation of reality, the realistic and truthful description of nature, but rather communicating the impression that the artist had of reality, the perception that arose from it, together with the rejection of traditional schemes.

In the composition one has the sensation of a continuous flow of music, indistinct, constant, articulated in a discourse independent of any formal limit or imposition; even the timbric aspect of the piece is changeable, mutable and unstable. In general the three symphonic sketches constitute what can be defined as almost a musical painting characterized by a wonderful orchestration; in fact for these aspects Debussy was defined as a "painter of music".

While Ravel's one-act ballet in three parts, Daphnis et Chloe, composed for orchestra and chorus for Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes between 1909 and 1912, is inspired by the Pastoral Loves of Daphnis and Chloe, a Greek novel by Longus the Sophist (3rd century AD) with a bucolic and sensual setting. The novel focuses on the love that blossoms between the goatherd Daphnis and the shepherd Chloe, who, after several adventurous intrigues and various vicissitudes, finally marry. The ballet maintains the pastoral and lively atmosphere of the novel; the composition, monumental and rich in melodic suggestions, as well as Ravel's longest, is considered one of his most successful works.

Photo credits: courtesy of  the Auditorium Parco della Musica official page