Debussy, Roussel & Dukas - CD review - RLPO/Hindoyan

Just listening to this new Onyx disc from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and it’s new chief conductor Domingo Hindoyan. The disc is French ballet music- Debussy: Jeux and Prelude l’Apres-midi D’un Faune, Roussel: Bacchus et Ariane Suite 2 and Dukas: La Peri - the fanfare & poeme danse. It was recorded in January and February 2022.

I heard this orchestra and its conductor live in January in rather different fare, Bruckner 8, and I was pleased to hear many of the delights cultured under the previous incumbent were still in place: fabulous brass, distinct woodwinds with fabulous leads and a gutsy string section with real depth to their tone.

The disc marries the two well enough known ballets by Debussy with the less familiar ballets by Roussel and Dukas. La Peri is fantastic - delicate, detailled and delicious. Dukas worked on his compositions with such precision that the intensity of his vision shines through with astonishing clarity. And Hindoyan doesn’t compromise. This is a fantastic recording of a neglected piece in beautiful sound from Onyx. 

The Roussel is perhaps known to more people and the fantastic energy of Roussel’s music is hard to resist once it grabs your year. The seduction of Ariane by Bacchus is a fantastic story and the brilliant colours of the Liverpool orchestra are ideal for this work. If Hindoyan isn’t as extravagent as Markevitch or Martinon, he is certainly attentive to detail and changes in mood and colour are handled very well.

Jeux is good, it is more Haitink than Boulez but it lacks the atmosphere of the former. It is impish but not as languid as some might be. The eroticism of Debussy’s conception doesn’t quite come over.  Sadly this is also the case in the Faune’s Afternoon Prelude where everything is neat and tidy, and it has too be said, well played, but this Bacchus seems a tad too formal. The recording doesn’t help in this work either - different ambience to the other works with the instrumentalists general a bit too far forward so more Boulez than Haitink.  My favourite memory of this Prelude is of a concert given by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vänskä. A reading of mystery and half-lights of supreme lackadaisical pace. If Debussy’s Faune had been as quietly fervent as Roussel’s Bacchus I would have been thrilled.

Performance: 9

Interpretation 8.5

Recording: 8.5