Debussy: Orchestral Works

Although Claude Debussy grew to hate the label "Impressionist," there is no denying the affinities between the iridescent color in paintings such as Monet's and the diaphanous textures of Debussy's music. Such musical painting is at its most absorbingly sensual in his greatest orchestral works, which have been recorded often but never better than they are in these strikingly present recordings from the late seventies and early eighties. These Dutch forces--performing on their home turf, the most acoustically perfect concert hall in the world--strike the perfect textural balances and capture every last brush stroke of detail.