Premiere: Original version on 25 May 1910 at a concert
of the Société musicale indépendante in Paris, with Claude Debussy at the piano; orchestral version first performed on 6 May 2007 at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, by the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Mark Elder
Duration: 6 minutes
Performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker:
first perfomance in these concerts
Death and resurrection in water: Claude Debussy’s La Cathédrale engloutie (“The Sunken Cathedral”) feels like a monument to the drowned Ophelia. With the Ariettes oubliées, Brett Dean presented orchestral versions of Debussy works. For today’s programme, however, he chose an arrangement by the Briton Colin Matthews, who orchestrated all 24 of Debussy’s piano Préludes. La Cathédrale engloutie evokes an old Breton legend: the Devil has caused the wealthy city of Ys to sink into the sea. Yet on certain days, the city’s cathedral rises from the waves to the sound of bells and organ music. In his impressionistic miniature, Debussy lingers as lovingly over the richly coloured bell strokes as over the ghostly, wave-washed organ sonorities. With archaic harmonies and dark pedal tones, an evocative medieval scene emerges.
Colin Matthews adds accents of colour with harps, celesta, tubular bells, gongs and tam-tam, as well as divided strings. The solemn climax – when the cathedral emerges from the mist in chorale-like song, only to sink again into the glittering, murmuring water – is magical in its effect.