Video Claude Debussy: La Mer (Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Claudio Abbado)

Founding Concert of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Recorded live at the Lucerne Festival, Summer 2003
Concert Hall of the Culture- and Convention Center Lucerne, 14. August 2003

Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Claudio Abbado - conductor

La Mer - Trois esquisses symphoniques
The Sea - three symphonic sketches
Das Meer - drei symphonische Skizzen

0:00 I. De l'aube à midi sur la mer. Très lent (8:35)
From Dawn to Midday at Sea
Vom Morgen bis zum Mittag auf dem Meer

8:31 II. Jeux de vagues. Allegro (6:47)
Play of the Waves
Spiel der Wellen

15:18 III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer. Animé et tumultueux (8:21)
Dialogue between the Wind and the Sea
Gespräch zwischen Wind und Meer

La Mer was written between 1903 and 1905, and is now one of the best-known works in the symphonic repertoire. The subtitle of the three-movement composition, "symphonic sketches", clearly shows that with this music Debussy intended to disassociate himself not only from strict symphonic form but also from programme music influenced by extramusical material. The sea's waves and surfaces become a metaphor for timbre-based music - a pioneering vision of the sounds of the future at the beginning of the 20th century.

Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival have enjoyed a close musical relationship spanning nearly four decades. Like many now world-famous conductors, Abbado, too, made his début in Lucerne at the rostrum of the Swiss Festival Orchestra, which from 1943 to 1993 made a decisive mark on the summer music festival. lt was in 1966 that he first conducted the ensemble, made up of Switzerland's best musicians. This was the time when the young conductor also presented himself to the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras. Since then Abbado has been a regular guest on the shore of Lake Lucerne. He came with the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra, and was the first person to bring the music of Luigi Nono to Lucerne, the piece in question being II canto sospeso, which he performed in 1979 with the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala Milano.
In 1989 Abbado was elected Chief Conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, and with this orchestra, which had been associated with the festival for decades, he now came to Lucerne every year from the end of August to the beginning of September. Exactly five years ago Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic had the honour of performing the opening concert in the new concert hall of the Lucerne Culture und Conference Centre, designed by Jean Nouvel and Russell Johnson.
Abbado did not, however, just come to Lucerne as the chief conductor of several major European orchestras. Ha has always been committed to promoting young talent, und has founded several youth orchestras, which he has introduced at the Lucerne Festival. He performed there in 1980 and 1985 with the European Community Youth Orchestra, in 1986 and 1988 with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and in 1996 with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.
The new Lucerne Festival Orchestra is an internationally unique orchestra formed for summer 2003, which right at the start of the festival ensured great musical moments and global headlines: "A conductor is back, an orchestra reborn", wrote The New York Times; "The marvel in Lucerne", acclaimed Berlin's Tagesspiegel. With this newly formed orchestra Abbado was continuing the long tradition of a resident festival orchestra, begun by Arturo Toscanini at the first Lucerne Summer Festival with a "Concert de Gala" when he conducted in front of Wagner's former residence in Tribschen in 1938.
lt has been in the new Lucerne Festival Orchestra that famous musicians have met and, exclusively in this grouping, given performances of works from the symphonic repertoire. The orchestra's principal desks have been occupied by soloists such as Kolja Blacher, Renaud und Gautier Capucon, Wolfram Christ, Stephan Dohr, Georg Faust, Natalia Gutman, Albrecht Mayer, Emmanuel Pahud, Diemut Poppen and Alois Posch, as well as by members of the Hagen Quartet and the Ensemble Sabine Meyer. The basis has been provided by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra - around 50 musicians with whom Abbado has collaborated for years. In general it is important to this conductor to collaborate with musicians with long experience of making music together, and this particularly applies to chamber music, which, as it were, represents an advanced school of mutual listening.