Melbourne Symphony Orchestra | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

"Debussy & Strauss" is the first album to be released on the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's own record label, in partnership with LSO Live. In 2022, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) signed a broad-reaching partnership agreement in London, which resulted in the launch of the MSO's new in-house record label. MSO Managing Director Sophie Galaise welcomed the new release. "The release of our first recording on the MSO label heralds the beginning of a fruitful and fulsome partnership that will showcase our esteemed Chief Conductor Jaime Martín and Australia's first and foremost symphony orchestra – the MSO,” Galaise said. For this debut recording, the MSO and conductor Jaime Martín are joined by outstanding Australian soprano Siobhan Stagg, the MSO's 2023 Artist in Residence. Together, they present two song cycles from opposite ends of life, exploring loves with vastly different essences. Claude Debussy (1862–1918) and Richard Strauss (1864–1949) inhabit such different musical worlds it comes almost as a surprise to see them side by side and recognise they were members of the same generation. The fact that Debussy was more overtly modern in his work while Strauss was much longer lived—still writing halfway into the 20th century—reminds us that music history is a tangle of human lives and not a neat progression of movements and styles. Debussy's "Ariettes oubliées" (Forgotten Songs) is a 24-year-old's depiction of first love, the kind of thing that feels unbearably important at the time, but inevitably stumbles toward breakup and fades into the past. Strauss' "Vier letzte Lieder" (Four Last Songs) is an 84-year-old's last word on a nearly 55-year marriage that ended only in death.