De grillige zee van Britten en Debussy met het Concertgebouworkest

Alan Gilbert

Conductor Alan Gilbert returns with a special program through which the sea seems to ripple, with Debussy's masterful triptych La mer as the closing piece. The opening work, Restless Oceans by British-American Anna Clyne, compares stormy nature to the resilience of woman. Benjamin Britten wrote the beautiful Serenade with its challenging horn part after he and tenor Peter Pears had sailed back from the US to their homeland, England. Today, the soloists are also English: principal horn player Katy Woolley and tenor Robert Murray.

Benjamin Britten

Shortly after the Serenade came Britten’s most famous opera, Peter Grimes , a dark thriller set in a fishing village that strongly resembles Britten’s hometown of Aldeburgh. In the opera’s instrumental pieces, the unfathomably deep North Sea reflects the shadowy reaches of the soul. At the same time, the Four Sea Interludes form a colorful and loving portrait of the many facets of the sea – just like La mer , with which Claude Debussy elevated orchestral composition to a whole new level in 1905.