Debussy: Images
Mathilde Handelsman
Sheva Collection 234
Total Time:  61:57
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Debussy’s piano music provides a window into his growing exploration of line and its impact on harmonic structures.  The music moves from the inherited harmonic ideas of the 19^th Century and shifts into more impressionistic aesthetics before moving beyond into even more abstraction.  He was also not above incorporating global music into his own work from Javanese gamelan and flamenco to even American ragtime.  In this new release, pianist Mathilde Handelsman, a student of Menahem Pressler and John O’Connor, explores music from 1903-1907 covering some of the essential works of Debussy.

For this recording, Handelsman plays on an 1875 Steinway which makes this recording historically interesting as the sound is a bit less bright than a modern piano.  This warmer sound quality imparts an equal richness in the harmonies that derive from careful sustains that Handelsman uses to shape the music.  It also softens the higher registral writing sometimes as well which helps “Reflets dans l’eau” which opens the album in the first set of Images.  Once the ear adjusts, made possible by the attention to detail and fine shaping of the music, the instrument itself fades into the background while the music can be experienced in this “new” way.  The subtlety of her approach continues in “Hommage a Rameau” with its excellent shades of crescendo and decrescendo moments adding to her phrasing and approach quite well.  She also manages to delineate and bring out the various lines of the music.  The climaxes of the music thus grow quite well in her interpretations.  Estampes provides an opportunity to further appreciate the shifts in Debussy’s style with “Pagodes” giving us a taste of new harmonic and melodic lines.  The rhythmic ideas in “La soiree dans Grenade” also provide another opportunity to hear Handelsman artistry at play.  The second series of Images brings us more beauty and exploration of sound and harmony with three final smaller works (“Masques”, “D’un cahier d’esquisses,” and “L’isle Joyeuse”) serving to round off the recital and serving as little encores of a sort.

There are hundreds (!) of recordings of partial and complete versions of all of this music and the competition is quite fierce.  Those who appreciate the music will certainly have their own interpretive favorites.  Handelsman makes for a fine interpreter of this music that can handle the virtuosic technicalities of the music as well as the subtle harmonic shifts quite well and it is obvious from her performances that she has spent a lot of time thinking through these pieces.  The draw here will be to hear this music played on a “period” instrument of sorts.  The miking is rather close at times which creates a sense of sitting in a studio, or salon, to hear the music rather than a larger recital hall space.  It works well overall and makes for a fascinating journey through Debussy’s musical landscapes that perhaps provides a new window into the soundworlds he heard.  As a debut recording, this one is quite impressive both technically and interpretively and it will be interesting to hear how Handelsman approaches to this music (which one could say has a fine French sensibility) continue throughout her career.  This makes for a great start with a hope for more Debussy from her in the future.

The current pandemic has certainly caused a lot of disruption for performances and the effects of situations like this tend to trickle down in all sorts of ways.  One of those is in the reduced opportunities for new orchestral works to make it to local programs.  Often contemporary composers have to walk that fine line between writing something that can be easily programmed if a specific commission with a dedicated performance opportunity is not attached.  There is a lot of pressure for a composer to craft something that can garner positive critical attention as well as appreciation by concert audiences.  Often these works tend to be one-and-done sort of performances and so it is great that labels like Navona are helping many of these works reach a larger audience.

Over the past several years, the label has continued to release some rather fascinating collections of new voices in orchestral writing.  These tend to be collected into what appear to be three separate series with two of them featuring the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra.  Prisma is a series of orchestral compilations, often of 5-7 works each by a different composer.  These releases benefit from smart sequencing that grabs the listener and then invites them on a journey through music that moves from tonally accessible into more dissonant explorations.  The pieces are all over the map with literary references, folk music infusion, or blends of musical styles.  Volume 3 (Navona 6271)  may have been somewhat overlooked with its release right before the pandemic shut things down.  This release features works by 7 different composers from a variety of backgrounds that inform their work.  From the opening Ascension for solo clarinet and string orchestra (by Ahmed Alabaca) through some interesting miniature tone poems by Sarah Wallin Huff, Noam Feingold, Raisa Orshansky, and Scott Brickman; a multi-movemant nature suite from Craig Morris, and a new Prelude and Fugue by Audun Vassdal to wrap things up.  A more recent release, Volume 5 (Navona 6344) features another 7 composers with different voices contributing short orchestral pieces from composers whose work can be heard on other releases from the label.  Fortunately, all of these can be heard on platforms like Spotify which is quite helpful for folks to explore these works more often, but picking up each of the volumes in this series is an opportunity to further see how diverse and wide are the contemporary voices of composers working in orchestral pieces.

One of the other series to also consider is Sparks whose latest release (Navona 6337) is a blend of more modernist works for string orchestra.  The Janacek Philharmonic again is on hand to explore each of these 8 works that show the variety of approaches for writing in this medium.   Also recent is a series called Polarities whose second volume (Navona 6353) features some rather fascinating works as well including Beth Mehocic's delightful Tango Concerto and an interesting set of variations for viola and orchestra by Brian Latchem.  Each of the pieces in this series are varied in their ensemble side presenting a cornucopia of variety for listeners.

Taken together, the works in these series allow a variety of composers whose work has been release on Navona and their companion labels a chance to have their orchestral works performed and recorded as best as one might hope and allows an opportunity for them to be heard on a larger scale.

As one can see in other releases from the label, there is a good amount of exploration of global music and that can be seen to a certain extent in Contemporary Colours.  This release features music by Maltese composers, performed by the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, a new ensemble recording on the label.  This collection opens with a rather unusual work for pre-recorded sounds and orchestra and also includes works for folk instruments being integrated into the ensemble as well.  The miniature tone poem like works provide a window into new music in this part of the world as well.

While enjoying these releases, it becomes doubly hard to exhaustively comment on each of the works as these releases are really important both for new music and the many composers featured here.  One is constantly reminded that whatever impression one has of these works, it becomes an important stepping stone to head off to Navona's growing catalogue to further discover the more intimate chamber pieces that many of these composers have had recorded by the label.  Spotify users would do well to pull all the releases from each series into their own dedicated playlists as well so that they can become even more familiar with them over time.