Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg / Jewgenij Kissin / Kent Nagano

It rushes and flows

What does flowing music sound like? The second Philharmonic Concert this season is dedicated to the musical aesthetic of the fin-de-siècle. The concrete title »La mer« notwithstanding, Debussy did not compose a precise musical depiction of the sea in this popular orchestral piece, but rather a set of abstract impressions depicting the movements of the water, of low and high tide. Debussy is also well-known for his setting of Maurice Maeterlinck’s »Pelléas et Mélisande«, but Gabriel Fauré had already published his own musical version of the story about the tragic lovers of Greek mythology four years earlier.