Debussy - Images, Nocturnes

Debussy: Images
Debussy: Nocturnes
Debussy: Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune

Our Price: £8.77 (£7.63 ex VAT)

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Artist(s): Peter Lloyd (flute), London Symphony Orchestra

Conductor(s): Andre Previn

Release Date: 6th September 2007

Great Recordings of the Century: ‘A distinguished series of beautifully presented reissues.’ (Gramophone)

‘EMI’s Great Recordings of the Century is exactly what it says: these classic interpretations warrant a place in everybody’s collection.’ (The Times)

The EMI Classics flagship mid-price series of reissues Great Recordings of the Century has proved exceptionally successful since its launch in 1998. The series has a high-quality and distinctive through-design, with original LP sleeves and the ART logo reproduced on the front covers and critical endorsements from the Gramophone on the back inlays. The substantial booklets offer newly commissioned and authoritative essays (in English, German & French) and, where appropriate, the sung texts/libretto (with translations).

A crucial element in maintaining the high standards achieved in Great Recordings of the Century is the work of EMI’s renowned team of engineers at Abbey Road Studios. Using the very latest technology, they make new transfers from the original materials (78s and analogue tape) and new remasterings (of both analogue and digital recordings).

The Images and the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune were EMI’s first ever digital recording: they were taped in No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, in July 1979. (The Nocturnes date from 1983.) Five years later they appeared on EMI’s first CD.

Mike Ashman’s notes give fascinating background, particularly concerning the fact that editing was more or less impossible with the first digital tape recorders. So, as Previn noted, ‘we went out and played “Gigues”, and then all the other pieces, in one – and that’s what you hear on the record.’

The session producer, Suvi Raj Grubb, later recalled: ‘The LSO played at top form...Almost every take was of a complete movement, and the final master has fewer than ten edits – about 50 to 60 then being par for an LP.’ Incredibly, the state of this early technology and the assurance of EMI engineer Christopher Parker – a pioneer of stereo in the 1950s – mean that Abbey Roads’ present-day engineers judged that this recording required no actual remastering.

Award: Gramophone