Valery Gergiev has been performing Debussy’s music regularly with the London Symphony Orchestra since he became Principal Conductor of the orchestra in 2007. For his latest LSO Live release he records three of Debussy’s most well-known works for the first time, including a sensational performance of La mer.

One of the 20th century’s most innovative and influential composers, Debussy was a 'musical impressionist', although it was a term he disliked. Despite running to little over ten minutes in duration, the sublime Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune is widely regarded as one of the important and revolutionary of musical works. La mer was completed ten years later, whilst Debussy was living in Eastbourne in Sussex, and is a spectacular orchestral showpiece. Jeux, one of Debussy’s final orchestral works, was written for Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes.

Concert reviews:
"virtuoso attention to detail and stylistic élan were on show from the start in a pungent performance of Debussy’s three orchestral sketches, La Mer" - The Times

"For his players, this [La Mer] was a virtuoso orchestral showcase of relentless proportions. It seemed to have been meticulously rehearsed, with the instruments precisely blended and mercurially responsive to Gergiev’s tweaks of tempo and mood. This was a characteristic LSO-at-the-Barbican sound: big, bold and glossy in the best sense" - The Guardian

"Gergiev and the LSO at their best: a sensual, supremely unhurried reading of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune in which Gareth Davies’s flute shimmered into focus over limpid pools of colour from the harp and strings" - The Independent

DSD recording, live at the Barbican September 2009 (La mer), December 2009 (Jeux), May 2010 (Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune)