Orchestrating Debussy

Time for another of the BBC Music mag cover disks. This one is Debussy Orchestral Music by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Tadaaki Otaka. A bit of a mixed bag which begins with some inconsequential music for King Lear and the orchestrations of Debussy's Children's Corner by Andre Caplet, piano pieces written to amuse children which really don't expand too well into a full orchestra. I would play the disk again for the Premiere rapsodie for clarinet and orchestra ( soloist here Robert Plane ) and Six Epigraphes Antiques, orchestrated by Ernest Ansermet, which both capture Debussy's dreamy impressionistic world very well. The disk finishes with a serviceable version of La Mer, one of three versions of the piece I have acquired and the closest that Debussy came to writing a symphony.