• Debussy Orchestral Works Dutoit Ansermet Chailly Haitink 2
• Debussy Orchestral Works Dutoit Ansermet Chailly Haitink 7
• Debussy Orchestral Works Dutoit Ansermet Chailly Haitink 10

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Dutch: Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, pronounced ˌkoːnɪnklək kɔnˈsɛrtxəbʌuʋɔrˌkɛst) is a symphony orchestra in the Netherlands, based at the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw (concert hall). Considered one of the world's leading orchestras., Queen Beatrix conferred the 'Royal' title upon the orchestra in 1988.

It is interesting how recording philosophies change: listen to La mer from Reiner (RCA), Ansermet (Decca), Giulini (EMI, 6/88—nla) or the 1975 Solti version (Decca) and you have the kind of engineering that more vividly projects the score's textural intricacies than those of today, albeit with a reduced dynamic range. Solti's first La mer was a fairly typical product of Decca's work in Chicago's Medinah temple: weightily present and large of gesture. This new recording from Chicago's Orchestra Hall offers much more space, depth and atmosphere, with themes and colours suggested rather than emphatically stated; and pianissimos properly achieved. The orchestra appears to play with more delicacy and grace when desirable, particularly the lower strings—the passage for cellos, subdivided into four groups, at about halfway through the first movement was, in 1976, an unappealing example of Solti/Chicago muscle.Indeed this La mer is almost as suggestive of wide horizons as the highly-praised Baudo (Eminence), but with less blurring of the fast moving detail in 'Jeux de vagues'.

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Where Baudo was impulsive (and occasionally reckless), Solti is generally steadier, and closer to the metronome marks in the Eulenberg score. He is, perhaps, too steady in the second half of 'Jeux de vagues'—for the most effective realization of Debussy's imploring for ever more animation here, you can do no better than Reiner. Fortunately the lower strings have lost nothing of their might for the upheavals in the opening pages of the last movement, and they gather strength without the exaggerated presence that Decca lent to Dutoit's lower strings in his recent La mer. As before, Solti restores the brass fanfares that Debussy deleted near the end of the movement (6'30', 4 after fig.

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59), but it is a pity that the cornets don't possess the power to ride over the fortissimo blast from the trumpets in the earlier explosion (2'50', after fig. This is, though, as elemental a reading of La mer's last movement as you are likely to find today, with a contrasting still calm for the eye of the storm at its centre, and a superbly controlled rit and dim before we move into the final strait (5'53') to further remind us of the calibre of artistry on offer.Solti's Nocturnes will probably divide opinion. No one, surely, will complain of the expressive warmth and finesse of the Chicago strings in 'Nuages'; a reading of greater contrasts than usual, with a noticeable increase of pace for the un peu anime at fig. 7, 4'09'—luminous, delicate flute and harp tone here. How you react to Solti's swift 'Fetes' will probably depend on whether you see this as merrymaking in the Bois de Boulogne interrupted by the Garde Nationale, or 'the vibrating dancing rhythm of the atmosphere.the procession (a dazzling fantastic vision).and luminous dust participating in the cosmic rhythm' (the former apparently was the inspiration; the latter, the composer's description). World of tanks league.

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Solti, like Toscanini (RCA, 5/52—nla) and Giulini (EMI—nla), evidently inclines to the latter view, as indeed do I, finding Previn's (EMI) rhythm anything but 'cosmic'. Solti and his recording team must take credit, too, for the most effectively stage-managed gradual approach of the central procession I have heard, though the sound thins a little as the procession reaches the foreground.The basic tempo for 'Sirenes' is again fast, and the excellent Chicago Symphony Chorus (undoubtedly some of the most accurately pitched sirens on disc) are a larger presence than Haitink's more mysterious ladies (Philips), with the occasional tendency to engulf detail (the cor anglais at 5 after fig. 10, 7'05', for example). Your initial impression may be of undue insistence, though not, I think, impatience; Solti is not as brisk as Martinon (another recent EMI deletion), and he relaxes at the un peu plus lent (3'24') for some beautifully shaped overlapping of the choral lines. A small degree of audience noise here points to its live origins.With Giulini's and Sir Colin Davis's La mer and Nocturnes no longer with us, despite my reservations, Solti's must now be the top recommendation for this coupling. La mer requires a slightly higher replay level than the surrounding Nocturnes and Prelude.'