Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

Debussy paints the slow and excruciating awakening of nature, then its gradual blossoming, and finally the joy of rebirth in his youthful piece which he composed in the Eternal City after winning the Rome Prize. Naturally, he also despatched a copy of his work to the Paris Conservatoire in order to give the academic assembly an impression of his artistic development. As is the way, his professors were not satisfied although posterity has been kinder: it is always an occasion when this rarely performed work balanced on the boundary between late Romanticism and the nascent new French style is added to an orchestral programme. Ernő Dohnányi’s pantomime The Veil of Pierrette is another work not often seen in concert halls; Tamás Vásáry selects excerpts from the most dynamic parts of the composition.