Xavier de Maistre: The Piano should have been a Harp

French Harpist Xavier de Maistre has completed an album of works by Claude Debussy as the first installment of his relationship with Sony BMG Masterworks. The announcement comes only two months after he signed with the major record company in the first place – another sign of confidence the label has invested in the harp, after bringing Catrin Finch to the fore in the year 2003. “NUIT D’ÉTOILES” is a collection of Debussy-piano originals, almost all transcribed for the harp by Xavier de Maistre himself. The repertoire includes some of the composer’s most famous pieces, including “Two Arabesques” and “Clair de lune” from his “Suite Bergamasque”. Xavier de Maistre will also be accompanied by guest star Diana Damrau on some tracks, turning “NUIT D’ÉTOILES” into a meeting of two bright new stars from the label roster. De Maistre stressed that, in his opinion, quite a lot of Debussy’s piano music might originally have been created with the Harp in mind.

“As far as Debussy’s piano music is concerned, one has the impression that the very existence of the hammer mechanically striking the strings should, as it were, be negated”, Xavier de Maistre said, “One is especially aware of this in quiet passages in the piano’s upper register: here the sound seems literally to float and to emerge from nothingness. This intermediate medium simply does not exist on the harp, where every note is more direct and at the same time gentler, while the verticality that is so typical of the piano is eliminated.”

Many remarks made by Claude Debussy to his colleague Manuel de Falla show that he thoroughly enjoyed the sound of an instrument that “miraculously embodied his ideal of mysterious music, music that does not reveal the means by which it is produced.” He even asked renowned Harpist Pierre Jamet for transcriptions of some of his pieces, which remained popular all throughout his lifetime.

Many of the transcriptions performed by Xavier de Maistre on “NUIT D’ÉTOILES”, already the fifth album in his discography, are world premiere recordings, making the disc an allround interesting effort. Until it arrives 10th March, here’s Xavier de Maistre playing music by Claude Debussy’s friend Manuel de Falla:

 

 

Homepage: Xavier de Maistre
Homepage: Sony BMG Masterworks

By Tobias Fischer, published 2008-02-29

Comments


Add a comment

You may use Markdown syntax in your comment, but raw HTML will be removed. By posting a comment here, you are agreeing to the terms of our comment policy. URLs will be made clickable.




Contact Imprint About us © 2008 tokafi

Newsletter

Enter email to receive newsletter:

Partner sites

slogo slogo
Your link to music scenes worldwide