Debussy: Printemps, L. 61, CD 68 (with Score)

Claude Debussy (Henri Büsser): Printemps, symphonic suite, L. 61, CD 68 (with Score) Composed: 1887, revised 1912 Conductor: Pierre Boulez Orchestra: The Cleveland Orchestra 00:00 1. Très modéré (F-sharp major) 10:22 2. Modéré (F-sharp major - D major) One of Debussy’s assignments as a Prix de Rome scholar at the Villa Medici in 1887 was to send back to the Fine Arts Academy in France an orchestral score so his benefactors could judge his professional progress. All Debussy managed to turn in was a piano duet called Printemps, or “Spring“; he claimed that the full score, complete with humming chorus, had been destroyed in a fire. Not until 1913 did he get around to generating an orchestral version, and even then the work was assigned to Henri Büsser who, working from the keyboard original, had no access to any original choral material. In a nod to the music’s origins, Büsser included a prominent but not quite concertante key