Pelleas and Melisande suite/incidental/poem

[BorisG]

I currently own the following. Any others I should hear?

Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande - Abbado

Faure Pelléas et Mélisande - Dutoit

Schoenberg Pelleas und Melisande - Karajan

Sibelius Pelleas & Melisande - Beecham, Karajan

Alert: Beecham UK reissue Feb. 11

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Thielemann is spotty for me but this one is a real gem. Save your pennies as it's rare and OOP, though worth it (or keep your fingers crossed it becomes an Arkiv "on demand" item soon).

[head-case]

Ordinarily I'm not a big fan of Boulez, but this is "da bomb."

[Dancing Divertimentian]

For a complete 180 degrees from Abbado (who I enjoy), Cluytens is more on the measured side (three discs vs. two) which gives the music more weight and mass. The singing is in that stylish early-twentieth-century French talk-ese and is brimming with local color - as is the tangy French orchestra.

The 1956 mono sound comes up sensationally well in this Testament transfer.

[head-case]

Only 1 of 4 works referenced in this thread is vocal music.  Brilliant.

[PSmith08]

Thielemann is spotty for me but this one is a real gem. Save your pennies as it's rare and OOP, though worth it (or keep your fingers crossed it becomes an Arkiv "on demand" item soon).

Actually, you can get it whenever you want as often as you want for $11.99 through the DG online store. The downloads are at 320 kbps, which is adequate for most listening purposes (you'll run into equipment limitations, likely, before you run into serious problems with the SQ).

Just throwing that out there for anyone who really wants this set.

[marvinbrown]

  I bought this recently and I really enjoyed it:
 

  It is Debussy's Pelleas with Karajan with the BPO.

  marvin

[M forever]

Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande - Abbado

You probably mean the complete opera. There is also this:

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

You could also explore the historic (1941) performance of Debussy's 'Pelléas' by Désormiere (can't make an accent grave). Download costs almost nothing at Classical Music Mobile. I don't mind the sound: it's a fascinating document. Clear singing, great direction. And you get an illuminating sense of the performing tradition of half a century ago.

[Novi]

Oooh, Souzay. I like! Thanks for the recommendation - have ordered .

[M forever]

You could also explore the historic (1941) performance of Debussy's 'Pelléas' by Désormiere (can't make an accent grave).

Dunno what Dutch keyboards look like, but chances are you just have to hold the shift key while you hit the ', then release it and type the vowel.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Dunno what Dutch keyboards look like, but chances are you just have to hold the shift key while you hit the ', then release it and type the vowel.

When I do that I get 'ë', a combination of " and e...

[Lethevich]

When I do that I get 'ë', a combination of " and e...

If you're using Windows, you can type "charmap" into run to get a box of every accent combination you could ever want

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

If you're using Windows, you can type "charmap" into run to get a box of every accent combination you could ever want

Yèèèès!

(Thanks for reminding me!)

[M forever]

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

That's a Mac keyboard... All the same, it points me in the right direction... The tilde above the ' is on the upper row, left.

Tada! è

Thanks!

[M forever]

The tilde above the ' is on the upper row, left.

Same on the English keyboard. You hsould alos check if your keyboard is set to the correct language settings. Under Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options>Regional and Language Options>Language>Details are a lot of settings (even for some of the "smaller" languages) many don't know about. For instance, my system and jeyboard are set to English (US), but the keyboard is not set to the standard settings for US keyboards but to US International  which still gives me the basic US layout but some additional functions, e.g. the umlaut dots ("ü") is added to the ' and " key so I can type umlauts easily.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Actually, you can get it whenever you want as often as you want for $11.99 through the DG online store. The downloads are at 320 kbps, which is adequate for most listening purposes (you'll run into equipment limitations, likely, before you run into serious problems with the SQ).

Just throwing that out there for anyone who really wants this set.

That's good to know. $11.99 is a lot better than some of those aftermarket prices.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Oooh, Souzay. I like! Thanks for the recommendation - have ordered .

Yeah, and Souzay is just the tip of the iceberg as far as great singing on this set...

[Ephemerid]

You probably mean the complete opera. There is also this:

That's a lovely recording (though the concert suite is live-- odd, I can tolerate Glenn Gould's awful voice, but I can't stand people coughing-- I swear there must've been a flu bug going on at the time of that concert LOL).  But the performance is great and a good intro to the whole opera.

The Abbado recording of the entire opera is marvellous as well. 

For some expanded enjoyment, you might want to check out DG's DVD of the opera with Boulez conducting.  Tears, tears more tears-- I'm generally not a big opera fan, but I have to keep a hanky close by when watching this...