Debussy & Strauss is the first album to be released on the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's own record label, in partnership with LSO Live. For this debut recording, the MSO and conductor Jaime MartÃn are joined by outstanding Australian soprano Siobhan Stagg, the MSO's 2023 Artist in Residence. Together, they present two song cycles from opposite ends of life, exploring loves with vastly different essences. Debussy and Strauss inhabit such different musical worlds that it comes almost as a surprise to see them side by side and recognize they were members of the same generation. The fact that Debussy was more overtly modern in his work while Strauss was much longer lived-still writing halfway into the 20th century-reminds us that music history is a tangle of human lives and not a neat progression of movements and styles. Debussy's Ariettes oubliÃ©es (Forgotten Songs) is a 24-year-old's depiction of first love, the kind of thing that feels unbearably important at the time, but inevitably stumbles toward breakup and fades into the past. Strauss' Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) is an 84-year-old's last word on a nearly 55-year marriage that ended only in death.

Tracklist:

Strauss: Four Last Songs (Vier Letzte Lieder), Op. Posth., TRV 296 I. FrÃ¼hling
Strauss: Four Last Songs (Vier Letzte Lieder), Op. Posth., TRV 296 II. September
Strauss: Four Last Songs (Vier Letzte Lieder), Op. Posth., TRV 296 III. Beim Schlafengehen
Strauss: Four Last Songs (Vier Letzte Lieder), Op. Posth., TRV 296 IV. Im Abendrot

UPC: 9360815000123
Label: Melbourne Symphony
Release Date: 5.31.24
Format: CD

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra - Debussy & Strauss (CD)