#debussy #clairdelune #londonsymphony
This video of Debussy's Clair de Lune contains moonlight paintings by the Victorian painter John Atkinson Grimshaw. I extracted this audio from a vinyl I own using my turntable and I chose the paintings and their order of appearance.

I already had posted a of this recording on my other YouTube channel where I also post my compositions, but the other video shows works by several different painters. I am always searching the internet for new paintings and painters that I have never seen before. I discovered Grimshaw's paintings several years ago and I thought they were astounding. Could not resist the temptation of blending them with this arrangement.

Anyway, in this recording Stanley Black conducts his arrangement of Clair de Lune with the London Symphony Orchestra on the spectacular Phase 4 album "Gems for Orchestra". This vinyl version is not available on CD as far as I am concerned. It is the most moving orchestra version of Clair de Lune I have ever heard in my life (although there are others that are also amazing). In this one the orchestra sounds large and powerful, but the sound is never violent but rather delicate and very expressive. The phrasing is perfect, the tempo is deliciously slow, and the basses have some memorable moments. I believe this was accomplished by the combined talents of the arranger/conductor, the most excellent members of the London Symphony Orchestra, and the people involved in the recording process (the quality of the recording itself borders on the heavenly and sublime).

I am also fascinated by the return of the first theme in minute 3:42; the violins play so delicate and expressively in the high register. I am not sure if the section is reduced in this passage or if the entire violin section is just playing extra-pianissimo. But I have never heard a more effective orchestration of this moment. Other orchestral arrangers use the oboes, or maybe the flutes, and they have their own charm, but the way the soft strings appear here is just breath taking, and then, at the end of the phrase at minute 4:21 the basses have their most spectacular culminating moment. Maybe Debussy did not expect a climax there, but then he never made an orchestra version of this piece. Sometimes different settings demand different approaches to the rendering of an idea.

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