The Fickle Sea: Britten and Debussy with the Concertgebouw Orchestra

Alan Gilbert

Conductor Alan Gilbert returns to the Concertgebouw Orchestra with a remarkable programme through which the sea seems to ebb and flow, culminating in Debussy’s masterly oceanic triptych La mer. In Restless Oceans, British-American composer Anna Clyne draws a parallel between the turbulent forces of nature and the resilience of women. Sibelius saw his magnificent Seventh Symphony as a river flowing ‘broadly and powerfully’ through the landscape towards the sea. 

Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten’s best-known opera, Peter Grimes, is a dark thriller set in a fishing village bearing a strong resemblance to Aldeburgh, where Britten himself lived. In the opera’s instrumental interludes, the unfathomable depths of the North Sea reflect the shadowy recesses of the human soul. At the same time, the Four Sea Interludes offer a colourful and affectionate portrait of the sea in its many guises, as does La mer, with which Claude Debussy took orchestral composition into entirely new territory in 1905.