Debussy's Lush 'La Mer' at MSO

The compelling beauty&nbsp;of <em>La Mer</em>, Debussy's most famous and widely performed score, dates from 1903, a time of great personal happiness following a divorce from his wife and new life with his mistress. The music abounds in the shaded orchestrations and daring&nbsp;harmonies typifying the definitive Debussy style, while breaking away from the&nbsp;traditional format&nbsp;usually associated with impressionistic music. The distinguishing&nbsp;irony is that, while clearly programmatic and&nbsp;containing&nbsp;three distinct movements specifically not intended to be labeled with that loaded term “symphony,” <em>La Mer</em> expands&nbsp;the usual characteristics of impressionistic music with such stunningly&nbsp;evocative&nbsp;images&nbsp;that one forgets that this is&nbsp;in fact descriptive program music. It remains&nbsp;one of the genre's most revered compositions.<br /><br />The score revels in&nbsp;the majesty of the&nbsp;seathe&nbsp;unpredictable, ever-changing surface varying from moment to moment under the capricious influences of&nbsp;wind and sun. The concluding storm sequence is awesome and magnificent, but with the controlled understatement that distinguishes this most discreet of composers.&nbsp;The lush orchestration smacks&nbsp;of earlier 19th-century Romanticism, but&nbsp;with subdued restraint and&nbsp;less deliberation than the weightier Germanic tone&nbsp;poems of that period. Yet, <em>La Mer</em> yields nothing in dramatic power.<br /><br />The unpredictable, sometimes-frightening changes of the sea&nbsp;provide the core of Debussy's inspiration. Like the sea itself, the music never settles into a specific pattern, constantly&nbsp;shifting&nbsp;into&nbsp;ever-changing&nbsp;images apparent for but a brief moment, then fading quickly out of reach, enhanced by an overreaching musical sensuality yielding a more defined pictorial imagery than Debussy's earlier work. A unique orchestral timbre enhances <em>La Mer's</em> originality, although one never escapes an awareness of a&nbsp;specific pictorial tableau. It is refreshingly unlike the amorphous ambiguity that defines impressionism for less imaginative listeners.<br /><br />The <strong>Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra</strong> will perform Bruckner's Sixth Symphony on the same program, April 27-28 at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. Bruckner's carefully structured composition makes for an odd bedfellow with <em>La Mer</em> and will provide a study in contrast.