Piero Coppola Conducts Debussy

Piero Coppola

As a companion to a new post of Claude Debussy's music conducted by Marius Constant on my main blog, here are historic recordings of some of the same works led by a conductor who was responsible for the first recordings of several Debussy compositions.

The conductor is the Italian-born Piero Coppola (1888-1971), who was the recording director for French HMV (La Voix de Son Maître) from 1923-34. Coppola never held any major positions other than for HMV, but his work is nevertheless highly esteemed among aficionados of old records.

Both recordings date from 1931. Coppola leads the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire in two of the four symphonic fragments from Debussy's incidental music for Gabriele D'Annunzio's Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien - No. 3 (La Passion) and No. 4 (Le Bon Pasteur). I believe both selections are somewhat abridged. The sound is very good for the time.

Gaston Hamelin examines the latest clarinet models at the Selmer showroom

Also in the program is the Première rhapsodie, pour clarinette et orchestre, with Gaston Hamelin as soloist. This one comes from a noisy pressing, I'm afraid. Both are from Internet Archive's transfers.

There is more about both works in the post on my other blog. If you are interested in the complete set of Coppola's Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien recordings, you can find them on the site of my friend Rolf (Satyr), on Internet Archive. Rolf also has posted Coppola's version of the other work on Marius Constant's LP - the Rhapsodie pour saxophone, with soloist Jules Viard.

LINK

Claude Debussy