Conducted by Gordon Thorne
Maeterlinck's very beautiful -play Pelleas and Melisande has inspired several great composers to write music for it. The greatest of all is undoubtedly Debussy's opera. Next in importance comes Schonberg's very elaborate and highly ingenious symphonic poem. Slighter in musical content and treatment, but perhaps even truer to the atmosphere of Maeterlinck and the spirit of the drama, is Faure's exquisitely beautiful incidental music to the play. Sibelius also wrote incidental music for a production of the play in 1905, and it is indeed extraordinary that the Finnish composer has interpreted so well the subtle atmosphere of this French symbolist play.