Debussy: Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien Khamma | CD review

Orchestre National de Lyon/Märkl (Naxos)Volume 4 of Jun Märkl's Debussy cycle deals with mystic eroticism and theatre music. The main work is Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, Debussy's incidental music for Gabriele d'Annunzio's 1911 "mystery", deemed inflammatory in its day, not so much for its gay content (Debussy and d'Annunzio were both very publicly heterosexual) as for its inferences that Christianity has much in common with pagan cults of Adonis. The score can seem bitty when given comple...

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