Reaching Vol 4 in their survey of Debussy’s orchestral works, the Lyon National Orchestra and Jun Märkl focus on two controversial theatre pieces, adding some snippets from incidental music to King Lear (orchestrated by Jean Roger-Ducasse) and an excerpt from the cantata L’enfant prodigue with which Debussy won the Prix de Rome in 1884. These fill-ups are useful to have but inevitably the main interest lies in Le martyre de Saint Sébastien and the rarely heard Khamma.

The latter is a real mish-mash, a légende dansée commissioned in 1911 by the colourful Canadian-born dancer and suggestive Dance of the Seven Veils specialist, Maude Allan. Debussy lost patience with the Egyptian plot and with La Allan, a fact that is readily borne out by the score. There are tantalising glimpses of what he was going to achieve immediately afterwards in Jeux, but equally there are whole pages in which inspiration is at a low ebb. Much of the orchestration was done by Charles Koechlin, by no means badly, but Khamma, which was not staged until 1947, hardly represents Debussy at his best.

Le martyre de Saint Sébastien, billed as a mystère, is a different matter. The 1911 Paris production of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s play with Debussy’s music was proscribed by the local archbishop on account of its homoerotic content and its implications of pagan Adonis-worship, but here Debussy was much more in control and creatively stimulated. The performance conveys the music’s subtle seductiveness with a sure and refined sense of colour.