Half-English and a colleague and friend of Debussy’s (a published correspondence exists), Désiré-Émile Ingelbrecht sculpts a rich, weighty but microscopically balanced reading of the composer’s only completed opera. It’s quite a shock to ears brought up on the sound worlds of lighter, supposedly more ‘modern’ interpreters such as Roger Désormière – EMI’s choice to lead the iconic wartime (and first-ever) complete Pelléas recording – or his disciple Pierre Boulez (Sony). Whereas these latter interpreters have Debussy only a short step away from the music of Boulez himself and Dutilleux that followed, Ingelbrecht’s realisation of the score looks further back, with clear fingerprints of the Parsifal that Debussy so admired, and even of the lushness of successful operatic contemporaries of his childhood like Gounod and Massenet. If you’re used to Act 5 (Mélisande’s death) as a kind of quiet minimalist afterthought, the passion evoked here by Arkel and the orchestra will refocus your attention. Wagner listeners of a certain age may compare the effect to that time in the 1970s when performances by Reginald Goodall and live tapes of Hans Knappertsbusch surprised and delighted those used to the slimmer dynamic range and brisker gait of the available studio recordings from Karajan and Solti.

A combination of lucky accidents brought this new reissue’s performers together for a June 1951 BBC studio recording that had been mooted originally with Ernest Ansermet, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Maggie Teyte (Debussy’s own second Mélisande) as Geneviève. Corresponding very precisely via his (third) wife and securing exactly what he wanted in terms of intervals (one) and no cuts, Ingelbrecht transformed Walter Legge’s young Philharmonia in little time into a virtuoso version of a French theatre orchestra, evidently enjoying his work with the orchestra’s star wind players. His Franco-Belgian-Russian cast had much experience in this work: Etcheverry had already recorded his Golaud for Désormière, Maurane was the other great Pelléas of the day next to EMI’s Jacques Jansen (and would re-record the role for Jean Fournet and Ansermet) and Vessières was a unique lyric bass, able to make Arkel passionate, neither bore nor grouse. Testament’s notes have reservations about the English actress/singer Marjorie Westbury as Yniold but the maestro thought enough of her perky drama to import it into his next Paris broadcast.

Ingelbrecht Pelléases have circulated before (notably Disques Montaigne’s 1962 performance with Vessières, Jansen and Micheline Grancher – Naïve, 8/88^R) but none has been presented in sound as true as this one. It’s an important contribution to our perception of Debussy’s opera and one to take a place alongside Désormière, both Boulezes (the DG Welsh National Opera DVD as well as the Sony Covent Garden set) and the Karajan (EMI, which I’ve come to love and is closer to Ingelbrecht’s sonorities than these French moderns).