BRUNSWICK – The Monday Sonata concert of the Bowdoin International Music Festival offered the essence of this year’s Bach-Debussy theme — Debussy Preludes from Book II, plus “L’isle joyeuse,  played by Peter Basquin; the Debussy Violin Sonata in G Minor, played by Basquin and Festival co-founder Lewis Kaplan; and the Bach “Goldberg” Variations (BWV 988) by Emma Tahmizian.

The program opened with four of the Preludes from Book II, which are not performed as often as the more famous ones, such as “The Girl With the Flaxen Hair,” from Book I. They were: “Bruyeres,” General Lavine–eccentric,: “La terasse de audiences du clair de lune,” and “Ondine.”

Basquin’s interpretations were unusual but convincing, emphasizing the exquisite development of the sketches rather than painting them with an impressionistic brush loaded with what one artist has called “Winsor and Newton fog.”

I particularly liked “Ondine.” Debussy’s portrait of the water sprite is as enchanting as Ravel’s, but his does not go off in a huff when the poet refuses to go to her underwater castle.

A full review of the concert will follow.


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