It is near impossible to put into words how devastatingly beautiful, achingly lyrical, and sumptuously and, dare I even say, explosively nuanced Claude Debussy's three part symphonic tone poem, "La Mer" is. I have listened to three different versions today. Here is a famous version by Boulez with the Cleveland Orchestra. So much breathtaking energy percolates just below the surface. The way of true art is not to intellectually seek out or contextualize "meaning". Indeed, from a reviewer proper--"Although one notes exceptions among individual painters, the interest of Impressionism isn't primarily psychological. One doesn't "read" the surface to arrive at a metaphysical truth, truth of character, or dramatic conflict. Rather, the surface leads to pure sensation – often ecstasy in the presence of the beautiful. The impressionist usually says, without Mahler's irony, "Wird's nicht eine schoene Welt?" The world is often enough. With the major sport of Pelléas and some of the late works to one side, almost all of Debussy's music deals in the physical sensation of the world and the shutting down of the brain overwhelmed by beauty."
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