Debussy's Images for orchestra

Yshani Perinpanayagam chooses her favourite recording of Debussy's Images for Orchestra.

Composed between 1906 and 1912, Images is Debussy’s final concert work for orchestra. Over its three sections it abundantly displays his customary sophistication and flair for orchestral sonorities and for painting pictures in sound. The first and last parts of the triptych are folk-inflected: the enigmatic Gigues quotes 'The Keel Row' from Northumberland and two French folk tunes feature in Rondes de printemps. The middle (and most often performed) section, Ibéria, is itself a triptych. Even though Debussy famously spent no more than an afternoon in Spain, Ibéria's three movements conjure up the sights, sounds and smells of Spain so evocatively that even his Spanish contemporaries were impressed.