This La Mer is one of Karajan’s finest achievements, where he avoided the smoothness and lack of emotional engagement that disfigured so many of his DG, BPO LPs. Debussy’s long melodic lines and supple rhythms are beautifully moulded and delineated. Karajan’s masterly balancing of parts lends the score exemplary clarity and allows him to highlight features many others ignore or just don’t see and similarly the way he builds climaxes and tension is superb. This really is a masterclass in Debussy conducting. For those wanting something completely different, but equally compelling, then Roth with Les Siècles on period instruments complements this admirably. The Ravel and Debussy Prelude are also beautifully played and you can sit back and revel in the ravishing orchestral sound coming out of the speakers. But both pieces are seen through the distorting lens of sound for sounds sake (see above) and as such completely devoid of atmosphere and feeling. Turning to the sound, only La Mer is available as a Universal 24/96 download (there is no point comparing HDTT releases to bog-standard, commercial CDs) so it and a first label LP were used for comparison. The 24/96 is acceptable, but compared to the LP the treble tone is thin and the image is so obviously a medium-res, digital approximation to the master-tapes. Turn to the HDTT DSD256 and you have clarity, presence, projection, the woodwind sound real, the sound has real analogue lustre and only lacks the LPs weight of tone.
