The half-century around 1900 offers more than ever the example of a troubled period during which everything collapsed and was reconstructed. This effervescent atmosphere of conflict and contrast was the crucible from which all the science, the art, the culture of the twentieth century was to spring.

In France, the publication in 1886 of Jean Moréas’s Manifeste symboliste is often seen as the cornerstone of twentieth-century modernity, and it is Pierre Boulez who is generally attributed with having determined its musical pendant, the first performance of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894), in which he senses the breath of innovation and a new approach to time in music.

Starting with Debussy’s penultimate work, the Sonata for flute, viola and harp, Oxalys wanted, with this recording, to shed light on a musical scene that on the one hand respected and extended this symbolist tradition and on the other used it as a base for the pursuit of new means of expression.

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