In 1908, a critic wrote that “New York heard a new composition called The Sea, and New York is probably still wondering why.” Today we know that amnesia is just one of the symptoms of Debussy, and we risked hearing La Mer on Wednesday only because it was on the program before pianist Boris Berezovsky. The Maison symphonique was crowded for his interpretation of Prokofiev’s 2nd Concerto,
and what came before and after mattered little.