Piano - Grade 4
SKU:
FA.MFCD007PN
By
Nicolas Horvath. By
Claude Debussy and Robert
Orledge. Rediscoverd
Debussy. Classical,
Impressionistic. Score.
Musik Fabrik #MFCD007PN.
Published by Musik Fabrik
(FA.MFCD007PN).
8.27 x
11.69
inches.
Debussy's
friendship with the
versatile poet and
playwright Gabriel Mourey
began in 1899, and in
July 1907 Mourey offered
Debussy a libretto based
on Le roman de Tristan -
Joseph Bedier's
adaptation of a
twelfth-century Breton
romance by the
Anglo-Norman poet known
as Thomas - which had
recently been published
in Paris. Debussy
enthusiastically outlined
the four-act plot to
Victor Segalen that
October, and the main
differences from Wagner's
Tristan und Isolde are
that none of the action
takes place in Cornwall
and that Isolde of the
White Hands is found
guilty of cuckolding King
Marc with Tristan, who
has to rescue her from
the leper colony in which
she is abandoned in Act
1. She also betrays him
when he goes mad at the
end.
The idea of a
Tristan that restored its
'legendary character' and
had no connections with
Wagner, appealed to
Debussy, who was
extremely moved by the
circumstances of
Tristan's death. Even if
he thought that Mourey's
poetry was 'not very
lyrical and many passages
do not exactly invite
music', he did work on
the libretto and the
music that summer and
sent his publisher,
Jacques Durand, 'one of
the 363 themes for the
Roman de Tristan' in a
letter sent from
Pourville on 23 August,
1907. The present prelude
grows from this theme,
together with the
poignant Breton folksong
Le Faucon. After a short
atmospheric introduction,
Debussy's dance-like
theme (which is
definitely not a
leitmotif) gradually
gains momentum and after
it reaches its ecstatic
climax, representing the
transient happiness of
the lovers, it dissolves
into an expressive coda
and an elegiac close (all
growing from Debussy's
opening, off-stage
trumpet calls), leaving
us with the ultimate
tragedy of their
ill-fated
affair.
Unfortunat
ely, Mourey's actual
libretto has been lost
and the project
eventually foundered
because Bedier's cousin,
Louis Artus, wanted
Debussy to use the
scenario he had prepared
and copyrighted for the
stage, and would not
allow him to proceed with
Mourey's version.
Debussy, it need hardly
be said, would never have
dreamed of collaborating
with the author of the
vaudeville hit La culotte
(The pants)!
