Piano - Grade 5
SKU:
FA.MFCD017B
By
Nicolas Horvath. By
Claude Debussy and Robert
Orledge. Rediscoverd
Debussy. Christmas.
Score. Musik Fabrik
#MFCD017B. Published by
Musik Fabrik
(FA.MFCD017B).
8.27 x
11.69
inches.
Contains Le
Roi Lear:
Prelude,Premiere Fanfare,
and La Mort de
Cordelia,Toomai des
elephants, Rodrigue et
Chimene: Prelude a l'acte
1p. Le Martyre de Saint
Sebastien: La Passion ,
and No-ja-li ou Le Palais
du Silence
From
Robert Orledge's
notes:
My interest
in the wonderful music of
Claude Debussy began in
the 1980s when I
researched and published
a book with Cambridge
University Press entitled
Debussy and the Theatre.
During the course of my
studies in Paris, I was
amazed to discover that
Debussy planned over 50
theatrical works but only
finished two of these
entirely by himself (the
opera Pelleas et
Melisande in 1893-1902
and the ballet Jeux for
Diaghilev's Ballets
Russes in 1912-13). Of
the rest, many were never
started musically (like
Siddartha and Orphee-roi
with the Oriental scholar
Victor Segalen, 1907);
some had a few
tantalising sketches
(like the Edgar Allan Poe
opera Le Diable dans le
beffroi, 1902-03); some
were half-finished (like
his other Poe opera La
Chute de la Maison Usher,
1908-17); while others
were musically complete
but had their
orchestrations completed
by other composers (like
Khamma, by Charles
Koechlin, 1912-13; or Le
Martyre de Saint
Sebastien and La Boite a
joujoux by his 'angel of
corrections' ['l'ange des
Corrections'] Andre
Caplet in 1911 and 1919
respectively).
For
it has to be admitted
that what some scholars
call Debussy's
'compulsive achievement'
could equally well be
viewed as laziness,
especially as far as the
minute detail required
for calligraphing his
orchestral scores was
concerned. It was as if
creating the music itself
was of greater importance
than controlling its
final sound, even if
Debussy was an
imaginative orchestrator
when he found the time
and energy to do it. It
also seems true that
Debussy also preferred
inventing ideas to
turning them into
complete pieces. However,
despite the lack of
detail in many of his
sketches (missing clefs,
key signatures, dynamics,
phrasing, etc.) the notes
themselves are
surprisingly accurate,
whether or not they can
be compared with a later
draft. Thus, a large
number of sketches exist
for his Chinese ballet
No-ja-li ou Le Palais du
Silence and it is not too
difficult to see which
parts of Georges de
Feure's 1913 scenario
(see below) inspired
which ideas. But Debussy
hardly made any attempt
to join them together
after the first few
bars.
It was
usually up to his
publisher, Jacques
Durand, to find solutions
when Debussy risked a
breach of contract.
Debussy was supposed to
supervise the
orchestrations completed
by others, but this
supervision was usually
very light and restricted
to quiet, sensitive
moments in which problems
were easier to spot. Far
from jealously guarding
every one of his created
notes, as Ravel did,
Debussy once even went as
far as to ask Koechlin to
'write a ballet for him
that he would sign' on 26
March 1914 when he was
hard-pressed to fulfil
his lucrative contract
for No-ja-li with Andre
Charlot at the Alhambra
Theatre in London. In the
end, Debussy (through
Durand) sent Charlot the
symphonic suite Printemps
instead, whose
orchestration had been
completed by Henri Busser
in the Spring of
1912.
So, when I
was offered early
retirement as Professor
of Music at Liverpool
University in 2004, I
seized the opportunity it
would give me to spend
time trying to
reconstruct some of
Debussy's lost potential
masterpieces from his
existing sketches and
drafts--then
orchestrating them in
Debussy's style when this
was appropriate. I had
begun this mission in
2001 with the most
promising project, the
missing parts of Scene 2
of La Chute de la Maison
Usher and the sheer joy
it gave me at every stage
persuaded me to tackle
other projects,
especially when Debussy
experts were unable to
identify exactly where I
took over from Debussy
(and vice versa) in
Usher.
Robert Orledge
