Symphonie (1880) [9.54]
Andante cantabile (1880) [8.31]
Diane: Overture (1881) [6.51]
Le triomphe de Bacchus (1882) [12.51]
Intermezzo (1882) [4.29]
Première Suite d’orchestre (1883) [27.54]*
Divertissement (1884) [11.56]
L’enfante prodigue (1884): Prélude, Cortège and Air de danse [6.47]
Printemps: suite symphonique (1887) [18.04]
Petite Suite (1889) [13.46]
Marche écossaise (1891) [7.29]
Prélude a l’après-midi d’un faune (1894) [10.26]
Lindaraja (1901) [6.15]*
La mer (1903) [24.27]
Danse sacré et danse profane (1904) [10.05]*
Six épigraphes antiques (1914) [16.12]
En blanc et noir (1915) [16.43]*
Massimiliano Damerini and Marco Rapetti, piano (four hands) and two pianos*
rec. Studio La Musica, Carrara, Italy, 2-4 June and 5-6 October 2012
BRILLIANT CLASSICS 94448 [3 CDs: 70.47 + 68.48 + 74.27]
This set proclaims itself on the internet as the “only complete
recording of all the works written by Debussy for piano duet and piano
four hands”. It is most certainly that. Most discs of Debussy
works for two pianists extend to no more than one CD, including usually
the Petite Suite, En blanc et noir, Lindaraja, the Six epigraphes
antiques and the Marche ecossaise, sometimes varying the
diet slightly with one or another of Debussy’s earlier works
or transcriptions. This set extends to three very full CDs, and when
I first opened the box my initial impression was that we would have
a considerable number of transcriptions by other hands. Not a bit
of it; all the music on these discs was indeed written by Debussy
for two pianists or arranged by him for that combination, sometimes
with the intention of expanding the works at a later date for full
orchestra, sometimes not. There are some real rarities here.
The pianists, both extremely good technicians, sometimes rush the
music rather too much for my taste especially in the transcriptions
of works like the opening movement of La mer for piano duet.
One could contend that the piano, with its limited sustaining capacity,
requires that the music be taken at a faster pace. I would treat this
argument sceptically; the use of the piano sustaining pedal, and the
listener’s memories of the orchestral score, would well survive
a slower treatment of the score, as indeed we are given with the transcription
of the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un
faune. However what would have helped even more would be a more
resonant acoustic. A photograph of the two pianists in the booklet
show them placed side by side on two pianos which seems to push them
back against the walls of what one presumes is the recording studio.
The sound would seem to confirm this suspicion, since there is almost
no resonance such as one would expect in a concert hall, just the
sense of two pianists and their instruments in a very confined space.
The sound does not overload or become clangourous, but it does feel
very cramped indeed.
The real value of this set lies not in the orchestral transcriptions
but in the early rarities included on the first one-and-a-half discs
- the works are presented, logically, in chronological order. The
set begins with Debussy’s early attempt at a Symphony,
written for Tchaikovsky’s patroness Nadezhda von Meck. I reviewed
an orchestral arrangement of this score by Tony Finno issued last
year as part of Jun Märkl’s box of the complete Debussy
orchestral music; that performance was over a minute slower, but the
music - which sounds only intermittently like mature Debussy - works
well at the speed here, even though once again the sound of the piano
duet is somewhat too closely observed. Märkl’s performance
gave us only the opening Allegro of the symphony. The performance
here confirms my suspicions voiced in my original review that it was
Finno’s orchestration which was responsible for some of the
vulgarities I detected in the score. Here we also have the charming
Andante cantabile which may have been intended as the second
movement of the incomplete work.
One movement of the ballet score Le triomphe de Bacchus was
also included in the Märkl box, but here we have considerably
more of the music - another eight minutes including some inconsequential
fragments. All this serves only to confirm my earlier observations
that here we find Debussy almost imitating Delibes, although the later
fragments show more signs of individuality. Before this we have heard
the overture to Diane about which we are given no information
whatsoever; it was written for an unfinished scène lyrique,
and was only discovered nearly a century after its composition. It
is a jolly piece, but has no discernible evidence of the mature composer.
The first disc concludes with a brief Intermezzo and the Première
Suite d’orchestre, about which again the booklet notes are
silent. Both were originally intended for orchestra, but if complete
orchestral scores ever existed they are lost. The Intermezzo
was inspired by a poem by Heine, in particular the lines “The
mysterious isle of the spirits showed faintly in the moonlight; exquisite
sounds reached the ear and dancing shapes floated mistily. The music
grew ever sweeter, the whirling dance more alluring…”
I quote here from Caroline Waight’s translation in the booklet
notes for the Naxos release of the same music. It is again a rather
Delibes-like and forthright piece, with only occasional touches of
mature Debussy in evidence; and it doesn’t sound in the least
“mysterious” in this performance.
The Première Suite was only discovered as recently as
2008, and derives in part from Debussy’s incidental music for
Chansons de Bilitis; not to be confused with the song settings
of the same title. It has been recorded a number of times, but a completion
of the orchestration of the pieces might give us a better idea of
the music as the composer originally conceived it. Apparently an incomplete
full score of the Suite does exist, but is missing the third
movement; in this form it has been recorded by Les Siècles
under the enterprising François-Xavier Roth, although I have
not heard this. Again one is indebted for this information to the
notes for the Naxos recording - this time by Gérard Hugon.
One wishes that Marco Rapetti’s notes for this release had been
more similarly informative. The opening movement, entitled Fête,
inhabits much the same world as the later Suite bergamasque;
and the slow waltz Rêve which constitutes the third movement
begins like a close cousin of Satie’s Je te veux written
some eighteen years later, developing into a grand climax which anticipates
Neptune’s chariot in Respighi’s Fountains of Rome.
The works on the second CD are generally more familiar, although usually
in their orchestral guises provided by Debussy himself or his contemporaries
like Henri Büsser. However the Divertissement which opens
the disc is also a comparative rarity. Here we begin to glimpse the
mature Debussy in a work which anticipates the Tarantelle styrienne
in its infectious rhythms. This is in fact the longest single track
on these three CDs, and its inclusion is welcome.
The three brief dances extracted from L’enfant prodigue
finally introduce us to the composer’s mature genius in its
first flowering. They work well in the piano duo format with the hieratic
Prélude being particularly beautiful in this arrangement.
Printemps was a work that Debussy wrote during his stay in
Italy following his success in the Prix de Rome, and it exists in
a number of different forms. The piano duet version is skilful; but
the following Petite Suite, the first really mature work in
this set, suffers from the closeness of the piano recording with the
Cortêge and the final Ballet in particular sounding
decidedly strident and over-loud. Both the Marche écossaise
and the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un
faune suffer less from this, but the works really sound far better
in their orchestral guise. The opening of the Marche, so atmospheric
in the orchestral version, sounds much too ‘present’ and
‘precise’ in this recording. The impressionist haze in
the central section of the Prélude is rather too literally
displayed.
The final disc includes, besides the transcriptions of La mer
and the Danses sacrées et profanes, Debussy’s
three major works for piano duo in the form of Lindaraja, the
Six épigraphes antiques and his masterpiece in the form
En blanc et noir. These three works have received many excellent
performances over the years, and one has to confess that they too
would sound much better in the more realistic perspective of the concert
hall. Both Massimiliano Damerini and Marco Rapetti are excellent players,
but the closely observed sound to which their performance is subjected
seriously robs the music of atmosphere. I managed to obtain a more
acceptable sound by the use of various tone controls, but one would
really have hoped that the notes would have been given more room to
breathe.
Although there is much value in having all Debussy’s works for
two pianists in one comprehensive box, there are alternative versions
of most of these pieces available on various Naxos discs - not much
more expensively. It must be admitted that the recorded acoustic on
those CDs is more resonant and less congested than the sound here.
The Naxos discs also come with much more informative and extensive
booklet notes, which are of great value in investigating the extreme
rarities such as the Suite and the Symphony. However
for Debussy completists this issue is self-recommending.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
For Debussy completists this issue is self-recommending.
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