Ravinia 2019, Issue 4, Week 8

Biographer Jaroslav Vogel suggested that the ti- tle In the Mists should be interpreted as the com- poser’s “mental state at the time, in view of the petty indifference shown by the world at large to his work in general and Jenůfa in particular.” Key signatures of five or six flats (mostly black keys) contribute an element of visual murki- ness to these four untitled character sketches. Janáček emulates folksongs, both rhythmic and rhapsodic, in his melodic writing. Accompani- ments similarly reflect the often sparse textures of folk music. CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918) Selections from Préludes , Books 1 and 2 “My soul is as romantic as a Chopin ballade!” wrote the 31-year-old Debussy to his friend Ernest Chausson. Debussy imagined himself a direct musical descendant of the Polish pia- nist and composer whose career thrived with- in early-19th-century Parisian salons. As a boy, Debussy studied piano with Mme. Antoinette Maurté de Fleurville, the mother-in-law of poet Paul Verlaine, who claimed to have been a student of Chopin. Her technical anecdotes re- mained with Debussy throughout his life. More than once, he invoked Maurté de Fleurville’s name when defending the “Chopinesque” prac- tice of sparse pedaling. This devotion to Chopin extended to editing his piano works for a French publisher. Debussy displayed compositional reverence for Chopin in two books of preludes (1910 and 1912–13) and a set of études (1915), categories ennobled by the Polish pianist. In the first book of preludes, Debussy differed from his predeces- sor by assigning programmatic titles, which ap- peared at the end of each prelude as if to encour- age an aural journey before revealing the literary or artistic inspiration. Additionally, he did not arrange the preludes according to technical or tonal considerations, as Chopin had done, but with character contrast in mind. The order of the Préludes ’ composition differed considerably from the published numbering. Debussy probably added two or three preludes after preparing his manuscript for the publisher. Neither did he consider the Préludes an integral set to be performed in toto . In fact, the premieres of each piece in the first book of preludes took place in a random succession. Debussy played Nos. 1, 2, 10, and 11 in May 1910, and Franz Lieb- ich and Walter Rummel Nos. 8 and 7 respective- ly in June and July; Ricardo Viñes introduced Nos. 5 and 9 and Liebich Nos. 3 and 4 in January 1911, and finally Debussy presented Nos. 6 and 12 in March. The first complete performance oc- curred in May at the hands of Jane Mortier. Debussy recorded five selections from Book 1 of his Préludes for the Welte-Mignon reproducing piano on November 11, 1913. These piano rolls, which capture the rhythmic fluidity and dynam- ic subtlety of Debussy’s piano playing as well as key details of performance practice such as pedaling, include Danseuses de Delphes (no. 1), Le vent dans la plaine (no. 3), La cathédrale en- gloutie (no. 10), La danse de Puck (no. 11), and Minstrels (no. 12). The reference in Les collines d’Anacapri ( The Hills of Anacapri ) remains somewhat obscure. Tradi- tional interpretations point to Monte Solaro on the edge of the town of Anacapri, on the Ital- ian island of Capri, which Debussy may or may not have actually visited. Recently, pianist and scholar Roy Howat has suggested that Debussy might have derived inspiration from the deco- rative landscape on the label of Anacapri wine. Debussy created a sense of tranquility, lonely solitude, and timelessness in Des pas sur la neige ( Footprints in the Snow ) through the relent- less repetition of a short–long, rising two-note motive and could evoke any number of winter scenes in Impressionist artwork. Having announced “Book 1” of his Préludes , Debussy committed himself to providing a companion volume, which he completed be- tween September 1912 and April 1913, building on two previously existing preludes. Two musi- cal advancements in this second book involved an increased complexity of harmonic vocabu- lary and a new preference for octatonic scales (alternating whole steps and half steps) over the whole-tone scales of the first book. Debussy set the title of “ Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses ” (“ Fairies Are Exquisite Dancers ”) in quotation marks, referring undeniably to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens . “The fairies are exquisite dancers, and that is why one of the first things the baby does is to sign to you to dance to him and then to cry when you do it.” Arthur Rackham’s delicate pen-and-ink draw- ing captures a ballerina fairy, accompanied by a praying mantis cellist, balancing on a delicate strand of spider silk. La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune ( The Ter- race of Moonlit Audiences ) possesses an Oriental quality and appears a response to the coronation of the George V, King of England, as emperor of India in 1910, particularly as documented in the journal Le temps (December 1912). The French musicologist Léon Vallas recalled Debussy’s fas- cination with that report, especially the phrases “la salle de la victoire, la salle du plasir, le jardin des sultanes, la terrasse des audiences au clair de lune” (“the hall of victory, the hall of pleasure, the garden of the sultans, the terrace of audienc- es in the moonlight”). Fittingly, Debussy inserts a passage from the French folk song “Au clair de la lune” in this prelude. The water nymph Ondine (“onde” is the French word for “wave”) appeared frequently in musi- cal compositions of the late 19th to early 20th century, with Tchaikovsky’s three-act opera Un- dine and the first movement of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit as prime examples. As with Ravel, the inspiration for Debussy’s prelude Ondine might have been Aloysius Bertrand’s prose poem “La nuit et ses prestiges” (“The Night and Its Gran- deur”). Debussy also might have had in mind Rackham’s recently published illustration “The Infancy of Undine” in Frédéric de la Motte-Fou- qué’s Undine (1911). The primary display of fireworks in ear- ly-20th-century Paris took place on La Fête Na- tionale (a.k.a. Bastille Day), a national holiday legally instituted on July 6, 1880, to honor the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and the Fête de la Fédération one year later. The use of fireworks dated back more than a century to the multiday celebration surrounding the original Fête de la Fédération. Feux d’artifice ( Fireworks ) likely reflects Debussy’s presence at the annual display, since it crackles and explodes with the sounds of pyrotechnics. –Program notes © 2019 Todd E. Sullivan Leoš Janáček Claude Debussy (1909) RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 22 – JULY 28, 2019 98