Claude Debussy.

Claude Debussy. OEuvres pour piano a quatre mains: Symphonie; Andante cantabile; Diane ouverture; Triomphe de Bacchus; Intermezzo; L'enfant prodigue; Divertissement; Printemps. Edition de Noel Lee. Paris: Durand, c2002. (OEuvres completes de Claude Debussy, ser. 1: OEuvres pour piano, vol. 7.) (Musica gallica.) [Gen. pref. in Fr., Eng., p. xi; foreword, p. ix-xxi; bibliographie selective, p. xxiii; score, 227 p.; abbrevs., p. 229; crit. notes in Fr., Eng., p. 231-41; variantes, remarques, p. 243-58; appendix, p. 259-63; facsims., p. 265-79. Cloth. D. & F. 15455; DB 15455; Hal Leonard no. HL 50564480; ISBN 0-634-08213-2. $119.95.]

Three volumes (series 1, nos. 7-9) of the ongoing OEuvres completes are dedicated to Claude Debussy's works for piano four-hands and for two pianos. Volume 9 will contain the most familiar of Debussy's works for piano four-hands: the Petite suite (1888-89), Marche ecossaise sur un theme populaire (1890), Six epigraphes antiques (1914-15), and the composer's own arrangement of La mer (1903-5). Volume 8, published in 1986 and edited by the pianist and composer Noel Lee, includes the works for two pianos: Debussy's transcription of the Prelude a l'apres midi d'un faune (1894), Lindaraja (1901), and En blanc et noir (1915). Also edited by Lee, volume 7 contains only one complete work for piano four-hands, Printemps, which was published (in no less than four versions, including orchestral) under Debussy's oversight and during his lifetime. All the other pieces in the volume date from Debussy's student years and provide convincing illustrations of his maturing skills as a composer. Most of this music is published for the first time in this volume.

The earliest work in Lee's edition is the Symphonie, a single movement in B minor, composed in 1880 or early 1881 and dedicated to Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky's patron, in whose Russian home Debussy spent the summer of 1880 and 1881 as household pianist. Based on the autograph held by the Glinka Museum in Moscow, the first publication of the Symphonie appeared in 1933 edited by N. Zhilaiev (Simfoniia h-moll dlia f-p. v chetyre ruki [Moscow: Ozgiz Muzgiz; reprint, Boca Raton, FL: Masters Music, 1990]); and again as Proizvedeniia dlia fortep'iano v chetyre ruki (in Sobraniie sochinenii dlia fortep'iano, t.5 [Moscow: Izdatel'stvo muzyka, 1965]), edited by Konstantin Stepanovich Sorokin; and in a more recent edition by Ernst-Gunter Heinemann (Symphonie fur Klavier zu vier Handen, h-Moll [Munich: Henle, 1995]). In harmony and form, it is an impressive achievement for a boy of eighteen, although it reveals much more of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's influence than any adumbrations of the later Debussy style. Lee regards the newly published Andante cantabile in E major as the first movement of a three-movement work, of which the existing B-minor movement is the third (the title page reads Symphonie en si mineur / Andante / Air de ballet / Final). The second movement has yet to be found, or perhaps it was never composed. On the basis of external evidence, however, Francois Lesure considers the Andante cantabile to be "de peu posterieure a la Symphonie" (a bit later than the Symphony; Claude Debussy: Biographie critique suivie du catalogue de l'oeuvre [Paris: Fayard, 2003], 475). The 1965 Russian volume also includes three dances from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake that Debussy arranged at Mme. von Meck's request and which she sent to P. Jurgenson for publication (Le lac des cygnes: Suite, tiree du ballet: piano a 4 mains [Moscow, 1880]). Lee notes that Debussy's name did not appear on the publication, probably because such an attribution would have been contrary to the rules of the Paris Conservatoire.

The Diane ouverture, composed in 1881, was probably planned as a prelude to Debussy's earliest operatic composition, Diane au bois, on Theodore de Banville's comedie lyrique, of which Debussy completed two scenes between 1883 and 1885 before abandoning the project. The overture has only a fleeting connection with the music of the opera itself, but both are substantial works. Diane au bois is planned for publication in series 4, volume 2 of the OEuvres completes.

Inspired by Banville's poem Le triomphe de Bacchos a son retour des Indes, Debussy's Triomphe de Bacchus: Suite d'orchestre, probably dating from early 1882, was apparently conceived in four movements ("Divertissement," "Andante," "Scherzo," and "Marche et Bacchanale"). In 1928, Choudens published the first movement in its original version and also in an orchestration and two-piano reduction by Marius-Francois Gaillard (Le triomphe de Bacchus: Divertissement pour orchestre); the four-hand version also appears in the 1965 Russian edition. The "Marche et Bacchanale" exists only as two sizable fragments, while the Scherzo appears to be lost. The style is closely similar to the recently rediscovered Premiere suite d'orchestre in four movements ("Fete," "Ballet," "Reve," and "Cortege et Bacchanale"), which exists in Debussy's autograph scores for piano four-hands and for orchestra (one movement missing) on deposit from the Robert Owen Lehman Collection at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.

Also from 1882 is the Intermezzo, dated 21 June of that year. Debussy's autograph title page indicates that this work was originally for orchestra. An autograph orchestral score of an Intermezzo for cello and orchestra exists in a private American collection, but at present there is no way to determine whether it is identical with this work. Further confusion lies with an Intermezzo for cello and piano, first recorded by cellist Jeffrey Solow (with pianist Irma Vallecillo, French Masterpieces for Cello & Piano, Desmar Records DSM 1006 [1975], LP; later rerecorded by him with pianist Eckart Sellheim, Debussy, Piano Trio in G (1880); Intermezzo for Cello and Piano (1882), Musicmasters MMD 60146 [1988]; Musical Heritage Society MHS 512311 [1989], CD), based on the edition made by Gregor Piatigorsky from the manuscript in his possession (Philadelpia: Elkan-Vogel, 1944) and later withdrawn from publication in deference to the request by Debussy's widow (see the liner notes by Nancy Shear on the Desmar recording). According to the liner notes by Ellwood Derr on the more recent recording, an inscription in the composer's hand on the autograph of the version for cello and piano notes that this is the fourth movement of a suite for cello and orchestra. Of particular note, however, is that this is an entirely different piece than the Intermezzo for piano four-hands. Thus the conflation of the two pieces in ...