Russell Sherman Debussy

RUSSELL SHERMAN DEBUSSY Russell Sherman, Pianist “…by any measure one of the truly extraordinary pianists before the public.” —The New York Times AV2164 Page 36 Page 1 Program notes by Russell Sherman Claude Debussy (1862-1918) ESTAMPES 13:47 1 Pagodes 5:08 2 La soirée dans Grenade 5:06 DEBUSSY: Estampes, Images Book 2, Préludes Book 2 3 Jardins sous la pluie 3:27 E IMAGES, Book II 14:34 o the eye the canker-bloom is no less beautiful than the rose. But the rose wins out because it 4 Cloches à travers les feuilles 4:57 T has the additional dimension of fragrance. Thus Shakespeare observes. The rose of the sunset 5 Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut 5:47 is prima facie evidence of its beauty. But the cadence of the day, suspended moment, brings also primal 6 Poissons d’or 3:43 fear and melancholy, and it imbues the rose with an existential sadness. Dusk: it is there, and then not there. PRÉLUDES, Book II 39:34 Debussy is undone by the beauty of his sound, an eternal sunset which seems to obliterate the 7 Brouillards 3:08 senses as it seduces the ear. It is as endless as the whole-tone scale, its natural lair, and as ingratiating 8 Feuilles mortes 3:15 as the satyr’s dream. Of course, one has to believe in such things, yet it seems hardly worth playing 9 La Puerta del Vino 3:02 Debussy if one were not transported into this world, a world of gamelan, myth, and poetry which was 10 “Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses” 3:06 entirely natural to his circle of friends and artists. 11 Bruyères 3:04 But, as usual, the devil is in the detail. In this case the details consist of: 1) the magical spellings 12 “General Lavine” – excentric 2:31 of chords; 2) complex and layered counterpoint: 3) tunes which are strangely both flowing and static; 13 La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune 4:34 4) forms which oblige both classical and mosaic models; and 5) sonorities whose textures are 14 Ondine 3:27 simultaneously enduring but yet fractionally peeled away. These are the musical facts, and they may be 15 Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C. 2:33 charted in some basic, graphic way. Such facts provide a canon of observable data, but the truth, or 16 Canope 3:19 rather the mystery of Debussy, – for all great art, according to Renoir, is both ineffable and inimitable 17 Les tierces alternées 2:47 – lies in some region which can only be inferred at best. 18 Feux d’artifice 4:48 How does one speculate about such things? Carefully, and with some risk of academic dismay. For certain commentators have come to the point where imaginative discourse about the music (what Page 2 Page 3 does it mean? what does it say?), unquantifiable by nature, is often regarded suspiciously as but a quaint when asked by the Debussy scholar and interpreter, E. Robert Schmitz, which piano work most relic. Meanwhile there are studies which compare the forty or seventy extant recordings of a given work faithfully reflected the Spanish character, responded “the Soirée dans Grenade, which contains in a according to their particular rhetorical idiosyncrasies, generally thought of as intrusions upon the marvelously distilled way the most concentrated atmosphere of Andalusia.” The tour then returns sacred text – yet tolerating a select few as though they were rare and exotic butterflies. Neglected, home with Jardins sous la pluie, which incorporates portions of two French nursery rounds into a cameo however, is the fact that idiosyncrasy itself is inherent in all creative art, and by nature, contains certain of gardens transformed by showers, storms, and sun. (There are in fact recordings of Debussy playing elements which cannot be precisely measured without forfeiting their singular qualities. Meanwhile the Soirée and the Children’s Corner, revealing the composer’s characteristic whimsy, spontaneity, and performances of Debussy, as well as other composers, are often cauterized to fit the Procrustean bed. variety of touch.) The conventional characterization of Debussy frequently devolves into a stereotype of tender, The two sets of Images, dating from 1907, seem more tenuous and abstract when compared for veiled beauty, featuring a lyrical, caressing, and refined sound. This is a useful and attractive formula, instance to the Préludes, relatively more compact in form and sensibility. In particular, Images II begins but mainly of the surface qualities, leading to an approach which can undermine the individual aspects to verge into zones of near silence, even toward such distant cousins as John Cage. The remote chimes of individual pieces. For behind this veil of luxurious sound there exist other qualities which may be of the first piece, Cloches à travers les feuilles, resembles a work by Morton Feldman (Cage’s pupil) which far less comforting. Sometimes, for example, there is an emptiness which posits no exit and allows for I performed perhaps a half-century ago. It is written for several pianos and requires each pianist to play no redemption. Sometimes there is a sense of omen synonymous with foreboding, terror, and the same simple tune, pianissimo, but each at different and staggered times. The inspiration, according obsession. Sometimes there is a pagan element which disturbs the pieties of form and ceremony. Often to Feldman, came from the effect of various church bells floating over Montreal on a Sunday morning, the ideas are insinuated rather than stated, and may be better understood by children, ghosts, and unsynchronized and spectral. The second piece of this set, Et la lune descend sur la temple qui fut, is demons. Evocative as such images can be, they are invariably surrounded by an atmosphere of equally ethereal and, in particular, extraordinary in its juxtaposition and layering of different planes of uncertainty and ambiguity. Everything is vivid but perishable, for, as many have pointed out, often sound (comparable to the juxtaposed planes of color in Cézanne). Poissons d’or is another story, more is said by that which is left unsaid. however, ravishing and mercurial in both its motivic figures and accompanying figurations. It has the All of these inferences, however apparently fanciful, are mirrored by the specific structures and unique Debussy stamp of matched melancholy and joy. textures of the musical discourse. The actual notes and their absences are irreducible. Their The second volumes of Préludes is dated 1913. By definition, preludes belong to the class of implications, however, in the inescapable world of character and meaning, though they can never be miniatures – excluding Bach, of course, whose preludes turned into quasi-genetic structures out of captured, must always be sought. which Fugues and Suites were born. But then Chopin came along and developed an entirely new The suite, Estampes, was completed in 1903. Its contents provide a bit of a world tour. The genre, each prelude an autonomous revelation unique in character and sonority, thereby capturing and Oriental aspect of Pagodes is manifest in three ways: 1) the gamelan sonority throughout; 2) the use of authenticating transient feelings otherwise ephemeral. Scriabin and others followed in this tradition, the pentatonic scale; 3) an inalterable calm, from immediate to distant. The essence and sophistication but Debussy consummated the task and paradox of making the moment both momentary and of the Soirée dans Grenade is best revealed by a comment of Manuel de Falla. The Spanish composer, indelible. Page 4 Page 5 Finally, with some trepidation, I venture to offer my own afterthoughts to the thoughts already expressed in the titles which Debussy added at the end of his pieces. I present them simply as IMAGES, BOOK II reflections upon reflections and in the spirit of endless metaphor as the natural province of art. The greater the art, the more speculative the sources and associations. However, there are those who would 1 Cloches à travers les feuilles: As though those curious geometric designs which curve in on serve as the guardians of standards of good taste, correct style, or purely structural analysis and who themselves, without boundaries, without beginnings or endings. Cycles without seasons, may well be skeptical. Nevertheless, I would appeal to the general spirit of fantasy and play. addictions beyond end or judgement, or the necklaces of sirens. But wait – momentary hallucination! No: the augury of the bells, inaudible, invincible. 2 Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut: In the belly of the snake the universe is slowly gestating, waiting for the birth of translucent genies whose colors are unblemished by mortality. The temple never was, but it is everywhere in those tiny curling things which ESTAMPES make silk out of the violent travails of the universe. 3 Poissons d’or: All that glitters is golden and luminous IMAGES, BOOK II beyond the flickering of eye or touch, beyond net or hook or 1 Pagodes: Hierarchical symmetries blessed and eroded by wind, chime, and the edicts of causal hypothesis – rather a trembling incalculable and chance. The graybeards smile and play dice, while the children play solemn games wearing delirious, as though children tickled into happy submission, their embroidered sandals. while the path of consciousness is submerged in a joy which 2 La soirée dans Grenade: Circe enchants, oblivious to cries and sighs helplessly, unaccountably. tears, while the men dissolve into groans of asphyxiated lust. Meanwhile, far in the background, Carmen is slowly gyrating while she smokes a Turkish cigarette. 3 Jardins sous la pluie: The rain prattles and chortles like the laughter of gossiping birds. The flowers blush under the stinging rain, which re-christens them into garlands adorning the unblushing maidens.

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