Claude Debussy (1862-1918) String Quartet in G minor, Op.10

When Debussy returned to Paris in 1890 after a two-year Prix de Rome residency in Italy, he was eager to rid himself of the restraints of the conservatory academics. He longed to compose in a style that was distinctly French, as opposed to the more Germanic intellectual and aesthetic ideals of his teachers. He was very much involved with the artistic currents of the time in his native country, especially Symbolism in poetry and Impressionism in the visual arts. The Symbolist poets, such as Mallarmé and Verlaine, were creating a new more sensual style focusing on the sounds of words and mystical images. In the same way, Impressionist art cultivated a new way of seeing, using the play of light to express immediacy and movement in a bright and varied use of colour.

Debussy’s desire to strike out in a new direction resulted in a string quartet, which he composed after meeting the famed Belgian violinist, Eugene Ysaÿe. When the two met in the summer of 1893 they instantly became friends, and it was for the Ysaÿe Quartet that Debussy composed what was to be his only work in the genre. Breaking with conventional ideas of harmony, rhythm, and form, he drew on elements from diverse sources in his quest to create something distinctly French. He was influenced by the newer style of Wagner, the music of Mussorgsky with its roots in Russian folk and church music, the Asian music he had encountered at the Paris World Exposition of 1889 and also medieval and Renaissance music composed before the major-minor system had evolved. Debussy’s harmonic palette was wide ranging with new scales, unconventional chords and tonal progressions, and his rhythmic patterns were changing and complex creating a new spontaneity and vitality. In setting aside rigid conventions of harmony and form, he appealed directly to the senses with nuances of sound. His varied tonal effects, soulful beauty and freedom of form and structure provided an excellent musical counterpart to the Impressionist paintings and Symbolist poetry of the time. However, to a Parisian audience that was still getting used to the music of Fauré, the quartet was largely incomprehensible and the first performance in Paris on December 29, 1893, met with a bewildered reception.

Debussy incorporated into the quartet the principle of cyclical structure developed by César Franck, who had become a pillar of the French musical establishment. Under that principle, musical material is repeated from movement to movement to give a work a sense of unity. But, while Franck indulged in long themes and repeated them in close to original form, Debussy uses a single brief motif and subjects it to substantial transformations.

The opening notes of the first movement are of paramount importance. They make up the nucleus of a melodic cell, from which the entire quartet unfolds and grows. This motif is rhythmically complex and melodically intricate. A distinguishing feature is the rapid three-note ornament at the central turning point. Following the short motif and its repetition, three other melodies are heard, coming between restatements of the motif, each one in a slightly different form. The various themes, and especially the opening motif, are then heard in an imaginative procession of transformed shapes and guises – from surging passion to powerful grandeur, sometimes protractedly extended, sometimes in plaintive song – until the movement arrives at its climactic resolution.

The second movement offers a profusion of sparkling tonal effects, led by the viola playing an obstinately repeated, quickened version of the motif. Around this ostinato figure, the other instruments furnish brilliant pizzicato flourishes and scintillating cross- rhythms. The cello brings this section to a close and establishes the murmuring accompaniment for the first violin playing the opening motif in leisurely augmentation. Sections of new and derived melodic material follow, including a rhythmically attractive pizzicato passage in which the original motif is transformed into a five-beat metre. Then, just as the cello seems to be starting the murmuring accompaniment again, the movement fades away.

The third movement is one of Debussy’s most beautiful creations. The expressive opening section is played on muted strings with the first violin softly singing a languid melody that rocks gently back and forth in pitch. The viola next seizes one fragment of the melody and expands it into a slightly faster theme. Another theme, also introduced by the viola, includes the three-note figure of the opening motif. A middle section becomes more agitated working up to an impassioned climax before a return of the quiet rocking theme brings the movement to a subdued conclusion.

The introduction to the final movement, also based on the original motif, continues the quiet mood. The music grows somewhat more animated as the cello starts a fugue-like passage, further transforming the germinal motif. A fast section then commences with a rapid theme in the viola. From the final notes of this theme, Debussy spins out another melody. The shared notes of both themes become the accompaniment for the motif, this time grandiose and elongated. A reminder of the opening theme of this movement leads to a coda and conclusion that provide a final, exciting glimpse of the considerably altered germinal motif.

Generally considered to be his first great instrumental work, the String Quartet in G minor is quintessential Debussy. With its wide palette of textures and timbres, it presented to the world a new music of colour, sensation, rhythmic vitality and nuanced sonorities, and from it was established a new and internationally recognised school of modern French music which was to have an immense influence on classical music. Its originality and charm have secured it a place as a masterpiece in the chamber music repertoire.

Elizabeth Dalton, 2019