Claude Debussy: Mélodies (1882–1887) ed. by Marie Rolf (review)

The Œuvres complètesof Claude Debussy, planned for an eventual thirty-six volumes, are already well advanced, with notable publications of piano music, full orchestral scores, and the sketches for Debussy's most substantial unfinished opera project, Rodrigue et Chimène. The edition now includes its first publication of mélodies, which when complete will comprise four volumes that make up series II. Debussy's songs constitute one of the most important genres in his art, from his earliest works to his last, and include a number of his finest achievements. The mélodiesalso reveal the laboratory of Debussy's developing aesthetic, and even more than his surviving piano music, they show Debussy's stylistic kinships with his contemporaries and his predecessors. Indeed, what might be Debussy's earliest known composition is a song, Nuit d'étoiles, on Théodore de Banville's text, dating from 1880; it could have been composed by Offenbach or Massenet, but as a lesser masterpiece by the eighteen-year-old Debussy it is today a favorite item on student recital programs. Now that ongoing research is yielding more information about the chronology of Debussy's early works, it has become possible to recognize with more precision the progress of his evolving musical language.

The four volumes in series II are planned to reflect the chronology either of composition or of original publication, and this volume, no. 2, is the first so far issued. The centerpiece of volume 2 is the so-called Recueil Vasnier, a notebook of thirteen songs composed between 1882 and 1884 and presented to Marie Vasnier, for whom Debussy served as accompanist between 1880 and 1885 before departing for Rome. Much attracted by Mme Vasnier's expressive high voice and sensitive musicality, Debussy eventually composed twenty-nine songs for her. In one of these he included a dedication to "… the only muse who has ever inspired in me something resembling a musical feeling …" (p. xviii n. 9).

The thirteen songs in the Vasnier notebook comprised five texts by Paul Verlaine, six by Paul Bourget, and one each by Théophile Gautier and Alfred de Musset (the latter represented by Chanson espagnole, the only duet in the collection). It is significant that Debussy published six songs from these texts; three of them went into the first series of Fêtes galantes(1890): En sour-dine, Fantoches, and Clair de lune; but in these final versions Fantocheshas some major differences from the one in the Vasnier collection, and En sourdineand Clair de luneare completely new settings. Another Verlaine text, Mandoline, one of Debussy's most popular early songs, was first published in 1890; three earlier manuscript versions are included in this volume. Debussy's settings of two of the Bourget texts, Paysage sentimentaland Romance("Voici que le printemps"), were published in 1902, each with small but important differences from the Vasnier collection.

The other major group of songs in volume 2 is the Ariettes, six songs on texts by Verlaine and first published in 1888, and well known in later editions; the title Ariettes oubliéeswas given to their revision and republication in 1903, and this final version is projected to be part of the forthcoming volume 4 of series II. In between the thirteen songs of the Recueil Vasnier and the Ariettesin the present volume are two single items. Séguidille, on a text by Gautier, is undated but probably was composed in 1883 and probably originally intended for the Vasnier notebook. The song is lengthy: 218 measures of 3 8 meter...