Claude Debussy

Rhapsodie Mauresque

Claude Debussy's Rhapsodie mauresque is one of those works that we know more by anecdote than by the music itself. The composer's first biographer, Léon Vallas, recounts the genesis of the piece in his book "Claude Debussy et son temps". It seems that the few lines he devotes to it have fuelled most subsequent works on the subject. Since then, numerous studies of Debussy and his music have been carried out, clarifying biographical details or suggesting various points of view in terms of both analysis and aesthetics of the works, but none of them brings us any new elements concerning the Rhapsodie mauresque. Only Vladimir Jankelevitch (Debussy et le mystère de l'instant) gives us an unprejudiced glimpse of it, analyzing various specifically Debussystesque climates. The ludicrous connotations surrounding the composer's difficulties in completing a commission from Elisa Hall, an amateur saxophonist and patron of the arts, whose doctor had advised her to learn the saxophone in order to improve her failing hearing, did much to tarnish the piece's reputation and relegate it to the cold case file. However, after a careful examination of the manuscript delivered to the President of the Orchestral Club of Boston, it seemed only fitting to produce an orchestration in keeping with the spirit of the original text. The present edition is therefore based on Claude Debussy's manuscript at the Conservatory of New England - Boston - Massachusetts. The title page is in the composer's handwriting: Esquisse d'une "Rhapsodie mauresque" for orchestra and saxophone Principal to Madame Elisa Hall with the respectful homage of Claude Debussy 1903-1908. The 14 pages of music that follow were written on 3 or 4, or even 5 staves as required. Only one recapitulation and the resulting modulating bridge have not been harmonized (m. 312 to 334). A few orchestral indications sometimes appear in the form of instrumental interventions - details of orchestral texture are rare or non-existent. The division between saxophone and orchestra is not clearly defined until bar 85. There is a total lack of preparation for performance - for example, tempo indications are reduced to a minimum. On the other hand, the articulations of the melodic lines are generally clearly defined in terms of phrasing, and not in terms of bow strokes for the strings. The term "sketch" is therefore fully justified. Nevertheless, Debussy's distinctive, refined artistry is apparent from the very first bars - the form is fully defined, the harmonies are clear, the melodic lines flow freely and the developments follow an exemplary economy of means. As obvious as it is, it's unlikely that financial appeal was the composer's sole motivation in writing this piece for the saxophone. At the very least, he allowed himself to be caught up in the game at first, his preoccupations gradually taking over. More than one passage testifies to a genuine aesthetic quest, which no craft can replace. While the entry of the saxophone accompanied by the orchestra after a short cadenza, with its chromatic melodic lines and chords of sevenths and ninths, reveals the influence of Prélude à l'Après-Midi d'un Faune, many passages display preoccupations that will be found in contemporary or later works. What he seems to have missed most was a valuable interlocutor and instrumentalist, such as he found in 1907 in the person of P. Mimart for the final elaboration of his Première Rhapsodie pour clarinette, with whom he did not hesitate to modify certain features in the direction of idiomatic writing adapted to the instrument? He humorously confessed to Pierre Louÿs: "The saxophone is a reedy animal whose habits I don't know very well - does it like the romantic sweetness of clarinets or the rather coarse irony of the sarrusophone (or contrabassoon)? Finally, I got him to murmur some melancholy phrases, under military drum rolls." Elisa Hall's arrival in Paris won't exactly get things moving. He was all the more discouraged after hearing her give the first performance of Vincent d'Indy's Choral Varié in 1904... However, despite these conditions hardly conducive to artistic creation, Debussy knew from the very first measures - the only ones in which its role was fully defined - how to use the richest and most authentic timbre of the saxophone, making it indispensable and irreplaceable. Perhaps it's a vague memory from his youth, of that "new voice" heard in the music for Georges Bizet's L'Arlésienne, which his teacher at the Conservatoire, Ernest Guiraud, to whom he was very close, had helped to make known, by perfecting in 1879 the Second Suite for Orchestra based on the incidental music. On his own initiative, Guiraud even added a short counterpoint for the saxophone to the minuet. It should be noted that Debussy had joined his class in December 1880. For Debussy, the orchestration phase is a genuine compositional stage. For him, it's not just a matter of dressing up the various themes - the handling of sound colors, punctuated by dynamic effects, can become a real pretext for developments and give rise to new structural elements. In any case, the realization of this work by a third party is not what Debussy would have achieved had he completed it himself. Nevertheless, it is quite plausible to imagine a concert version corresponding to a "state", like a print proof. Debussy himself accepted the principle in the 1910s, when Henri Büsser orchestrated (or rather, re-orchestrated) Printemps, a dispatch from Rome whose original orchestration had burned in 1887, and of which only a reduction for four-hand piano now existed. Although originally composed for orchestra and choir, Büsser produced a version for solo orchestra, integrating the four-hand piano, which appears here as the last vestiges of a forgotten work. The main difficulty of such a work is the balance between fidelity to the text and a certain sense of freedom that does not go beyond dubious speculation. Any deviations from the original score are the result of a careful reading and scrupulous analysis. Numerous occasional tempo indications have been added, but these are merely intended as a preparation for the performance. On the other hand, the Allegretto scherzando at bar 85 has been postponed to bar 114. It has been replaced by Un peu animé, scherzando puis un peu plus allant (m. 101) et en serrant (m. 112). This move is intended to maintain formal balance - the second part of the piece, in the refined key of A major, actually begins at bar 114, with the preceding passage serving as a transition between the two parts. The Piu mosso (m. 146) underlines the dramatic character of the central section. The break in formal symmetry is prepared by the parallelism of all voices for four bars (in contrast to the exposition at m. 154), allowing the havanaise rhythm to evolve autonomously (m. 346 to 353). The suddenness and frequency of the dynamics indicated by Debussy, as well as the harmonic color, impose a slowing down of the tempo at this point. The same applies to bar 366, where we find the same rhythmic-melodic cell with chromaticism. Unlike the Rhapsody for Clarinet (although the symphonic version is also subtitled "for Orchestra and Principal Clarinet"), the Rhapsodie mauresque was conceived directly for the orchestra and not with piano accompaniment. This partly explains the imprecise division between orchestra and saxophone. To André Messager, he confided: "...and here I am, desperately searching for the most unusual blends, the most suitable for bringing out this aquatic instrument...". Debussy's search for color and new sonic alloys was hampered by a dedicatee with limited instrumental resources and a lack of information on technical possibilities. This state of affairs becomes clear at bar 366, in the margin of which he enters the words S. Trille? (Saxophone, Trille?) but does not dare to write it down. So I took the liberty of filling this gap by having him play the saxophone on the C-sharp pedal. As a result, it seemed musically unthinkable that the saxophone should not participate in the progression of the next four bars (m. 370 to 374). I therefore had to write an instrumental trait which is nothing other than a dynamic effect, a sort of commentary on the harmonic and melodic content played by the 1storchestra. Another little freedom, which I left optional in the orchestral version - to the extent that 128 of the manuscript assigns the melodic part to the flute, but would it have been assigned to the saxophone if Madame Elisa Hall had been more virtuoso? No one knows - but the harmonic arrangement seems more logical if this motif is brought down an octave and linked in unison with the conduit of bar 136. With its evocation of Moorish Spain, the Rhapsody is obviously reminiscent of Iberia, the second of the Images for orchestra. The use of sounds that blend and then separate, and the seamless linking of the two movements, prefigure in certain respects the diptych "Les parfums dans la nuit - Le matin d'un jour de fête". While it certainly lacks the unity of Prélude à l'Après-Midi d'un Faune and the refined complexity of Jeux, Rhapsodie mauresque has enough appeal and originality to give a perfect idea of Claude Debussy's genius. Marc Sieffert (Sept. 2000)