PROFILPELAJAR.COM

Pour le piano (For the piano) is a suite for solo piano by Claude Debussy. Debussy composed it in 1901. Three movements are part of the suite, a prélude, a sarabande and a toccata. Ricardo Viñes first played it at the Salle Érard on 11 January 1902. Maurice Ravel created a version for orchestra of the middle movement.^[1]

The suite is regarded as Debussy's first mature piano composition. There are many recordings.

History

Claude Debussy composed the three pieces in the suite at different times. The second movement, a sarabande, was composed in the winter of 1894. At that time it was part of the series of Images oubliées (forgotten images).^[2] It is dedicated to Yvonne Lerolle, the daughter of Henry Lerolle.^[1]^[3] Debussy composed did not compose much piano music during the 1890s and focused on opera and orchestral music.^[4] He finished the suite in 1901, revising Sarabande.^[5] He also dedicated the revised version of Sarabande, as well as the third movement, Toccata, to Yvonne Lerolle, now Mme E. Rouart.^[3] The suite was published in 1901 by Eugène Fromont.^[6]^[7] It was premiered on 11 January 1902 at the Salle Érard in Paris for the Société Nationale de Musique.^[1] Ricardo Viñes was the pianist, who knew about the suite from his friend Maurice Ravel.^[5]

Pour le piano was a very important change in Debussy's creative development, who now switched to making piano music.^[4]

On the 100th anniversary of Debussy's death, Bärenreiter published a critical edition of some of his piano music in 2018, including Pour le piano.^[8] The publisher said that the "improvisational and fugitive" parts of Debussy's compositions were "governed by a precisely calibrated formal design" that left "little room for chance".^[8]

Structure and music

Sarabande

performed March 2011

Toccata

performed November 2010

Problems playing these files? See media help.

Pour le piano has been regarded as Debussy's first mature piano work.^[9] The suite consists of three movements:^[3]

Prélude
Sarabande
Toccata

The first movement, called Prélude, is marked "Assez animé et très rythmé" (With spirit and very rhythmically).^[10] It was dedicated to Debussy's student Mlle Worms de Romilly, who notes that the movement "tellingly evokes the gongs and music of Java".^[1] The pianist Angela Hewitt notes that Prélude begins with a theme in the bass, followed by a long pedal point passage. The theme is repeated in chords marked fortissimo, together with glissando runs that Debussy connected to "d’Artagnan drawing his sword".^[5] In a middle section, the left hand holds a pedal point in A-flat major, to which the right hand adds colours. The conclusion is marked "Tempo di cadenza", again with glissando-figures.^[5]

Sarabande is marked "Avec une élégance grave et lente" (With a slow and solemn elegance).^[10] Debussy said it should be "rather like an old portrait in the Louvre".^[5] Émile Vuillermoz described Debussy's playing of the movement as "with the easy simplicity of a good dancer from the sixteenth century".^[5] Hewitt calls it "antique and modern at the same time".^[5] The movement has been regarded as "among the most intimate music for the keyboard",^[10] showing an affinity to Erik Satie such as his 1887 three dances called Sarabandes.^[10]

The last movement is a toccata, marked "Vif" (Lively).^[10] It has been described as "poised and energetic, extroverted and graceful" and shows influences from Scarlatti's sonatas.^[10] Hewitt notes about the virtuoso writing that speed alone wasn't Debussy's goal, but rather clarity.^[5]

A reviewer described the suite as "possibly foreshadowing the neo-classical Debussy that emerged in his last years".^[9]