Piano - Grade 5
SKU:
FA.MFCD014PN
Composed
by Claude Debussy and
Robert Orledge.
Rediscoverd Debussy.
Classical,
Impressionistic. Score.
Musik Fabrik #MFCD014PN.
Published by Musik Fabrik
(FA.MFCD014PN).
8.27 x
11.69 inches.
Fetes
galantes was actually
planned as a hybrid
opera-ballet to a
libretto by Debussy's
friend Louis Laloy. For
this, Laloy arranged
selected poetry by Paul
Verlaine into three
tableaux, replacing an
earlier (unstarted)
Debussyan project with
Charles Morice entitled
Crimen amoris. During his
last productive summer of
1915, Debussy set a
sequence from the start
of the first tableau,
'Les Masques', involving
stanzas 1 and 3 of the
opening song for Mezzetin
in Verlaine's comedy Les
Uns et les autres. The
action is set in a park a
la Watteau late one
summer afternoon as
Mezzetin attempts to
entertain a group of
nonchalant masqueraders
with only the aid of his
voice and a
mandolin.
This
appears to have been
prefaced by a slower,
elegiac introduction
reminiscent of the
opening of the
comtemporary Cello Sonata
and it leads to a danced
minuet by the masqued
dancers which has clear
echoes of the piano piece
L'Isle Joyeuse (1904).
Following Laloy's
scenario, the
mas-queraders then sing
extracts from Verlaine's
'A la promenade' (from
Fetes galantes itself).
The minuet returns at
greater length before
being cut short by a
chilly gust of wind,
after which the park
returns to its orginal
state (and music) as
though nothing had really
happened.
