Tuesday November 24, 2009

Strings in the Mountains Music Festival
Claude Debussy: Piano Trio in G major
Katherine Collier, piano; Joseph Lin, violin; David Hardy, cello (7/29/06) 22:52
Claude Debussy: String Quartet in G minor, Op.10
Joseph Lin, Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Yizhak Schotten, viola; Marc Johnson, cello (7/29/06) 26:03
Also, Charley anticipates the Denver Brass concert this Saturday.
Johann Sebastian Bach (arr. Michael Allen): Fugue in G minor, BWV 578 (Little(
Giacomo Puccini (arr.Andrew Wolfe): "Nessun dorma" from Act III of Turandot
Denver Brass/ Kenneth Singleton
"Epics in Brass" 7,5 6:20


Claude Debussy (1862-1918): Piano Trio in G major
Andantino con moto allegro--Allegro appasssionato--Tempo primo
Scherzo. Intermezzo: Moderato con allegro
Andante espressivo
Finale: Appassionato

Debussy was still a student at the Paris Conservatory when a rich foreigner inquired if there was a pianist at the school who would be willing to accompany her on a tour. Nadezhda von Meck had married a noble Lithuanian engineer, whose death in 1876 left her a considerable income, enough to become Tchaikovsky's patroness. Debussy joined her at Interlaken, traveled with the family for four months and later lived with them in Russia. "He is going to bring life to the entire household," she wrote to Tchaikovsky. "He is Parisian to his fingertips. He is a true gamin, witty, and an excellent mimic. His imitations of Gounod and Ambroise Thomas are perfect and most amusing."
Debussy's job description included piano duet partner with Madame von Meck, piano teacher to her eleven children, and pianist in her household trio, which included violinist Heinrich Pachulsky and a cellist named Danilchenko. It was for this group that he composed the Trio in G major. He finished it in Fiesole, Italy, during the summer of 1880. It was dedicated to his harmony teacher at the Paris Conservatory, Émile Durand, "with many friendly thoughts."
A hundred years would pass before the Trio would make another appearance. Around 1980, an autograph score of the first movement and an autograph cello part of the entire work showed up in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. In 1982 Ellwood Derr found autograph scores of the last three movements in Maurice Dumesnil's papers at the School of Music at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Dumesnil, a pupil of Debussy, had given the last four measures of the autograph to James Francis Cooke, a former president of Theodore Presser Co. in Philadelphia. Fortunately he copied the measures first, as the autograph version of those four measures has disappeared. 
Derr reconciled all these sources for the present performing edition.
In his book The Piano Trio, Basil Smallman writes, "The trio is a substantial four-movement work, somehat in the style of Massenet, but with features derived also from Schumann and from César Franck, whose class at the Paris Conservatory Debussy was then attending. Skillfully scored, it is an effective piece and has considerable melodic charm." Likewise, Susan Cable says the work "is full of beautiful themes and fresh interplay of the three instruments," especially in the opening movement. She notes "the pizzicato whimsy" in the Scherzo, the expressive writing for the strings in the slow movement and the excitement of the finale.

Claude Debussy (1862-1910): String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10
I. Animé et très décidée
II. Assez vif et bien rythmé
III. Andantino, doucement expressif
IV. Très modéré--Très movementé et avec passion

Debussy started his only string quartet in 1892, about the same time as the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. He had trouble with the last movement, as he confided to Ernest Chausson: “I can’t get it into the shape I want, and that’s the third time of trying.” He finished the work the following year and dedicated it to the Ysaÿe Quartet, which gave the first performance in Paris on December 29, 1893.
The audience, accustomed to the quartets of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, was bewildered. One critic mentioned “orgies of modulation” from a composer “rotten with talent.” One of the quartet’s champions was Paul Dukas, who hailed Debussy as “one of the most gifted and original artists of the young generation of musicians…a lyricist in the full sense of the term.” Despite being consulted in the composition of the quartet, Chausson disliked it. Debussy promised to write a second quartet, which would “bring more dignity to the form,” but never finished a second quartet.
The first quartet owes a debut to Alexander Borodin and César Frank, especially the latter’s “cyclical form.” Accordingly Debussy begins his quartet with a germinal theme, which figures in all the other movements. The second movement is a scherzo with rhythmic plucked strings and guitar-like effects. Manuel de Falla said “most of it could pass for one of the finest Andalusian dances ever written.” The third movement begins and ends with muted strings, with an increasingly intense climax in between. The finale starts with a fugue-like slow introduction, then launches into a whirlwind summary of the previous movements.