for two pianos

En blanc et noir (1915)

Avec emportement

Lent. Sombre

Scherzando

Debussy’s title refers, of course, to the black and white of the piano keyboard. The war-time circumstances in which the three pieces were written – in a rented house overlooking the Channel at Pourville in 1915 – and the patriotic quotations heading two of them have led to an unduly dark interpretation of of Debussy’s inspiration here. It is true, as he told his publisher Jacques Durand, that he was thinking at one time of calling them Caprices en blanc et noir in tribute to the Caprichos, a series of violently satirical black-and-white etchings, by Francesco Goya. But then he dropped the Caprices part of the title and, explaining that he had scored the work for two pianos because all the decent musicians were serving in the war, compared them to the rather more civilised “greys” of another Spanish painter, Diego Valázquez.

The first of the En blanc et noir pieces is headed by a quotation from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette: “Qui reste à sa place/Et ne danse pas/De quelque disgrâce/Fait l’aveu tout bas” (Whoever stays in his place and does not dance, makes a whispered confession of some disgrace) – which is usually taken as a rebuke to those who were not fighting for their country. It is to be played “avec emportement” (angrily). But how does one sustain anger in this mercurial piece in C major which, vehement though it is in places, so seductively flirts with waltz rhythms? This, surely, is Debussy – terminally ill and quite unfit for military service but bursting with creative energy – joining the dance. It begins impetuously but melodiously and within seven bars the dynamic level drops. After a few more bars the tempo is relaxed for a capricious scherzando episode. The opening theme makes the first of its several rondo-like re-appearances to introduce a melody swinging headily in 2/4 against the prevailing 3/4. It is this idea which eventually, releasing its potential energy on the last page, secures the unmistakably jubilant ending.

There can, on the other hand, be no doubt about the patriotism and often dark sentiment of the second piece. Preceded by a quotation from Villon’s Ballade contre les ennemis de la France, dedicated to the memory of Lieutenant Jacques Charlot (Jacques Durand’s nephew killed in action in March 1915) and headed “slow” and “sombre,” it clearly declares its intentions and does not contradict them. After an ominous introduction echoing with the rumbles and bugle calls of war, there is a peaceful episode of French song and ethereal piano colouring Messiaen might have thought of. It doesn’t last of course. Gallic innocence is displaced by Teutonic aggression, the latter symbolised by the Lutheran chorale “Eine feste Burg.” But, as a radiant episode marked Joyeux indicates and as a recall of the French song episode and what Debussy describes as a “modest carillon sounding a pre-Marseillaise” confirm, the enemy is firmly repulsed.

The last piece is nowhere near as clear in its expressive intentions. It is preceded by a quotation (in 15th-century French) from Charles d’Orléans, “Yver, vous n’este qu’un vilain” (Winter, you are but a rogue) – which is the first line of a rondel Debussy had set 17 years earlier as an unaccompanied chorus. The Scherzando heading suggests that it will not be the darkest of the three movements and, in fact, it is an elusive inspiration in the lightest of greys. An exquisitively sensitive study in scoring in the two-piano medium, it seems at various points in its ternary structure nearer to the piano studies that would be Debussy’s next major work than to its contemporaries in En blanc et noir.