Composers › Claude Debussy › Programme note
La plus que lente
Gerald Larner wrote 2 versions of differing length — choose one below.
La plus que lente, a “more than slow” waltz, confected in 1910 “for the brasserie at tea time,” according to the composer, “and for the pretty listeners who meet there,” contrives to be both wickedly satirical of the café-concert and endearing at the same time. Debussy was incapable of writing bad music even when he tried.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Plus que lente/s”
If Debussy’s intention that his “slower than slow’ waltz, La plus que lente, should be taken as a parody is not clear enough from his tempo direction Lent, molto rubato con morbidezza, it is surely confirmed by his statement to the effect that he was thinking of the kind of music that would be appreciated by ladies who take tea. Even so, it is impossible to hear its hesitantaly syncopated G-flat-major main theme, its harmonic suspensions, its appassionato outcry in right-hand octaves, even its aimless continuity and its drawn-out ending without detecting, and sharing, an affection for the object of his irony.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Plus que lente/w102”