Piano Trio in G major (1880)

Andante con moto allegro – Allegro appassionato – Tempo primo

Scherzo–Intermezzo: Moderato con allegro – Un poco più lento – Tempo primo

Andante espressivo – Un poco più mosso – Tempo primo

Finale: Appassionato – Un poco ritenuto – Tempo primo

However familiar you are with the mature Debussy, on hearing the earlyPiano Trio for the first time you are very unlikely to recognise it as being by the same composer. He wrote it when he was a student of 18, employed between terms at the Paris Conservatoire by Tchaikovsky’s patron Nadezhda von Meck as a household musician. His duties were to play piano duets with her, give piano lessons to her children, and accompany the singing of her daughter. The family was holidaying in Western Europe at the time, arriving in Florence in the late summer of 1880. It was there that, taking advantage of the addition of a violinist and a cellist to the von Mack retinue, Debussy wrote his Piano Trio in G major – a work which remained remained unknown until, after some reconstruction, it was published in 1986.

A remarkable characteristics of the Piano Trio, which is not as uninteresting as it is generally reputed to be, is the beginner composer’s belief in his creative abilities. The 18 year-old Debussy had the confidence not only in his capacity to undertake a full-scale chamber work but also, even though it is restricted to the first movement, the ambition to create a new kind of structure. The most promising characteristic of the opening Andante con moto allegro (a tempo direction that seems to contradict itself!) is that an important strand of the material, the rhythmic identity of which is gently hinted at by the piano in the opening bars, runs through the whole eight-minute structure. It is regularly challenged by a contrasting Allegro appassionato, which provokes a necessary conflict, but from the moment the main theme is presented by the violin after the short piano introduction it is developed and, when not submerged by the opposition, sustained to the very quiet closing bars.

At this point, however, having avoided any ready-made structure in a quite original if not entirely convincing way, the young Debussy’s determination to be different seems to have left him. Certainly, the Scherzo-Intermezzo is a tribute to Delibes whose ballet music he echoes here – possibly because he was aware that Tchaikovsky, the major recipient of Mme von Mack’s patronage, was a great admirer of the French composer’s ballet scores. It is important to note, however, that the middle section of the movement is thematically related to the charmingly scored outer sections – a structural principle he was to follow in the last two movements.

The quicker middle section of the Andante espressivo, which rises to an exaggerated ff emotional climax, is a development of the melodious material presented    in the opening bars. As for the dramatically conceived last movement, where Debussy reverts to the César Franck model, it is no less conscientious about thematic unity, the slower middle section being based on a variant of the passionate opening theme, which so triumphantly returns in the closing bars.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

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