Préludes, orchestrated by Colin Matthews (a selection) — Claude Debussy

Voiles (Book I)

Bruyères (Book II)

Les collines d’Anacapri (Book I)

La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune (Book II)

La cathédrale engloutie (Book I)

With the final instalment in Colin Matthews’s bravely undertaken and masterfully executed series of orchestral arrangements of Debussy’s 24 piano Préludes – commisioned by the Halle Orchestra and introduced in groups of three or four over the last six seasons – we have the last chance to indulge in the idle pleasure of speculating about them. What, for example will he make of Voiles? A drifting, billowing study in whole tones, it could be an evocation of either veils or sails: the French word “voiles” carries both meanings. The composer’s colleague Edgard Varèse claimed to have it on first-hand authority that it is about the famous veil dancer of the day, Loïe Fuller, while Debussy himself seemed to confirm, when he warned pianists not to “overcolour” it “like a photograph of the beach,” that he had sails in mind.

As it has turned out, few if any of Matthews’s inspirations have been predictable, least of all his treatment of La fille aux cheveux de lin. So it would be unwise to expect Bruyères (Heather), which revisits the Celtic setting and pentatonic harmonies of La fille aux cheveux de lin, to emerge as a straightforward matter of reed-pipe melody and fluted birdsong. On the other hand, it might.

Italy being unfamiliar territory for Debussy in musical terms, he approaches Les collines d’Anacapri (The hills of Anacapri) by way of a quiet accumulation of pedal-sustained pentatonic intervals, echoing distant church bells perhaps. Against this reassuringly familiar harmonic background he can now indulge himself, if cautiously at first, in his Neapolitan tunes – a tarantella in the higher registers, a popular song in the bass, and a languorous dance apparently related to the habanera. Without forgetting his pentatonic bells, he finally recalls the tarantella with the exuberance it was too discreet to show on its first apearance. Unlike the next in the present series of five Préludes, Les collines d’Anacapri is a natural for orchestral treatment.

La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune is particularly beautiful and particularly elusive. According to one frequently quoted theory, the title derives from an article in Le Temps which, in giving an account of the coronation of George V as Emperor of India, refers to “la terrasse des audiences au clair de lune” – “the terrace for audiences in the moonlight.” Debussy’s version is a little different, however, in that it has “du” where Le Temps has “au” and would therefore translate as “the terrace for audiences of the moonlight,” offering the intriguingly fanciful prospect of audiences gathered specifically to observe the moon. However that may be, it is not only one of Debussy’s most poetic nocturnes but also an essentially piano conception. The opening seven-note theme (an allusion, according to some commentators, to “Au clair de la lune”) should lend itself well to the orchestra. But then there are the delicate trickles of moonlight from high in the pianist’s right hand and at the end – after a middle section including a translucent waltz and an evocation of the moon in its full brilliance – an only faintly luminous succession of open fifths rising to the attenuated top of the keyboard.

One of the problems associated with orchestrating La cathédrale engloutie – based on legends surrounding the sunken city of Ys off the Brittany coast – must be that so much of the seven-octaves sonority of the original version derives from Debussy’s extensive use of the sustaining pedal. There is no orchestral equivalent to that. Another problem, among many, must be the danger of a Great Gate of Ys arising at the climactic central point where, heralded by chanting monks and pealing bells, the cathedral emerges from the waves in full Gothic glory. At the same time, however, the Mussorgsky of Pictures at an Exhibition deserves at least a little of the credit for the inspiration of this most monumental of Debussy’s piano pieces.