Violin Sonata

Allegro vivo

Interméde: fantasque et léger

Finale: très animé

The Violin Sonata was Debussy’s last completed work and its first performance - in which the composer accompanied Gaston Poulet in the Salle Gaveau in Paris on 5 May 1917 - was the occasion of his last appearance in public as a pianist. The comparatively severe style of the piece is, however, only partially attributable to the terminally serious state of the composer’s health at the time. It has more to do with a new war-time aesthetic - observed also by Ravel in his Tombeau de Couperin - which rejected the German tradition in music and embraced instead the example of the great French masters of the eighteenth century, Couperin and Rameau. It was in that spirit that in 1915 Debussy had conceived the idea of writing a set of six sonatas which would restore French baroque standards to modern instrumental music. The title page, designed in a pastiche eighteenth-century style and printed in the scores of the three sonatas he completed, says it all: Six Sonates pour divers instruments composées par Claude Debussy, Musicien Français.

There is little eighteenth-century stylisation in the actual music. The pre-classical element in all three sonatas is more a matter of avoiding sonata form and of adopting a manner of expression which Debussy described as “la fantaisie dans la sensibilité.” This last quality he seems to have associated with the commedia dell’arte: certainly, there is quite a lot of it in the Cello Sonata (at one time called Pierrot fâché avec la lune) and more than a little in the Violin Sonata. It seems to imply as well a kind of caprice of stylistic allusions. The opening theme of the Violin Sonata has just a hint of the blues in its gentle syncopations and both themes of the slower middle section of the first movement, where the violin carries the melodic line over piano arpeggios, are Spanish in colour. The passionate flamenco decoration added to one of them in the coda is clear confirmation of that.

The Intermède, headed fantasque et léger, introduces the violin as Pierrot. He makes a virtuoso acrobat’s entrance, amuses himself on his mandolin, mocks a clumsy companion represented by the left hand of the piano, and in the middle section delivers a serenade furnished with sentimental portamento phrasing and deep-drawn sighs.

In the Finale Pierrot is displaced by a character from a higher form of comedy. After a brief and somewhat disorientated recall of the blues melody from the opening of the work, the violin takes flight in an aerial frolic not unlike La danse de Puck in the first book of Préludes. There is a kind of serenade here too but, while it is not above applying the devices of the salon violinist to a variant of the aerial theme, it is rather more serious. The coda, based on an accelerating ostinato on the piano, is not only serious but dramatic too.

Allegro vivo

Interméde: Fantasque et léger

Finale: Très animé

The Violin Sonata was Debussy’s last completed work and its first performance – in which the composer accompanied the young violinist Gaston Poulet in the Salle Gaveau in Paris on 5 May 1917 – was the occasion of his last appearance in public as a pianist. The comparatively severe style of the piece is only partially attributable, however, to the terminally serious state of the composer’s health at the time. It has more to do with a new war-time aesthetic – observed also by Ravel in his Tombeau de Couperin – which rejected the German tradition in music and embraced instead the example of the great French masters of the eighteenth century.

“Nothing,“ Debussy said, “can excuse our having forgotten until now the tradition enshrined in the work of Rameau, which is so abundant in inspired invention.”    It was in that spirit that in 1915 Debussy had conceived the idea of writing a set of six sonatas which would restore French baroque standards to modern instrumental music. The title page, designed in a pastiche eighteenth-century style and printed in the scores of the three sonatas he completed, says it all: Six Sonates pour divers instruments composées par Claude Debussy, Musicien Français.

There is little eighteenth-century stylisation in the actual music. The pre-classical element in all three works – the Cello Sonata, the Sonata for flute, viola and harp, the Violin Sonata –    is more a matter of avoiding sonata form and of adopting a manner of expression which Debussy described as “la fantaisie dans la sensibilité.” This last quality he seems to have associated with the commedia dell’arte: certainly, there is quite a lot of it in the Cello Sonata (at one time called Pierrot fâché avec la lune) and more than a little in the Violin Sonata. It seems to imply also a kind of caprice of stylistic allusions. The opening theme of the Violin Sonata has just a hint of the blues in its gentle syncopations and both themes of the slower middle section of the first movement, where the violin carries the melodic line over piano arpeggios, are Spanish in colour. The passionate flamenco decoration added to one of them in the coda is clear confirmation of that.

The Intermède, headed fantasque et léger, introduces the violin as Pierrot. He makes a virtuoso acrobat’s entrance, amuses himself on his mandolin, mocks a clumsy companion represented by the left hand of the piano, and in the middle section delivers a serenade furnished with sentimental portamento phrasing and deep-drawn sighs.

In the Finale Pierrot is displaced by a character from a higher form of comedy. After a brief and somewhat disorientated recall of the blues melody from the opening of the work, the violin takes flight in an aerial frolic not unlike La danse de Puck in the first book of Préludes. There is a kind of serenade here too but, while it is not above applying the devices of the salon violinist to a variant of the aerial theme, it is rather more serious. The coda, based on an accelerating ostinato on the piano, is not only serious but dramatic too.

Allegro vivo

Interméde: fantasque et léger

Finale: très animé

Debussy’s Violin Sonata was, like Poulenc’s, dismissed as unsatisfactory by its composer - but not, as it happens, by Poulenc who, all too aware of the problems involved in the relationship between violin and piano, declared that Debussy had “nevertheless succeeded in turning it into a masterpiece by sheer instrumental tact.” The Debussy sonata does have its detractors, of course, but they tend to be over-influenced in their assessment of the work by the knowledge that the composer was wasting away in his final illness as he wrote it.

The Violin Sonata was, in fact, Debussy’s last work, and its first performance (in which he accompanied Gaston Poulet in the Salle Gaveau in Paris on 5 May 1917) was his last appearance in public as a pianist. But the comparatively severe style of the piece has to do not so much with the state of the composer’s health as with a new war-time aesthetic - observed also by Ravel and at much the same time in his Tombeau de Couperin - which rejected all that was German in music and embraced instead the example of the great French masters of the eighteenth century, Couperin and Rameau. It was in that spirit that in 1915 Debussy conceived the idea of writing a set of six sonatas which would restore French baroque standards to modern instrumental music. The title page, specially designed in a pastiche eighteenth century manner and printed in the scores of the three sonatas he completed, says it all: Six Sonates pour divers instruments composées par Claude Debussy, Musicien Français.

There is little eighteenth-century stylisation in the actual music, however.The pre-classical element in all three sonatas is more a matter of avoiding sonata form and of adopting a manner of expression which Debussy described as “la fantaisie dans la sensibilité.” This last quality he seems to have associated with the commedia dell’arte: certainly, there is quite a lot of it in the Cello Sonata (at one time called Pierrot fâché avec la Lune) and more than a little in the Violin Sonata. It seems to imply as well a kind of caprice of stylistic allusions. The opening theme of the Violin Sonata has just a hint of the blues in its gentle syncopations and both themes of the slower middle section of the first movement, where the violin carries the melodic line over piano arpeggios, are Spanish in colour. The passionate flamenco decoration added to one of them in the coda is clear confirmation of that.

The Intermède, headed fantasque et léger, introduces the violin as Pierrot. He makes a virtuoso acrobat’s entrance, amuses himself on his mandolin, mocks a clumsy companion represented by the left hand of the piano, and in the middle section delivers a serenade furnished with sentimental portamento phrasing and deep-drawn sighs. In the Finale, however, he is displaced by a character from a higher form of comedy. After a brief and somewhat disorientated recall of the blues melody from the opening of the work, the violin takes flight in an aerial frolic not unlike La danse de Puck in the first book of Préludes. There is a kind of serenade here too but, while it is not above applying the devices of the salon violinist to a variant of the aerial theme, it is rather more serious. The coda, based on an accelerating piano ostinato on the piano, is not only serious but dramatic too.

Gerald Larner©