Debussy's Chamber Music

Claude Debussy

Available from your
favorite book sellers

String Quartet in G minor

First movement. Animé et très décidé

Second movement. Assez vif et bien rythmé

Third movement. Andantino doucement expressif

Fourth movement. Très modéré --Très mouvementé et

avec passion

While writing Afternoon of a Faun, Debussy composed another very different masterpiece. Introduced in December 1893, his String Quartet puzzled and astonished everyone. One critic wrote: "Bounding rhythms, violent harmonic jerks, alternating with languid melodies, copious floods of rich, sustained harmonies that evoke the memory of the gamelan. . . . [The String Quartet] is very distinguished, but one does not know how to take hold of it. It is more like a hallucination than a dream. Is it music? Perhaps so." Today, with its inventive harmonies and unusual sonic flavors, it is widely recognized as the first great quartet of the Modern era. (See Faun book, pgs 127-129.)

Danish String Quartet

The Chamber Sonatas

The summer of 1915 was one of Debussy's most productive periods, despite the pain and depression caused by his advancing cancer. While summering in Pourville, far from the raging war, he completed En Blanc et noir for two pianos, wrote the piano Etudes, and set out to write six sonatas for various instrumental combinations. The first to be written, at Pourville, was the Cello Sonata, followed quickly by the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp. The Violin Sonata was finished in April 1917, less than a year before he died. (See Faun book, pgs 292-294.)

Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor

Maurice Gendron, cello; Jean Françaix, piano

Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp

First movement. Pastorale

Second movement. Interlude

Third movement. Finale

Jean-Pierre Rampal, flute; Pierre Pasquier, viola; Lily Laskine, harp

Sonata for Violin and Piano

Shlomo Mintz, violin; Yefim Bronfman, piano

Syrinx

Syrinx is an old synonym for flute, or panpipes. In 1913, Gabriel Mourey asked Debussy to write incidental music for a staging of his dramatic poem "Psyche." The composer, busy with other projects, wrote only a short piece to articulate the imminent death of the Greek god Pan — a flute solo, appropriately. Like much of Debussy’s late music, Syrinx sounds as if it's improvised. A haunting, mournful theme yields to heart-stirring melodic complexities with each repetition. (See Faun book, pg 283.)