Cycle of six melodies by Claude Debussy
Fetes Galantes
is a cycle of six
melodies
composed by
Claude Debussy
to poems by
Paul Verlaine
. It consists of two books of three songs (FL 86 and FL 114). The songs were composed over several years, and were premiered in 1904.
History and analysis
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The six poems come from Verlaine's collection
Fetes galantes
, published in 1869. Debussy, a lifelong admirer of Verlaine's poetry, had taken a copy of the collection with him when he went to study in Rome in 1885.
[1]
Although other composers, from
Gabriel Faure
to
Benjamin Britten
set Verlaine's poetry, Debussy, according to the
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
, was the first composer of any importance to do so.
[2]
The critic Jacques-Henri Bornecque called Verlaine's book a "petite suite"; it contains twenty-two poems, mostly quite brief, representing varied scenes or encounters ranging from tender to ironic, inspired by
Antoine Watteau
's
Fete galante
paintings.
[3]
First book
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- En sourdine (Muted)
- Fantoches (Puppets)
- Clair de lune (Moonlight)
Second book
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- Les Ingenus (The innocents)
- Le Faune (The faun)
- Colloque sentimental (Sentimental conversation)
Analysis
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In his 1874 poem "Art poetique" Verlaine had written "Music before all else, And for that choose the irregular, Vaguer and melting better into the air."
[n 1]
The analyst Katja Pfeifer comments that Verlaine's dictum becomes "a literary reality" in the first set of Debussy's settings of
Fetes galantes
: "the rhythm of the verses, his playing with the sound of the language, and explicit textual references to music give the verses themselves the feel of a song".
[1]
Debussy completed the first book (FL 86) in 1891.
[4]
The manuscript of the score shows two songs, "Pantomime" and "Mandolin", which were later removed; they were later published separately.
[4]
The score was published in 1903 and the songs were first performed at the house of Madame
Edouard Colonne
on 16 June 1904.
Debussy had already set all three of the poems in the first book in 1882. The earlier settings were composed for his mistress, Marie Vasnier. The settings in his
Fetes galantes
cycle contained some material from the earlier versions, mostly in "Fantoches", although in that song the composer replaced the original flamboyant and virtuosic ending with a gradual
diminuendo
, which became a frequent feature of his style.
[5]
"En sourdine" and "Clair de lune" are almost completely rewritten. The musicologist
Roger Nichols
writes that they display "a far more adventurous harmonic palette" than the composer had developed at the time of the first settings, "blending modality and chromaticism in equal measure". Nichols describes "Fantoches" as energetic and sparkling, contrasting with the first and third songs, which "float timelessly, allowing us to savour the famous 'musicality' of Verlaine’s poetry".
[5]
The analyst Susan Youens writes that the outer songs are the " inward, melancholy visions of those who already sense, even in the midst of seeming love and luck, that 'la vie opportune' has passed".
[6]
The second book (FL 114), dedicated to
Emma Bardac
, dates from 1904. It was premiered
chez
Madame Colonne on 23 June 1904; the score was published in September of that year. These were Debussy's only settings of these three Verlaine poems.
[4]
Unlike the first book, where the three songs are not connected by a common narrative thread, the second book has a continuous theme of the difficulty of relationships between men and women. Youens writes of "the mutual incomprehensibility of the sexes, from its inception ('Les Ingenus') to its death-in-life ('Le Faune') and finally to its grim remains after death ('Colloque sentimental')".
[6]
Notes, references and sources
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Notes
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- ^
"De la musique avant toute chose, Et pour cela prefere l'Impair Plus vague et plus soluble dans l'air"
References
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]
- ^
a
b
Pfeifer, Katja. Notes to Genuin CD set 16430 (2016)
- ^
Griffiths, Paul.
"Verlaine, Paul"
,
Grove Music Online
, Oxford University Press, 2011, retrieved 13 June 2018
(subscription required)
- ^
Wright, Alfred J.
"Verlaine and Debussy: Fetes galantes"
,
The French Review
, Vol. 40, No. 5 (April 1967), pp. 627?635
(subscription required)
- ^
a
b
c
Lesure, Francois
and
Roy Howat
.
"Debussy, (Achille-)Claude"
Archived
15 May 2018 at the
Wayback Machine
,
Grove Music Online
, Oxford University Press, retrieved 28 April 2018
(subscription required)
- ^
a
b
Nichols, Roger. Notes to Hyperion CD set CDA 677883 (2012)
- ^
a
b
Youens, Susan.
Tell a Tale: Symbolist Narrative In Debussy's
Fetes Galantes II
,
Nineteenth-Century French Studies
, Vol. 16, No. 1/2 (Fall/Winter 1987/1988), pp. 180?191
(subscription required)
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