- Debussy composed his Petite Suite for piano four-hands in 1886-9.1
- The piece’s premiere took place on March 1, 1889, in Paris. The two pianist were Debussy and Jacques Durand.2
- Durand and Debussy had been friends since they attended the Paris Conservatoire together. Durand was a partner in the firm that would become Debussy’s publisher, Durand & Company.3
“In an attempt to do something to persuade music lovers of the charm of the Petite Suite, it was agreed with Debussy that the two of us should give a performance of it at a Paris salon frequented by the élite among the dictators of fashion. The performance took place and the reception was kind, but no more than that; I was well aware that we had not broken through.”
Jacques Durand4
“Debussy was very nervous before sitting down at the piano with me and had urged me not to go too fast. I promised. But hardly had we begun when Debussy began to hurry; and despite all my efforts, I was unable to hold him back. He was in haste to put this public trial behind him. So I followed the somewhat hectic tempi as best I could, and the work finished with a brio that was, probably, an important factor in the polite sympathy with which the work was finally greeted.”
Jacques Durand5
- The titles of the Petite Suite’s first two movements are taken from poems from Paul Verlaine’s (1844–1896) Fêtes galantes. Debussy also set many of Verlaine’s poems as art songs.6
Meanwhile comes the moon and beams
From Verlaine’s “En bateau”7
As the sailboat gaily skims
Briefly over waves of dreams.
Movements
- En bateau (Sailing)
- Cortège (Retinue)
- Menuet
- Ballet
Sources
- François Lesure and Roy Howat, “Debussy, (Achille-)Claude,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 27, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000007353.
- “Petite suite (Debussy, Claude),” International Music Score Library Project, accessed August 28, 2019, https://imslp.org/wiki/Petite_suite_(Debussy%2C_Claude).
- Robert S. Nichols, Nigel Simeone, and Jeremy Drake, “Durand,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 28, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000008375.
- Quoted in Roger Nichols, The Life of Debussy (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 56.
- Ibid., 56-57.
- Arthur B. Wenk, Claude Debussy and the Poets (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 23.
- Paul Verlaine, trans. C.F. MacIntyre, Selected Poems of Paul Verlaine(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1948), 70-71.
Cut IDs
15422 16253 16897 17732 19847 41561 41684 49287