Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 12/11/2010, uploaded on 07/27/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Following the success of such works as Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and Pelléas et Mélisande, publishers soon became eager to cash in on Debussy’s rising fame during the early years of the 20^th century. Meeting this fervent demand for his work, new compositions were ushered forth from the composer’s pen, but older, unpublished works were also reborn. The most notable of these is the Suite bergamasque, a four-movement work for the piano published in 1905 but begun over a decade earlier in 1890. Though Debussy by this time despised the early style of his piano works, he managed to bring the suite to a degree of completion he felt worthy of publication. Unfortunately, it is not known how much of the original work survived or how much was composed during the time just prior to its composition. Yet, during this extensive process of revision, two new compositions emerged as possible candidates for movements in the Suite bergamasque, but ultimately were published as separate works—L’isle Joyeuse and Masques.

Masques, like its companion piece, was inspired by the paintings of Antoine Watteau, the 18^th-century Flemish artist that held one of the most profound influences over poets and musicians during the succeeding centuries. Future generations of artists were inspired by the Rococo painter’s use of color and light, and Debussy created its musical equivalent. Though less than five minutes long, Masques shows the gradual development and transformation of material without any clear distinctions of form, as if the whole piece grows organically from its initial thought. It is a spirited work, taken at a quick tempo, and with a sort of moto perpetuo rhythm that is rarely absent and drives the piece relentlessly to its ethereal conclusion.       Joseph DuBose

From a recital at the Austrian radio.

copyright by ORF/Ö1 Austria