Claude Debussy: Trio for violin, cello and piano

Claude Debussy (b. St, Germaine-en-Laye, near Paris, August 22, 1864; d. Paris, March 25, 1918). French composer. Principal works: one completed opera, Pelléas et Mélisande; three ballets, including Jeux; works for orchestra, including Trois Nocturnes and La Mer; chamber music, including a string quartet, a violin sonata, a violoncello sonata and a sonata for flute, viola and harp; piano music, including the Suite Bergamasque and two books of preludes; songs and song cycles.

One of the odder aspects of Claude Debussy’s biography is the time that he spent in Russia as a young man. Debussy, who came from a poor and, frankly, quite disreputable, family needed a summer job to help defray expenses at the Paris Conservatoire where he was a notoriously brilliant and utterly impudent student. His piano teacher, the august Antoine Marmontel, thought enough of the young Debussy to recommend him to none other than Madame Nadezhda von Meck, the great patroness of Tchaikovsky. Madame von Meck, whose fabulous wealth was exceeded only by her neuroses, was seeking a pianist to accompany her and her family on their varied summertime travels. Debussy joined this unconventional household in July of 1880. The teenaged Debussy immediately ingratiated himself with his employer by characteristically telling a series of whopping lies: he claimed to have won a first prize in piano at the Conservatoire (which he never did manage); to be a student of Massenet (with whom he never studied and was never on cordial terms); and to be 16 years’ old (when, in fact, he was 18).

Even at that age, however, Debussy was a brilliant pianist who could read the most complex scores at sight, and Madame von Meck enjoyed playing piano duets with her "house pianist." One piano duet performance of Tchaikovsky’s perfervid Fourth Symphony left Madame von Meck in a swooning state of nerves and Debussy unmoved—the French composer never developed a taste for the Russian composer’s overt displays of emotion. When Madame von Meck sent Tchaikovsky—her "best friend"—one of the young Frenchman’s piano pieces, the Russian composer was distinctly unimpressed, tactfully writing her that it was "a pretty little piece, but too short."

By the time the Russians, with Debussy in tow, reached Florence in September, Madame von Meck had engaged a violinist and cellist to form a trio with her French protégé. For this combination, Debussy dutifully wrote an attractive work, his Trio in G minor, the only example of this genre in his catalogue. Although this piece is little more than high-class salon music, it has an attractive clarity and many graceful tunes reminiscent of the ballet composer Leo Delibes, whose light-footed music Debussy would have known very, very well. Everything here is charming, melodic and calm enough to keep a neurotic Russian patron at ease.

Felix Mendelssohn: Octet in E-flat Major for Strings

Felix Mendelssohn (b. Hamburg, February 3, 1809; d. Leipzig, November 4, 1847) German-born composer of Jewish heritage. Principal works: several early operas; incidental music for plays, including for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; two completed oratorios; five numbered symphonies but several early symphonies for string orchestra; two violin concertos; two piano concertos and two concertos for two pianos; chamber music, including six string quartets, two piano trios and an octet for strings; choral music; organ sonatas; piano music and organ pieces; songs.

Although Felix Mendelssohn developed into a highly self-critical composer, some of his finest scores were composed during his relatively carefree youth. In fact, the music that Mendelssohn composed as a teenager matches—indeed, may surpass—the quality of the music that Mozart wrote as an adolescent. Of these early scores, Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat, which was written in 1825 when he was just 16 years old, is surely the finest.

While an octet (that is, a double string quartet) of string players is an unusual combination, Mendelssohn exploited the sonorous potential of this ensemble to the hilt. There is a great deal of effective antiphonal writing, for example, contrasted with wonderful blending of the instruments. Mendelssohn himself declared , "This Octet must be played by all the instruments in symphonic orchestral style. Pianos and fortes must be strictly observed and more strongly emphasized than is usual in pieces of this character."

The octet’s lively opening harks back to a kind of classical theme called a "Mannheim rocket," but the mood is distinctly Romantic in its exuberant power. The second movement is deeply lyrical, and demonstrates the skill with which the teenaged composer could develop his thematic material. The scherzo that follows is remarkably fleet and elegant: cast in duple time (rather than the triple time that was customary for such movements) it is a precursor of the effervescent scherzo that Mendelssohn wrote some 18 years later for his incidental music for Shakespeare’s comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The finale is a joyous rondo that is pervaded with fugatos – the young composer was evidently anxious to demonstrate his mastery of this arcane branch of musical technique. But the result is anything but pedantic, however, as high spirits predominate and bring the work to a scintillating close.

-- Byron Adams