Product Description
Recorded by Nicolas Horvath on Grand Piano records (GP822)
Debussys friendship with the versatile poet and playwright Gabriel Mourey began in 1899, and in July 1907 Mourey offered Debussy a libretto based on Le roman de Tristan - Joseph Bédiers adaptation of a twelfth-century Breton romance by the Anglo-Norman poet known as Thomas - which had recently been published in Paris. Debussy enthusiastically outlined the four-act plot to Victor Segalen that October, and the main differences from Wagners Tristan und Isolde are that none of the action takes place in Cornwall and that Isolde of the White Hands is found guilty of cuckolding King Marc with Tristan, who has to rescue her from the leper colony in which she is abandoned in Act 1. She also betrays him when he goes mad at the end.
The idea of a Tristan that restored its legendary character and had no connections with Wagner, appealed to Debussy, who was extremely moved by the circumstances of Tristans death. Even if he thought that Moureys poetry was not very lyrical and many passages do not exactly invite music, he did work on the libretto and the music that summer and sent his publisher, Jacques Durand, one of the 363 themes for the Roman de Tristan in a letter sent from Pourville on 23 August, 1907. The present prelude grows from this theme, together with the poignant Breton folksong Le Faucon. After a short atmospheric introduction, Debussys dance-like theme (which is definitely not a leitmotif) gradually gains momentum and after it reaches its ecstatic climax, representing the transient happiness of the lovers, it dissolves into an expressive coda and an elegiac close (all growing from Debussys opening, off-stage trumpet calls), leaving us with the ultimate tragedy of their ill-fated affair.
Unfortunately, Moureys actual libretto has been lost and the project eventually foundered because Bédiers cousin, Louis Artus, wanted Debussy to use the scenario he had prepared and copyrighted for the stage, and would not allow him to proceed with Moureys version. Debussy, it need hardly be said, would never have dreamed of collaborating with the author of the vaudeville hit La culotte (The pants)!
Robert Orledge
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