Claude Debussy: Sonate en trio, for flute, viola & harp | Pastorale

Description by Blair Johnston

Claude Debussy's Sonata for flute, viola, and harp (1915) is the second entry in a projected series of six chamber sonatas (of which the composer completed three). The sonata is at once evocative and emotionally ambiguous, though a great deal less harmonically adventuresome than its two companions; Debussy once remarked that he didn't know whether it "should move us to laughter or to tears. Perhaps both?" The sonata opens with a freely constructed movement marked Pastorale: Lento, dolce rubato. Debussysubjects six essential musical cells to a free variation treatment as the music unfolds. When he reprises these melodic strands, he does so without regard for their initial ordering, and yet with a clear dramatic impact. The atmosphere, seemingly relaxed, is nonetheless charged with a sense of repressed passion; the pause in the second measure, for instance, is positively bursting with psychological tension. The second movement, Interlude: Tempo di minuetto, recalls the Menuet of Debussy's Suite bergamasque (1890) in its vague implication -- rather than explicit modeling -- of a dance form; here, though, the rhythmic structure is more sharply defined. In the finale, marked Allegro moderato ma risoluto, the reason for Debussy's decision to abandon the sonata's original scoring -- flute, oboe, and harp -- becomes clear. Without the viola's passionate pizzicati, the finale would lose much of its essential character; indeed, its opening would be unrecognizable. Listening to such an abstract, non-representational movement, it is easy to understand why Debussy was moved on one occasion to refer to anyone who described such music as "impressionistic" as an "imbecile."

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