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Rapsodie pour Orchestre et Saxophone: Update 2006 (Update 2009: “Debussy’s Rapsodie pour Orchestre et Saxophone Revisited” – published in 2008 in The Musical Quarterly – can be found at jamesnoyes.com) James R. Noyes with research assistance by William H. Street, Jean-Marie Londeix, Paul Cohen, Roy Howat, Harry Joelson, and Ruth Mueller-Maerki Debussy’s Rapsodie pour Orchestre et Saxophone has been long dismissed as an incomplete and inconsequential saxophone concerto. The work was commissioned in 1901 by Boston Orchestral Club president and amateur saxophonist Elise Hall.2 Biographical accounts indicate Debussy composed Rapsodie between 1903 and 1911 but never finished, sending Hall an incomplete rough draft in 1911.3 These accounts also allege that Rapsodie was posthumously completed and orchestrated by Jean RogerDucasse in 1919.4 That this had been for Debussy ‘one of the most hateful of commissions,’5 which had ‘borne little fruit’6 became a widely accepted yet uncorroborated conclusion. An analysis of source materials, including letters of Debussy and Roger-Ducasse, Rapsodie manuscripts, concert reviews, and scholarly commentary indicates a deliberate orchestral commission (“pour orchestre et saxophone obligé”7) taken “very seriously.”8 Debussy wrote a structurally complete and orchestrated sketch of ‘Rhapsodie Mauresque’ pour Orchestre et Saxophone Principal in 1903. This manuscript remained with the composer until his death in March 1918 at which time Jean Roger-Ducasse was asked to realize the orchestral score. While the composer’s specific orchestration is the basis for this realization, slight modifications were made in accordance with Debussy’s compositional techniques. After Rapsodie pour Orchestre et Saxophone was premiered and published in 1919, the holograph sketch was finally sent to Elise Hall in Boston. 2

William Henry Street, ‘Elise Boyer Hall, America’s First Concert Saxophonist: Her Life as Performing Artist, Pioneer of Concert Repertory for Saxophone and Patroness of the Arts,’ (D.M.A. diss, Northwestern University 1983), 45. 3 Lèon Vallas, Claude Debussy, His Life and Works, trans. Marie and Grace O’Brien. (London, 1933), 161-2. 4 Ibid. 5 Simon Trezise, Debussy: La Mer, (Cambridge, 1994), 10. 6 Pitts Sanborn, ‘Notes on the Program,’ The Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Popular Concert (Students’) at Carnegie Hall, 11 November 1939. 7 Claude Debussy, Paris, to Andre Messager, 8 June 1903, trans. Shirin Murphy, La jeunesse de Pelléas. Lettres de C. Debussy à A. Messager, Paris, Dorbon, 1938. 8 Marcel Dietschy, A Portrait of Claude Debussy, trans. William Ashbrook and Margaret G. Cobb, (Oxford, 1990), 126. Copyright © 2006 James R. Noyes

Poe and Debussy: A Lifelong Partnership “Mr. E. A. Poe...this man though deceased, exerts on me an almost distressing tyranny.” - - Claude Debussy9 1885

Introduction à une esthétique scientifique by Charles Henry. Discussion of stylistic traits of da Vinci, Rameau, and Poe. Also, Golden Section proportions and the subject of ‘arabesque’.10

1887-1888

Debussy’s cantata, La Damoiselle élue, was based on The Blessed Damozel by Dante Gabrielle Rosetti. The poem portrays the feminine side of Poe’s Raven, the sadness of the deceased maiden in heaven.11

1889

Debussy answers a printed questionnaire: Your favorite prose authors? Flaubert and Poe.12 (French translations of Poe included those of Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Debussy’s close friend Gabriel Mourey.)

1890

André Suares: Debussy “is working at a symphony on psychologically developed themes whose idea would seem to be based on many tales of Poe, particularly The Fall of the House of Usher.”13,14

1893-1902

Pelléas et Mélisande: “The underlying inspiration of Pelléas, both the drama of Maeterlinck and the opera of Debussy, derived from Edgar Allan Poe and in particular The Fall of the House of Usher.”15

1902-1911

The Devil in the Belfry, a “musical tale” in two acts, based on the Poe story.

1908-1917

The Fall of the House of Usher, now conceived as an opera.

Claude Debussy: Lettres inédites à André Caplet, 1908-1914, recueillies et présentées par E. Lockspeiser, trans. James Noyes (Monaco: éd. du Rocher, 1957), 41. 10 Roy Howat, Debussy in Proportion, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983),165-6. 11 John Clevenger, “Debussy’s Rome Cantata’s,” in Debussy and His World , Jane Fulcher, ed., (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) , 72. 12 Marcel Dietschy, A Portrait of Claude Debussy (La Passion de Claude Debussy, 1962), trans. Ashbrook and Cobb, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 56. 13 Ibid, 56. 14 Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy: His Life and Mind, vol. 1, (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 196. 15 Ibid, 195.

6 (Note: the original page 6 with answers has been intentionally changed for pdf download.)

“The Philosophy of Composition” Enacted: Rapsodie pour orchestre et saxophone

Poe*

Debussy

Length Province Tone Structural Pivot Pretext Supremeness Climax Original Combinations Setting Locale Introduction Of Pretext Force of Contrast Undercurrent Dénouement

* All comparative references and quotations attributed to Edgar Allan Poe within this presentation come from “The Philosophy of Composition”, published in Graham’s Magazine, April, 1846. Copyright © 2006 James R. Noyes