15 - The Composer as Critic: 1901–3

Summary

Compositional Activities at the Beginning of 1901

At the beginning of 1901, a rather surprising event occurred: after so many aborted projects with Pierre Louÿs, the incidental music for the Chansons de Bilitis was finally performed in the reception room of the Journal, although it was not repeated at the Théâtre des Variétés, as had been originally discussed. “I'm spending every afternoon this week with nude women,” Louÿs wrote to his brother. The production consisted of short scenes depicting twelve of the songs, delivered by Mlle Milton, for which Debussy had written a “delicate mélange” for two harps, two flutes, and a Mustel celeste. The performance took place on 7 February 1901 for an audience of three hundred people, who, according to the Journal 's cheeky columnist, “were able to feel themselves transported to the great epochs of pure nudity.” This work, which could hardly be described as Symbolist, was the last creation of its kind in which Debussy participated, and it contributed nothing to his reputation.

In order to take a break from the laborious task of correcting and copying Pelléas, the composer worked on two very different pieces for piano. Between January and April, he first composed a three-piece suite, titled simply Pour le piano, that would become commercially available in September; he offered the manuscript to a new pupil, Nicolas Coronio, who became something of a friend. Even more surprising was the appearance in April of a piece for two pianos, written in a style that Debussy had long ago abandoned: Lindaraja, whose title came from one of the patios of the Alhambra in Grenada, an image that he had perhaps encountered in an illustrated periodical and kept in his portfolio.

He was also preoccupied with the two-piano reduction of his Nocturnes. Instead of calling upon experienced musicians, such as his friend Dukas, and even though he had undertaken this task himself for the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, he decided to entrust the transcription to two young composers who were still at the Conservatoire: Maurice Ravel and Raoul Bardac. The latter, who since 1899 had also been his composition “pupil,” was the son of a society lady, an amateur singer who had inspired Fauré's La bonne chanson.