Serenade by Claude Debussy Orchestra - Sheet Music

SKU: FA.MFCD006SC

8.28 x 11.69 in inches.

Scored for 31CA23/2100/timp/1perc/hp/strings (parts on rental).

In the early 1890s, Debussy composed the opening of a lyrical piece in E major for violin and piano, perhaps as a shorter companion piece for the violin Nocturne he was planning for the Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye. After Debussy's death in 1918, his second wife Emma often gave away sketch pages to performers or composers as memorials to her beloved husband , and this particular page was given to the Cuban born pianist and composer Joaquin Nin (1879-1949). It came up for sale in the catalogue of the British antiquarian dealer Lisa Cox in 2010 and although it might possibly be an early song for contralto and piano, the more dynamic idea in bar 12 strongly suggests the violin, especially as it begins on an open D string. Moreover, there is no text and in pieces of this length, Debussy usually wrote at least one word in, if only to remind himself where he had got to in any song.

So my starting point was a complete 12-bar melody gently undulating in the violin's lowest register over a sensual accompaniment, rising to a climax in bar 12 and giving me a contrasting idea that I could use as a link between sections and in the cadenza. As the B section (bars 14-26) derives directly from Debussy's opening theme by metamorphosis, my own additions were restricted to the central section (bars 27-57) - comprising a new scherzando idea (C) and the more lyrical D (bars 36-46). C returns at bar 47, followed by the opening sections in reverse order, so that the Serenade begins and ends with Debussy's material and is cast in arch form (ABCDCBA).