Nocturnes

Many shadows hover over the genesis of Debussy's second orchestral masterpiece after his Prélude à L’Après-midi d’un faune (1894). Did he take up his sketches for the set of three nocturnes for violin and orchestra that he intended for the violinist Eugène Ysaÿe (a project that came to nothing because they disagreed on the contents)? Debussy composed his orchestral triptych between 1897 and 1899, heard the première of the first two purely instrumental sections – the stage being too small to accommodate the female chorus for Sirènes – on 9 December 1900 (Orchestre Lamoureux, Camille Chevillard). The first full performance, including the last section (with its added, wordless chorus) was given on 27 October 1901. “The title Nocturnes,” Debussy wrote, “is to be taken here in a more general and above all in a more decorative sense. Therefore we are not concerned here with the usual form of the nocturne, but with everything that this word contains in the way of impressions and special effects of light. Nuages: this is the unchangeable aspect of the sky, with the slow, solemn march of the clouds, dissolving in a grey anguish softly tinted with white. Fêtes: movement, rhythm, dancing in the atmosphere, with sudden flashes of light; there is also the episode of a procession (a dazzling and purely imaginary vision) passing through the festive scene and mingling with it; but the background remains and persists – always the festival with its blending of music, luminous specks of dust participating in the universal rhythm of all things. Sirènes: the sea and its countless rhythms; then, amid the waves silvered by the moon, the mysterious song of the Sirens is heard; it laughs and passes.”It is best to avoid simplistic comparisons, but one cannot help thinking of the Nocturnes painted in the 1870s by James Whistler, so alike are the two artists in their subtle variations of colour, economy of means, and inspiration drawn from memories filtered by the imagination.