Claude Debussy - Piano Trio in G Major [With score]

-Composer: Claude-Achille Debussy (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918)
-Performers: Trio Stradivari [Jolanda Violante (piano), Federico Guglielmo (violin), Luigi Puxeddu (cello)]

Piano Trio in G Major, L. 3, written in 1880

00:00 - I. Andantino con moto allegro
09:12 - II. Scherzo - Intermezzo. Moderato con allegro
12:45 - III. Andante espressivo
16:44 - IV. Finale. Appassionato

The reconstruction of Claude Debussy's Piano Trio in G major, once thought to be among those early works either destroyed by the composer or lost during the ensuing hundred years, surely must count among the musicological triumphs of the 1980s. Though a certain amount of recomposition was necessary, most of the work was pieced together from a variety of authentic sources, including several partial manuscripts and a copy of the original cello part. (The reconstruction involved a number of parties, most notably the musicologist Ellwood Derr.)
Debussy composed the work during the summer of 1880 while employed by Madame von Meck (the legendary sponsor of Tchaikovsky). The eighteen-year-old composer's unique musical voice was far from developed at this stage of his career, and throughout the work the influence of Franck and Schumann -- two of young Debussy's favorite composers -- overshadows the few hints of Debussy's future stature.
The form of the opening movement is a far cry from the venerable sonata-allegro form as found in many concert works of the nineteenth century. The initial gesture (which is ingeniously presented with the "wrong" metric alignment during the piano's introductory phrase, only to be shifted back by one beat to its proper location upon the violinist's entrance four bars later) is followed by more active music marked Allegro appassionato. As the movement nears its midpoint, Debussy allows the cellist to introduce a gentle, triplet-dominated melody which is soon taken up by the violinist as well. The pianissimo reprise of the opening material (one hesitates to call it a recapitulation) is dislodged by the Allegro appassionato (now in the home key of G major) after only twenty-two bars. Shortly before the close of the movement, which is executed with the same kind of pianissimo dissolution typical of Debussy's mature style, the opening material is allowed to once again take its rightful place in G major.
Perhaps the most immediately charming music in the Trio is to be found in the relatively brief Scherzo. A great deal of Schumann's witticism has found its way into the mix, although the ornamented, concealed parallelisms of the Un poco piu lento are all Debussy. If the gentle melody of the ensuing Andante espressivo, and the manner in which it is taken up directly by the violin after the cellist's initial presentation, seems somewhat contrived, the rolling arpeggiations of the movement's middle section cannot but remind one of the composer's earlier style of piano writing (Clair de lune and the like).
The Finale provides a strong end to the work, despite an occasionally distracting lack of harmonic coherence (it should be pointed out that the weakest sections of the movement are Debussy's own, while the reconstruction is performed with consummate skill). The chromatic relations of the tonal areas contained within the movement (from the opening G minor through A-flat major, E major and its parallel minor) and the harmonically agitated way in which Debussy moves from one tonal (and thematic) area to the next, developing his well-drawn motifs along the way, are among the characteristics that would have drawn the most criticism during the early stages of the composer's career. Debussy's decision to weaken the final (already very brief) cadence by landing on an altered tonic chord (V of IV) and then presenting a series of non-cadential chords over the tonic pedal, shows that the young composer was already beginning to explore ways of circumventing traditional harmonic formulae.
description: [allmusic.com]