Debussy. Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune

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C. Debussy. Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune

For piano solo

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Published by Schott Music, 2015
Printed edition is available only in complete volume

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Recordings

performed by V. Gryaznov

My notes

It is well-known that Debussy created his symphonic prelude L’Apres Midi D’un Faun (The Afternoon of a Faun) under the impression of the eclogue written by Stephane Mallarme. Mallarme is considered to be one of the most difficult to understand French symbolist poets. His Faun’s character is very complicated and contradictory. There is a mildness and luxury of midday heat in it, together with the high level of strain, inner conflicts and animal passions that combines with the shrill yearning for the nymph Syrinx, that special person who did not allow him to catch her but turned into a flute in his hands. The rough impudence of ambitious amateur always ready to challenge Gods unites with the gentle and sincere innocence of his flute melodies.

One can easily suggest that the musical image of Faun is no less intricate then the literary one, taking into account the Mallarme’s letter to Debussy in which the poet recognizes: “Your illustration of the Afternoon of a Faun offers no slightest dissonance with my text, except that it goes further, truly, in nostalgia and light, with finesse, uneasiness, and richness.” In my transcription I did my best to present the symphonic masterpiece by Debussy as a composition for piano. I tried to release a pianist from the necessity to imitate an orchestra, otherwise it would be no more than just a pale shadow of that rich palette of orchestral colors which was so masterfully used by Debussy.

That is the reason for perhaps a rather arbitrary use of the piano registers and texture, these are the means that a piano can contrast to the different orchestral timbres. And yet the most important thing I would like to draw a performer’s attention to, is neither timbres and orchestral colors, nor its picturesqueness, but to the nuances of the psychological states of that mythological creature whose passions are so amazingly human.

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