Debussy's Rapsodie pour orchestre et saxophone Revisited

Abstract

Nearly two years behind schedule and working late into the summer nights of 1903, Claude Debussy had only the oppressive heat to keep him company as Elise Hall, the lady from Boston, anxiously inquired about the status of her commission for et saxophone oblig?; all the while his first wife, Lilly, waited for him to join her for vacation in the countryside of Bichain. These circumstances, initially irksome and exasperating, became the perfect catalyst for a struggling composer who hadn't written a note of music in nearly a year. By August, the orchestral sketch of arabe, one of Debussy's most exotic and adventurous compositions, was complete. However, despite having been paid his fee on the commission from Hall in 1901 and from publisher Jacques Durand in 1903, Debussy inexplicably chose to retain the score of Rapsodie until his death in March 1918. After the composer's death, Debussy's second wife, Emma (nee Bardac), entrusted this manuscript, now entitled Esquisse d'une 'Rhapsodie Mauresque' pour orchestre et saxophone principal, to the com poser's close friend, Jean Roger-Ducasse, an experienced orchestrator and music editor who worked during the spring and summer months of 1918 to extract a solo saxophone part, a piano reduction, and a full orchestral score. Debussy's original and specific orchestration is the basis for this realization, with slight modifications made in strict accordance with his compositional techniques. After Rapsodie pour orchestre et saxophone was published by Durand and premiered in Paris in 1919, the holograph sketch was finally sent to Elise Hall. The following investi gation is a detailed account of this greatly misunderstood chapter of Debussy's life.