La Mer...

This programme’s four musical works take us on an ocean voyage. A journey that begins at sea with La Mer (1903-1905), in the heart of a limitless expanse void of human presence. La Barque sur l’océan (1906), the next piece to take sail, seems no more inhabited than the first. It is only with the Soirs armoricains (1913-1918) that we come alongside shores inhabited by sailors. Our voyage reaches its end when we disembark on the Isle joyeuse (1904), surrounded by the swell of the ocean.

There is no lack of literature on La Mer. But it has never before been professionally studied from a piano angle, and with good reason. For this work is so specifically orchestral that its transcription into a piece for piano transforms it into an entirely different musical work, one in which the piano is the absolute master. Here, it is a question of a genuine transcription for piano, and not simply a reduction of the orchestra score, the word itself being far too “simplistic”. In the 19th century, four-hand piano arrangements of orchestral works, often proposed by the composers themselves, played an important role in diffusing musical works inaccessible other than inside concert halls. The arranger endeavoured above all to “cram” into four hands a maximum amount of the musical detail originally written for an orchestra, without seeking to adapt the piece to this single instrument. So one can well imagine that “to translate” La Mer for only two hands necessitated a different approach. Lucien Garban (1877-1959), who began this task in 1938, 20 years after Debussy’s death, was a past master in this exercise. Co-disciple of Ravel at the Conservatoire, and his faithful friend, his profession was corrector at Durand. History has never revealed Garban’s work methods, but listening to the result one can imagine to what extent he was familiar with Debussy’s works for piano. And be that as it may, upstream of the actual transcription work, he drew on the close relationships that exist between Debussy’s thinking when composing for orchestra and Debussy composing for piano.

Debussy’s writing for the piano is not an orchestral writing, but it frequently evokes (and virtually calls on) specific instruments: in many of his works, one hears the guitar or mandolin, flute, horn or brass instruments… Conversely, reading and listening to Garban’s transcription brings to mind, more than orchestral works, works written by Debussy specifically for the piano before or after 1904. The work on the tremolos, a style of writing so closely linked to the bow characteristics of chords or timpani rolls, is explored in both the Poissons d’or and Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Ouest. As for the writing conceived for instrumental units, this is to be found in the chord melodies which are a signature of Debussy’s piano music. Certain themes in La Mer, when played with two hands, no longer resemble the orchestral version but seem to make direct reference to a piece for piano: the theme of the first movement after the introduction appears to be right out of a study; with its successive fifths, it positions itself between the study Pour les quartes and that of Pour les sixtes! The theme in Jeux de vagues is akin to the dance theme in L’Isle joyeuse (the latter simply being more piano!). There thus exist multiple examples that illustrate to what extent this work becomes a full-fledged piece “for piano”. Certainly more difficult than the others, sometimes even harder to play inasmuch as certain motifs written to facilitate the playing of a clarinet or a violin find themselves at the extreme ranges of the keyboard. When all is said and done, the listener should not be seeking to distinguish the harps, the call of the eight cellos, the extraordinary clarity resulting from the division of the chords, or the flourish of the brass instruments. It is a piano piece they are listening to, even if the performer has succeeded in firing their (re-)creative imagination to the extent that they are “hearing” an orchestral version of the work, enriched with all the colours of the varying timbres.

La Mer, not being written for piano, does not seek to portray all the movements of fluidity, flow, ebb and swell the sea can evoke. Ravel, on the other hand, in Une barque sur l’Océan, continues the fascinating instrumental discovery journey he already embarked on in Jeux d’eau (1901). But whereas these renditions remained confined to a fountain or a pond, here the composer has enlarged his space. Right from the opening of the piece, the rising and falling wave ushers forth from the major left-hand arpeggios, rendered choppier by the ternary/binary uncertainty of the tempo. Gradually, these arpeggios descend to the low notes, and the sonorous field of the piano envelopes the entire landscape, reaching out to the depths of the abysses, to the heights of the heavens. Swirling high-pitch tremolos are accompanied by the breaking waves emanating from even wider arpeggios, squalls covering seven octaves on the keyboard. The gusts of wind build up to near storm level, reaching fff, but the gentleness of the arpeggios and the resonance of the instrument itself restore the calm.