Premiere Rhapsodie

 

                                                                    ARRANGER’S NOTES

In 1909, Claude Debussy was appointed to the conseil supérieur of the Paris Conservatory at the request of Gabriel Fauré, its director at the time. This affiliation obligated him to officiate occasionally as an adjudicator and composer, of the Conservatory’s examinations. In the following year, Debussy served on the clarinet jury and was asked to write two pieces to be performed by the students through which they were awarded grades in an assortment of musical disciplines. The Première Rhapsodie and the shorter Petit Pièce were the fruitful outcome of this endeavor. Ironically, Debussy was personally not looking forward to hearing the eleven clarinetists play through his new works, but the end result provided him with extreme satisfaction, as was expressed in a letter to his publisher, Jacques Durand: “The clarinet competitions went extremely well, and, to judge by the expressions on the faces of my colleagues, the Rhapsodie was a success.” Additionally, his particular delight with the rhapsody set off the notion to orchestrate the piece in the summer of 1911, and after hearing the first performance in this new guise he exclaimed that “surely this piece is one of the most pleasing I have ever written.”

In the 100 years since its initial composition, the Première Rhapsodie has established itself as one of the most beloved, and most played, of all works written for the clarinet. It was Debussy’s genius that allowed him to take a perfunctory, utilitarian assignment and create a work of unsurpassed lyric beauty that stands unique in the clarinet literature a century later—a true “masterpiece in miniature.” Yet even with this indisputable recognition, his grand and opulent orchestrated version of the piece still remains elusive to many performers and listeners today.

Therefore, in its centennial year, it is the purpose of this arrangement for chamber ensemble to bring the radiant sounds and colors of Debussy’s orchestral palate to a broader, yet smaller, and more practical musical setting—one that I hope makes itself available to many more performers and audiences to enjoy. In working closely with the
orchestral score, as well as the original, my aim was to faithfully reproduce the composer’s original musical intentions and also incorporate the various, if even whimsical, changes that occurred when he revisited the work over a year later. I could hardly have improved upon it.

This arrangement is dedicated to my former clarinet pedagogue, Gervase de Peyer, whose beautiful recording with Pierre Boulez introduced me to this piece; Charles Wadsworth, friend and former Artistic Director of the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, who kindly allowed me to premiere this arrangement there in 2007; and my dear friend, Eugene Asti, who first performed it with me at the Mannes College in New York.

           —Todd Palmer