Debussy, Arabesque No 1

 

Marie-Blanche Vasnier (1848 - 1923)

After finally winning the Prix de Rome in 1884, twenty-two-year-old Claude Debussy moved to Rome, where he spent three years studying and writing music, in the comfort of the Villa Medici
and its generous surroundings. But the following year he was back in Paris, due to his frail health,
on the one hand, and the sense of nostalgia
caused by living so far from the loved one, on the other.

Madame Vasnier
Some years before, he had met in Paris a beautiful soprano with luminous green eyes, Marie-Blanche Vasnier, who had enthralled him with her
nightingale voice, her beauty, elegance and vast knowledge of the world. The charming woman was 30 years old, the mother of two young children, and had been married for thirteen years to an expert in legal matters, eleven years her senior. The couple used to welcome artists and musicians at their home in Ville d'Avray, where young Claude-Achille came on more than one occasion to play the piano and accompany Madame Vasnier in her flourishes. Between that and falling at her feet, there was only a single step.

Unfortunately for him, the idea of ​​abandoning her legal expert never occurred to Marie-Blanche. So the quick visit the musician made to Paris in 1885 with the veiled intention of being received again that summer at the Vasniers', did not result as Claude-Achille expected.

(It was not the first time that the musician fell in love improperly. It had happened before with a daughter of Nadezhda von Meck, the patroness of Tchaikovski. At the time – he was twenty years old – he went a little further and with unexpected audacity asked Mrs. von Meck for the hand of her daughter Sonia, her seasonal student, who, in communion with her siblings, had been taking piano lessons with the young master for three summers. That was the last, of course.)

Arabesque No 1

Until 1884, Debussy wrote more than twenty songs for Madame Vasnier. Then relations weakened and the maestro composed less and less music for song and piano, focusing his creative vigor on compositions for solo piano, which culminated in 1890 with the novel piano language shown in the Bergamasque Suite (which includes the famous Claire de Lune). It is also around this time that he composed the charming Deux Arabesques, the first of which is presented here, in the rendition of the amateur pianist (according to him) Ricker Choi, born in Hong Kong and graduated in Canada as a finance analyst.

The work, structured in two sections, begins in the key of E major making use of compositional techniques typical of what would later be called "musical impressionism". Section B, gentler and more reflective, is on the subdominant key (A major), starting at minute 1:31. Recap of the first section: 3:01.