Claude Debussy - Piano Trio in G major (1879)

Claude Debussy

[Claude Debussy in 1908]

(22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer.

Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music, though he himself disliked the term when applied to his compositions.^[3] He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in his native France in 1903.^[4] Debussy was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his use of non-traditional scales and chromaticism influenced many composers who followed. 

Debussy's music is noted for its sensory content and frequent usage of nontraditional tonalities.^[6] The prominent French literary style of his period was known as Symbolism, and this movement directly inspired Debussy both as a composer and as an active cultural participant.^[7]

 Piano Trio in G major (1879)  

The Piano Trio in G major L. 3, was written by an 18-year-old Claude Debussy in 1880 in Fiesole, Italy, where he resided at Nadezhda von Meck. Most of the autograph of the work was thought to be lost until 1982, when it was discovered from the legacy of Maurice Dumesnil, a pupil of Debussy's. The first edition was published in 1986.

Movements

The work is in four movements:

1. Andantino con moto allegro
2. Scherzo: Moderato con allegro
3. Andante espressivo
4. Finale: Appassionato

A typical performance lasts 20-25 minutes.

Critical response

In 1984, the music critic Harold Schonberg wrote of the trio that "The Debussy piece is juvenilia. You can have a lot of fun putting it on the turntable and asking your learned friends who the composer is. Nothing in the music suggests Debussy. It is sweet, sentimental, and sugared; it verges on the salon."^[2]

Reviewer Charlotte Gardner for the BBC wrote in 2012 that "Debussy's teenage Piano Trio doesn't often get to see the light of day, mostly because it reveals him very much still in feet-finding mode. Still, it's an enjoyable listen, and it’s interesting to compare its pizzicato second movement with that of the Quartet, and the Brodskys and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet are evidently having some fun. They're an effortless partnership, making make much of the work's smoochy, romantic leanings, the high beauty of many of its passages, and its light, clear textures