Prélude - Scherzando - Mouvement

Debussy only lived long enough to complete the first three of a projected set of six sonatas. On the last page of his third (violin) sonata, completed in 1917, he wrote: "the fourth will be for oboe, horn and harpsichord." His biographer Leon Vallas wrote (1933) that "This interesting blend of sonorities...would have been the first instance in modern music of the use of that old double-keyboard instrument which composers and interpreters are endeavoring to revive today." There were a few precedents, which Debussy may not have known (Massenet, Busoni, Vaughan Williams and Stravinsky - 1st version of Les Noces), but unlike his colleagues, he was planning a major chamber work in a new style, one in which, as Paul Dukas reported (1926), he "felt the need to simplify and purify his music, to remove from it all the marks of professional virtuosity." Debussy had previously (10/23/1915) written to Poulenc, "At this moment we should try to regain our old traditions: we have abandoned their beauties, but they are still there."

Our reconstruction of the fourth sonata transcribes three Debussy works. The first movement is drawn from the opening section of Le Boite à joujoux [The Toy-Box, 1913], which informs us how the various toys awake in the morning. Referring to Debussy's eight-year-old daughter, his publisher Durand noted (1925) that the composer "was getting himself in the mood for the ballet by extracting secrets from Chouchou's dolls." Debussy had discovered (1913) that "The soul of a doll is mysterious...it doesn't easily tolerate the kind of clap-trap so many human souls put up with." Our second movement is the mischievous Etude #9 (originally #10) "pour les notes répétées" (1915); as he wrote to Durand (1915), "There's no need to make technical exercises more somber just to appear more serious; a little charm never spoiled anything." For a finale we feature the perpetual motion Mouvement from Images I (1901). A full account of Debussy's sonata plan - which Pierre Boulez (1997) called "a fantastic idea" - can be had in my edition of his Sonata "No. 4", published in 2011 by International Music Company (#3651).