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Debussy First Edition Emerges from a Century of Obscurity "Les Papillons" Manuscript Facsimile and Transcription Released by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
New York, NY, November 5, 2004 -- More than 120 years after its composition by a young and besotted Claude Debussy, "Les Papillons," a song for voice and piano set to a poem by Théophile Gautier, is available to musicians and the public at large for the very first time, in a handsomely designed portfolio first edition published by The New York Public Library. Following an illustrious provenance of successive private ownership by the likes of conductors Arturo Toscanini and Wilfrid Pelletier, Debussy's autograph manuscript joined the collections of the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center in 1990. The song was performed publicly in 1962, by that year's winner of The Joy in Singing Competition, Billie Lynn Daniel, at New York's Town Hall, and most recently in February 2004, by Renée Fleming, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.This first edition publication, limited to 1,000 copies, includes a full-color facsimile of the composer's manuscript in its original format, a transcription by Marie Rolf, and an informative illustrated text featuring a preface by Margaret G. Cobb and an essay by Rolf on the composition's background, stylistic issues, comparative settings of the poem, and challenges of the transcription process. Printed on fine cream paper, with an insert for the facsimile and transcription, the oversize portfolio is available at The New York Public Library shops or online at thelibraryshop.org and omifacsimiles.com for $65. Probably written before the fall of 1881, "Les Papillons" is one of twenty-seven songs Achille-Claude Debussy dedicated to the singer Marie-Blanche Vasnier, a student of Mme Moreau-Sainti, for whose classes Debussy became accompanist in 1880 at age eighteen. The title page of the composition bears the inscription, in French, "to Madame Vanier [ sic ] who alone has a voice light enough to sing songs about butterflies. . . .Set aflutter by Ach. Debussy." Composed in the key of F-sharp Major, the melody of "Les Papillons" exploits the upper range of his muse's voice and takes precedence over seamless accommodation of the prosody of the piece; nonetheless, the young composer's lifelong reverence for verse is apparent here, as are the idiosyncratic building blocks of his evolution to mature composition. The publication of "Les Papillons" is an extraordinary occurrence in the world of music, giving today's performing artists unprecedented access to a little known work by a major composer. Marie Rolf is Associate Dean of Graduate Studies of the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester. She is editing a volume of early Debussy songs for the OEuvres Completes de Claude Debussy as well as serving as the American member on the Editorial Board of the project. Margaret G. Cobb, who along with François Lesure, established the Centre de Documentation Claude Debussy in Paris, is author of The Poetic Debussy: A Collection of His Song Texts and Selected Letters and the forthcoming Debussy's Letters to Inghelbrecht.
Title: Claude Debussy Les Papillons ### Contact: Lindy Regan, 212-704-8600. |
