User:CookieCook07/Nocturne et Scherzo

Nocturne et Scherzo, or only Scherzo, is a composition of Claude Debussy for cello and piano, composed in 1882.

Presentation
Nocturne et Scherzo was composed in 1882. The handwritten manuscript, for violoncello et piano, is stored at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Ms. 20635),and has the date 14th of June, 1882, next to the signature " Ach. Debussy ".

The work is possible a transcription of a piece for violin and piano, first performed on the 12th of May, 1882, in Paris, at the Salon Flaxland, for the violinist Maurice Thieberg and Claude Debussy on the piano (the program of this concert was published by La Revue musicale in May 1926, on page 114).

The title " Nocturne et Scherzo " suggests that two movements should exist, but only the movement which could correspond to Scherzo in the original work remains. In the known manuscript, the words " Nocturne et Scherzo " doesn't appear except on one page outside the music. Neither the piano nor the cello part has any indication in text, and the separate cello part doesn't have any indication, except of the tempo : " Allegretto ".

The work was edited for the first time in 1995 with Faber Music, by Neil Heyde, who presumed that the title could refer to an indication of a caractère musical, in the sense of a Scherzo in the character of a nocturne. This hypothesis is not retained by the subsequent urtext editions : Henle published the score as " Scherzo " in 2009, along with an Intermezzo for cello and piano by Debussy. Durand, for the edition of the complete works of the composer, gave it the title " Piece for cello and piano, named Nocturne et Scherzo » (edited by Roy Howat).

Written in ternary form, ABA, the fragment is "all written entirely in suspensive style,with restrained lyricism. This work of his youth is presented already with some harmonic inflexions dear to Debussy[3] ».

The average execution time of this piece is around five minutes.

In the list of compositions by Clade Debussy, established by the musicologist François Lesure, Nocturne et Scherzo has the number L 39 (26).

Discography

 * Claude Debussy : The Complete Works, CD 12, Henrik Brendstrup (violoncelle) et Per Salo (piano), Warner Classics, 2018.