by Edmund Rubbra (pianoforte)
Six Epigraphes Antiques
1. Pour invoquer Pan, dieu du vent d'ete (To invoke Pan, god of the summer wind). 2 Pour un tombeau sans nom (For a nameless tomb). 3 Pour que la nuit soit propice (That the night may be propitious). 4 Pour la danseuse aux crotates (For the castanet dancer). S Pour l'Egyptienne (For the Egyptian woman). 6 Pour remercier la pluie au matin (To give thanks for rain)
In 1899 Debussy set three poems of Pierre Louys under the title of 'Chansons de Bilitis', and in the following year a second set appeared with the same title, the difference between the two being that in the tatter the poems were to be recited instead of sung. According to the French critic Leon Vallas: 'This music, written for two harps and two nutes, consisted of some hundred and fifty hastily-written bars divided into a dozen numbers. It was a mere improvisation, pleasant and elegant, but of no great importance.' Fifteen years later, however, Debussy arranged and re-fashioned the material into a series of pieces' for piano duet, entitled 'Epigraphes antiques'. It Is said that Debussy once considered the idea of turning these pieces into an orchestra) suite. Vallas points out that 'In some of the pieces, it is true, we nnd the principal theme slightly developed, or adorned with changing harmonies and accessory rhythms; and one can distinguish the tintding of Chinese bells, the instrumental colouring of nutes, and the plucking of harp-strings, effects that he had utilised fifteen years previously in incidental music. There is also a suggestion of symphonic and even eycticat treatment in the manner in which the first Epigraph is repeated so as to form an ending for the last.'