Debussy: En blanc et noir

One of the late Debussy works totally unknown to me is his En blanc et noir for two pianos. The work dates from the same explosive summer of 1915 that yielded the Etudes. The summer was charged in more than one sense. Not only was Debussy able to shatter an illness-ridden creative impasse with a dramatic surge of inspiration. From his refuge at Pourville-sur-mer, a picturesque village on the Alabaster coast near Dieppe, he must also have been able to hear the ominous drone of artillery barrages on the Western front only 100 km away. It has been suggested that En blanc et noir has been marked by Debussy's obsession with this violent conflict. It is true that the slow second middle movement has been dedicated to a fallen French officer. And the musical fabric is occasionally traversed by martial motifs such as bugle calls and drum rhythms. But there is as much, if not more, of familiar Debussy emblemata - the toy shop, the nocturnal sea, the drawing room - in this music as there is of carnage. To me, the piece, in all its brevity has the character of a summation, a retrospective glance on a creative path and a life. To be sure there is nothing cheesy about it. We find a similar edginess as in the late sonatas and in the Etudes. Oftentimes the music reminds me of Bartok in its percussive violence and pared down palette. No doubt the clear outlines and shadowy colours were the result of compositional intention. Hence also the title: in white and black. In a letter Debussy referred to Velazquez as an inspiration: "These pieces need to draw their colour, their emotion, simply from the piano, like the 'grays' of Velazquez, if you understand me". Allegedly, the 17th century Spanish master was an important source of inspiration for the Impressionist painters. Paul Roberts in his book on Debussy's piano music quotes Renoir as saying that "... I have found that it is only with black that you can infuse a certain lightness into your painting ... There is nothing more difficult in painting than black and white. Manet's blacks are so beautiful and always done with one brush stroke." Then Renoir went on to talk about Velazquez, of his light shadings, made up of black and white. Another inspiration could have been the symbolist Odilon Redon who produced a great many 'noirs' up until the 1890s (after which he worked almost exclusively in colour). However, I haven't been able to find much evidence of a relationship between Redon and Debussy. Anyway, the ambiguous relationship between earthiness and evanescence that Debussy seemed to be after in this piece, is fascinating.


En blanc et noir consists of three movements, the first of which is a raucous waltz ('avec emportement') built from cascading arpeggios.The second movement ('lent, sombre') is the heart of this piece: it meshes Bartokian night music with a children's song and an almost comical battle music. But there are also reminiscences of the world of the Preludes, with solemn chords drifting in like a warm summer wind. Also in the final Scherzando, dedicated to Stravinsky, the spirit of the Hungarian fellow traveller is close, I find. Some of the right hand flourishes might have come straight from a Bartok piece. Despite the percussive harshness, there is also gaiety and tomfoolery in this music. It reminds me again of that anecdote in which Debussy spent the evening with his guests drawing pigs without lifting the crayon from the paper.

The link between Debussy and Bartok is tantalising. For Bartok the French master stood out above all. I assume this went deeper than simply Debussy "representing the ever-present mood, timbre and good taste of French impressionism" (Janos Demenyi in The Bartok Companion). There is a spiritual kinship between the composers that can not be overlooked. Furthermore, in their approach to the keyboard both adopted an essentially percussive style. Indeed, as Roberts points out in his book Images "this might seem a paradox, considering his mastery of delicate nuance and understatements". However "unlike Bartok, who exploits the percussive nature of the piano through rhythm and accents, articulated the moment the hammer hits the string, Debussy explores the resonances created after the impact of the hammer, as the sounds are dying away". Roberts draws a parallel then with the Javanese gamelan, of which Debussy was very fond: "One of the remarkable features of gamelan music is the way it shows us that percussion is a phenomenon of resonance as much as accentuation". 

The mercurial performance recorded by Bishop and Argerich leaves absolutely nothing to be desired.