Loading…
- Debussy, Claude
- Sheen, Graham
Duration: 6 minutes
Description: Claude Debussy (1862–1918) originally composed Marche écossaise sur un thème populaire (The Earl of Ross March), CD 83 / L. 77 for piano four hands in 1890, later orchestrating and substantially revising the piece between 1893 and approximately 1908. The unusual commission came from the American diplomat and writer General John Meredith Read (1837–1896), who claimed descent from the ancient Earls of Ross and asked the young Debussy to incorporate a traditional Scottish march associated with the Ross clan. The original score, dedicated to Read, bears the alternative title Marche des anciens Comtes de Ross and explains that the tune was traditionally played by bagpipers before the clan chief both in battle and on ceremonial occasions. Rather than treating the melody as a conventional military march, however, Debussy surrounds and transforms it with shifting harmonies, whole-tone sonorities, atmospheric episodes, and increasingly brilliant orchestral colors, providing an intriguing bridge between his early music and the more distinctive language of such works as Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Debussy’s orchestral version received its world premiere on January 16, 1910, in Nancy, France, performed by the Orchestre des Concerts du Conservatoire under Guy Ropartz. A significant Paris performance followed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on April 19, 1913, conducted by Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht, and the orchestral score was published in 1911. Today, Marche écossaise sur un thème populaire (The Earl of Ross March) remains one of Debussy’s lesser-known orchestral works, far outside the regular programming enjoyed by La Mer, Nocturnes, and Images, but it continues to appear in recordings of his complete orchestral music and occasional concert performances, valued both as a colorful miniature in its own right and as a revealing document of the young Debussy transforming an externally supplied traditional melody into an increasingly personal orchestral language. This arrangement for twelve wind instruments has been completed by Graham Sheen. Instrumentation: 2(2nd dPicc).1+1(EH).2+1(BCl).2+1(CBsn): 2.0.0.0.