Yikes! I'm late in getting my comments and rating posted for Debussy's Cello Sonata. You see, I'm a retired middle school principal, and for most of this year I had plenty of free time. Now, though, I'm standing for a school's assistant principal who is out on maternity leave, so I'm working full time (albeit, just for a few more weeks). Hence, I'm late with my comments! Fear not, though, gentle reader! I will be working on them today, and I will get my thoughts posted here later this evening. Stay tuned! As stated above in my explanation for posting late, I mentioned that I am a retired middle school principal. Currently I am working full time, but for most of the school year, I would work only days here and there as a substitute teacher at two schools near my home. In those cases, I would report for duty, start each class by taking roll and reviewing the day’s lesson plans, and then – once the students were settled and working – I would play classical music in the background. My “go to” pieces were Schubert’s Fantasie in F Minor (one student remarked, “that’s the most aggressive and peaceful music I’ve ever heard”) and an album by pianist Yundi Li featuring three of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, No. 8 (“Pathetique”), No. 14 (“Moonlight”), and No. 23 (“Appassionata”). Many students would comment, in particular, about the drama heard in the “Pathetique.” Because I’ve listened to those sonatas so many times this year – coupled with the fact that I recently heard Fanny Mendelssohn’s Piano Sonata in G Minor for the first time and LOVED it (WOW, talk about a dramatic work) – I decided this week to listen to a piano sonata. Quite randomly I chose to select one by Claude Debussy. Well, I had decided on a piano sonata by Claude Debussy, that is, until I couldn’t find one. I did find a six-plus hour YouTube video of Debussy’s “Complete Music for Piano Solo” (HERE), and even there, no sonata was listed (check in the comment section for a comment by “Piano Classics” that says, “Tracklisting can be found here!” It lists all of Debussy’s solo piano pieces, and there is no sonata). Soooo – that’s how I landed on Debussy’s Cello Sonata. And what did I think of Debussy’s Cello Sonata? More comments -- and my rating -- coming soon (I promise). Stay tuned (again). Debussy wrote this sonata in 1915, and it has three movements:
I. Prologue (Lent) II. Sérénade (Modérément animé) III. Finale (animé) {Léger et nerveux} According to the comments on the YouTube video linked above, “The Cello Sonata is a late work by the French composer Claude Debussy. It was the first of a planned series of 'Six sonates pour divers instruments', however Debussy only completed two others, the sonata for violin and the sonata for flute, viola and harp. The sonata is notable for its brevity, most performances not exceeding 11-12 minutes. It is a staple of the modern cello repertoire and is commonly regarded as one of the finest masterpieces written for the instrument.” I enjoyed listening to the piece, but I have to admit that it won't be a “go to” sonata like those I mentioned above. Instead, the piece reminded me of a conversation I had recently with some folks about the W. C. Fields/Mae West movie “My Little Chickadee.” “How so?” you ask. Well, since the onset of COVID, my wife and I take part in a movie discussion group that meets almost weekly on Zoom (we generally meet three Fridays in a row and then take a Friday off). We put out a schedule of movies to watch, we all watch the “movie of the week” when we can, and then we meet on Friday evenings to discuss the films. We’ve seen everything from Hitchcock to Film Noir to silent movies to mockumentaries and so on. A couple of weeks ago we watched and discussed “My Little Chickadee.” As expected, that movie did not get a lot of symphonious felicitations (as W. C. Fields might say). Instead, it got more eye-rolling than even Mae West could offer. However, we did acknowledge that the film gave an opportunity for 1940 audiences two see two major icons of comedy – W. C. Fields and Mae West – perform together on the silver screen in a spoof of a Hollywood Western. The rather-thin plotline for My Little Chickadee” was described in our Friday night discussion as a “mish mosh" as it seemed that the screenwriters just threw in “bits” throughout the story to showcase the talents of Fields and West – and really, that’s just what they did – as the screenwriters were W. C. Fields and Mae West themselves (who, by the way, could not stand each other). Mae West had the original idea for the story of a seductress being kidnapped by a masked bandit, but then she threw in the schoolhouse scene and the song “Willie of the Valley.” W. C. Fields threw in a couple of gambling gags (Cousin Zeb: “Uh, is this a game of chance?” Cuthbert J. Twillie: “Not the way I play it.”) and the bar scene with that strange story of Chicago Molly. And then there was that scene with the goat. Well – I won’t get into that! LOL! So what does “My Little Chickadee” have to do with Debussy’s Cello Sonata? Nothing, really, except that as I listened – and I listened to it a number of times – it seemed like a “mish mosh” of themes with various and sundry bits and lines embedded within the piece that just made it seem incohesive. There is a fluid, forlorn melody that flows through much of the Prologue and Serenade, but there are runs and motifs that seem desultory to me. More so with the finale. I know that Debussy is often credited with being the Father of Impressionism, but I have the impression that he just threw musical spaghetti to the wall for this piece to see what would stick I dunno. It was all just too loosey-goosey to me. I stick with the Schubert Fantasie and the Beethoven sonatas for now.
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A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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