I just had the opportunity to hear a piano roll recording of Debussy himself playing his famous "Claire De Lune" (I've included the link below)

It's like no other performance of this song I've ever heard, and I've been terribly interested in it ever since i discovered it the other day. The characteristic "impressionism" and colors are tremendously more apparent in this performance. Particularly noticeable in the "slurred" aspect of the familiar theme at measure 27...(among many other places) It almost doesn't even sound like a piano, as all accounts I've read of his actual playing style seem to corroborate. -We've all heard references to his style as a piano "without hammers".


I know that piano rolls are somewhat controversial in the realms of dynamics and subtleties (He used the Welte-Mignon system on this one, I believe), but being a "real time" mechanism, I would think that the notes, tempos, "rubato" would be cut into the paper as he himself "actually" played the piece. I read that Debussy himself was very pleased with these piano roll recordings. The performance has that "ring of truth" to it...

Just wanted to share this with you all, if anyone out there hasn't heard this yet. This serves as a wonderful insight into the song, and Debussy's playing style in general for anyone learning it.

I think of this song in a completely new way now... what do you all think?




Debussy plays Debussy

I think the recording shows how much playing styles have changed. If someone played this piece this way today, IMO they might be accused of rhythmical inaccuracy and/or tasteless rubato. Even the rolled chords sounded out of place.

I found it interesting but didn't enjoy it at all. I didn't hear anything particularly beautiful in the tone quality.

I wonder if Debussy really wanted the piece to sound this way. He was very precise and detailed in his scores, but I don't think he followed his own score very well especially on the first two pages.

I listened to his recordings of Evening in Granada, Delphic Dancers, Sunken Cathdral and Golliwog's Cakewalk and the recordings sounded more like the way people would play these works today.

Yes, it's definitely an eyebrow raiser! The "rhythmical inaccuracy and tasteless rubato" certainly is somewhat of a shock when compared with the modern interpretations normally heard (ie. generally following the score) -Except he did make this recording himself.. and must have been somewhat pleased with the result.

Several questions arise after hearing this:

Could this be an example of "do as I say, not as I do" when interpreting the score? -As I've read Beethoven to be at times (in the book "The Great Pianists" , by Harold Schonberg). Beethoven was cited as being very strict about the score when teaching students or commenting on others' performances of his work, but some eyewitnesses accounts say that he noticeably varied his tempos artistically in a manner that contrasted to his insistence on following the score in others.

If this was the way he intended it, was the score merely inadequate to account for such an interpretation of impressionistic music (the strange rubato, tempo accelerations etc...)? I mean, how accurately can you quantify the artistic qualities of impressionistic playing styles with a musical score?(Could be that he's just taking artistic liberties in the performance of his own song)

I read a bit more about the Welte-Mignon systems (correct me if I'm wrong), and found it was capable of recording pedaling and pressure of the fingers on the key.

NY Times article on Debussy's Piano roll Recordings

(Note the 7th paragraph down)

If only we could hear recordings of Beethoven, Chopin, or Liszt ("Yeah yeah....") I wonder how much of a shock that would be at times to our modern ears?

This piano roll is definitely food for thought!

I think Debussy could have easily written the score so it would match the way he plays it if he wanted to, and it has little to do with "quantifying the artistic qualities of Impressionistic playing". "Artistic liberties" doesn't mean doing whatever one wants to. This is what LL is often criticized for. My guess is that appropriate/acceptable interpretation meant something quite different 100 years ago.

Or maybe there is something wrong with the piano roll. Or maybe Debussy had a stomach ache when he recorded CDL. The other Debussy recordings don't seem to be anywhere as extreme.

Very True. Though, would this also apply to the composer of the song as well, performing his own work? Back in the dawn of "recording". It seems that Debussy took these piano roll recordings quite seriously, and was pleased with the results. If he was trying to preserve the songs as he played them for posterity, you'd think that he would try to perform it as closely to his most well known interpretation (especially with how popular this song is).

What if we just hypothesize for fun, that the piano roll is not messed up in any way, and accurately depicts the way he intended to play the song, with all the strange timing and such, (At least, at that point in his life, -who knows, maybe he did have a stomachache, lol!), what then?

Aren't those "artistic liberties," like rubato, and the accelerations, "intentional inaccuracies", rolled chords, etc, some of those certain individual qualities that give a musician their own "tone" (or style, so to speak)? -It's well documented that Chopin had a characteristic rubato that contributed to his own unique style. -Enough to the point where he got into that argument with Meyerbeer over the time signature of one of his pieces (Mazurka in C Op 33/3). Meyerbeer claimed it was 2/4, Chopin exclaimed it was 3/4, quite emotionally, and they parted in a bad mood!

I doubt though, that Chopin would have ever deviated far from from what was written (certainly not like what is heard in this piano roll), being the most "Classical" of the romantics, and having a distaste for "artistic liberties" -the wanton embellishments and tempo fluctuations of other pianists of the day.

(Ok, so the Chopin analogy isn't that great as it relates to the deviance from the score we hear in this roll )

But hey, maybe Debussy did play it this way, liberties and all...? (possibly preferring stylistically to play it this way). That impressionistic piano flavor is pretty darn abstract sometimes.

Also, sometimes after songs are composed, some can sort of take a new life as the composer continues to play them throughout his or her life. Changing here and there sometimes with noticeable differences from the way it was originally published. ("a song is never truly finished....etc") Another Possibility?

Fataliac:
Thank you so much for sharing this! *This* is the kind of playing I find exciting and musical! I know it's not popular now, and that is why I generally don't go to concerts. I have heard recordings of pianists early in recording technology who played just like this...the rolled chords, rubato, separation of hands, so I would say that most likely this piano roll was quite accurate. I really appreciated hearing this today :D>

One can only hazard guesses as to what Debussy intended, although his playing undoubtedly reflected the norm of his era. One might also suggest that were Debussy to have lived in more modern times his playing, too, would have changed to reflect that of the current "norm."

The overuse of excessive rubato, broken chords, unsynchronized hands was indeed the "style" of piano playing at the turn of the 20th century but, as has already been suggested, such playing now is considered passé, out-of-date, old fashioned - any term that suggests is not standard performance practice. Indeed, we consider it to be sloppy and tasteless, at best.

Such recordings, historically interesting as the may be, can only be viewed in the context of their time and, I think, should not be used as yardsticks for current performance practice.

Regards,

Are you sure this is legitimate?

A while ago there were postings on youtube of Ravel playing Jeux D'eau. These sort of discussion ensued about "composer's intention", and then it was discovered later that the playing was not Ravel at all, just a piano roll from a contemporary of Ravel.

As for the performance itself, if it actually is Debussy, while I certainly have respect for it, I personally don't like it. I find it is rushed and many beautiful moments are lost. I find the same of his piano roll of "Dr Gradus ad Parnassum", a piece that I find to be a nostalgic witty piece, which he just rushes through like a student exercise. There was a NYT article exploring this same question. Can I declare that the composer is not playing his own piece in the best way? Interesting question.

Well said. Excessive artistic liberties should never be used in poor taste. Debussy, though, was a product of that artistic time period, so was/is his music, and so was the playing style. If the song was written for that style, couldn't it be (just for fun) proposed that it was best suited for playing in that style, as Mozart is, for the "classical" style?

I share Chopin's feelings when he angrily said to Liszt, "Play the music as written, or not at all" (After playing one of Chopin's pieces with a smattering of his usual embellishments)

Liszt replies: "play it yourself!"

...And we all know what happened next

But that's just it. This piano roll is of Debussy himself, playing his own own composition (allegedly -I'll see what I can find about the authenticity of the recording), as Chopin did when challenged by Liszt. Not by an interpreter.

The style of the times it may be, and unpopular now (understandably so), but I think that this piano roll, with his own tempos, rubatos, and lack of synchronicity can really shed some light on the coloring effects he used. Especially with this song, since it is one of the most popular piano pieces ever written, regardless of genre or current state of accepted playing style.

A lot has been gained in modern times with the resurgence of "scientific piano playing strictly as written" as Alfred Brendel, for example does. (And Brendel's performances are some of my favorite of the Beethoven interpretations) But I'd like to agree with Morodiene by suggesting that there may be a certain "artistic edge" or sense of individuality that may have been lost... Especially for those songs written with that style in mind, as they were popularly embraced by the masses back then. I think a lot's to be said about it.

I'm not telling every student of this song to rebel against their piano teacher of course. lol!! (you can't take any artistic liberties, if you're so inclined, without first properly knowing the music as written)

I myself don't care for a few of Debussy's liberties in the recording, but wow, There are many parts in there that have really opened my eyes about what I've always read Debussy's coloring effects to be about (esp. the volume dynamics and some of the LH speed/pedal slurring). Some of which, seem to be amplified simply because of that "passe" style which is no longer accepted.

May I request - before someone else does - that you refrain from referring to a piano composition as a "song"? I'm not sure what your musical background is, but in the discussion of classical music, "song" is reserved - with very few exceptions - to describe vocal works. Songs are sung. Piano pieces, compositions, works - and all the more specific genre names (etudes, preludes, fugues, sonatas, etc.,) are played.

Thank you.

Regards,

Ah, The most pertinent question of all!

So far, I've found two cds available that claim to be "Debussy plays Debussy" piano roll recordings available for sale at the provided links:

"Masters of the Piano Roll - Debussy (cited as played by Debussy)"
-This one clearly has Clair De Lune on the tracklist

BUT, you'll notice in the 'see also' section that there's another cd of the same series "Master of the piano roll - Ravel", in which the track listing includes "Jeux D'eau" which Theowne already addressed...

I found more info on the Debussy rolls at this site:

Debussy Plays Debussy
-and the further link on this site to Amazon.com where that cd can be purchased

In which either the "Suite Bergamasque" or "Clair De Lune" by itself are NOT in the tracklist.

So no, I'm not sure it's legitimate. Help with this appreciated...

You're right, please excuse me.... "piece," "work," or "artistic, chronologically-based tone sequence," or "Movement 3 of the Suite Bergamasque", if you prefer... (Gee, I didn't expect anyone to mince words over the term "song" in this context)

I think we have a more important matter at hand at the moment though, that is, the legitimacy of the recording, as "played by Debussy himself"

I'd like to state for the record that I don't find the use of the term `song' in this context objectionable. If it was good enough for Mendelssohn, it's good enough for me. There are, indeed, more important issues to worry about.

I have a piano roll of my teacher who made rolls for Welte-Mignon and it has a statement on it with her signature that she verifies it as her playing and she gives her approval. The statement:

"This record is an authentic reproduction of my playing.
Cecile de Horvath"

Ken Caswell made a CD for me of this roll and others of her performances so I feel that Debussy must have done something similar. I have a 33/ vinyl record of his playing and can't say that I'm impressed but Debussy in general doesn't impress me except for particular pieces.

View it as an historical treasure and enjoy it as such.

http://www.djupdal.org/karstein/debussy/recordings.shtml doesn't include Clair de lune, nor does any other list that I can find (excluding CD promotional materials and summaries). I'd be surprised if Debussy did record it, because as I understand it he only polished up Suite Bergamasque and had the pieces published because he desperately needed the money. He didn't consider them good works. Even if Clair de lune had become a household classic across Europe by 1912 or 1913, I'm not sure that its popularity would make him want to record it for posterity. Debussy seemed like the kind of guy to record music that he thought was high quality and worth preserving in his own performance, regardless of what other people thought. (Children's Corner = music he liked and would also sell well.) Nevertheless, I'm intrigued and I look forward to listening to the link when I get home from work.

I think the point is regardless of whether or not it is actually Debussy, it is from that time period, in a well-accepted practice of performance for the time. Yes it is out-dated, old-fashioned, and any other hyphenated term you wish to attribute to it, but give me that any day over how music is generally played today (there are those who do play this way, thankfully to those of us who enjoy that). It fully engages my mind and it doens't lure me to sleep. This is also why I like Horowitz so much, because he used these same techniques in his playing.

Again, I know this is not the popular thing to say, but I'm saying for the sake of those who may inwardly like this style of playing but be afraid to think so. You are not alone!

I've heard quite a few recordings by various pianists from around the same time and none were nearly as rhythmically distorted by modern standards as this particular Claire de Lune. Even the other three recordings by Debussy I mentioned earlier were far more reasonable in terms of today's tastes. In the very recently published The Art of French Piano Music, CDL is not listed among the piano rolls recorded by Debussy, although I don't know how accurate the book's list is.

I don't agree Horowitz ever played that way. His earliest recordings(on The Young Horowitz for example) seem very modern for the time. I can't think a single recorded work by Horowitz where the tempi were distorted to the point of being IMO rhythmically incorrect when compared to the score.

Which pianists do you think plays this way today?

When you listen to recordings like
this, of pianists with a direct link
to the 19th century, you hear the
old style of rubato that has been
bred out of the current generation
of concert pianists, and replaced
with the just-play-the-notes, everyone-
sound-the-same brand of playing
that is taught today.

I give Gyro the rare "Amen!" to this comment.


Well, there are several, although none who are famous or you may have heard of. Robert Hill is one, although he specializes in Baroque music and plays mainly harpsichord. His sister-in-law, Marianne Ploger is another. She is a pianist who studied with Nadia Boulanger, but her focus is more in education than in performance. I do not know if she has any recordings that are commercially available but there are some on her website (if you google both of these names you can find their websites and some recordings). Apart from those two, no one I know of today plays like this. I do know that Ploger had taught this style of playing, so I can assume that others like me have learned it. I try to, but I'm not a performer.

I have only listned to Ploger's rcording of Chopin's Etude Op. 25 No.1, but I found nothing remotely extreme in tempo fluctuation or rubato.

When we see the score from the composer, we're only seeing what he or she wanted at that moment in time. Composers are creative creatures and may change their minds from day to day, and since it's their music, they can take liberties with it that is unacceptable for other performers.

Another example of this is Bartok, who is known to be very exacting about people following his score and wrote down detailed dynamics and tempo instructions. I believe he even wrote down a projected time that each piece should last. I listened to some recordings of him playing his Sonatina and he willfully ignored a lot of his own instructions and added liberal rubato all over the place. If I had done that, you betcha people would protest! But since he wrote it, there's nothing we can criticize...

If you want further comparison, here is Rachmaninoff playing a Debussy piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvJ35-zZa-I

And Debussy playing the same piece himself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMrdhgWR9Zk&feature=related

I would say since he wrote it we can't criticize him for doing it, but we can criticize the performance for not sounding good.

Of course, it is a musical decision to make. To say that one should always or shouldn't ever fluctuate the tempo is to put oneself in a situation where there would always be exceptions. There's lots of rubato in her playing, rolled chords, and separation of hands. Did you listen to her Revolutionary etude (the last Chopin clip on her home page)? That one has very easily identifiable rubato.

Her Rev. Etude certainly has rubato and hands not together, but I don't think many performers today or even the last 100 years would get far playing the piece this way. To me it just sounds bad, but obviously she doesn't feel this way. If other pianists from the 19th century played this way then the performance is historically interesting. The piano's bass sounds pretty bad also.

Here's an interesting comparison of 7 pianist playing the Butterfly Etude:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whYhO0P5DE0

Although some are extreme interpretations by today's standards, I don't think any are nearly as extreme as Debuusy's CDL(if genuine) or Ploger's Revolutionary Etude.

This definitely seems to be the consistent, list of official piano roll recordings that Debussy made in the 1913 Welte session, that I keep finding. For convenience, I'll list these pieces below:

Roll no. 2733

* Childrens Corner: Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum
* Jimbo's Lullaby
* Serenade for the Doll
* The Snow is Dancing
* The Little Shepherd
* Golliwog's Cake Walk

Roll no. 2734

* D'un cahier d'esquisses

Roll no. 2735

* Estampes: La soirée dans Grenade

Roll no. 2736

* La plus que lente

Roll no. 2738

* Préludes I: Danseuses de Delphes
* La cathédrale engloutie
* La Danse de Puck

Roll no. 2739

* Préludes I: Minstrels
* Le vent dans la plaine

-I didn't list the 4 audio tracks of him playing accompaniment, but those always pop up as well. And I have to agree by saying that This Piano roll recording probably was not made by Debussy himself.



This is definitely part of the underlying point here, though.
And I'm enjoying this conversation very much, btw...

Here, though, are links to some of the other piano roll recordings that are established as being Debussy himself.(as recorded during the Welte session of 1913)

"La Cathedrale Engloutie"

"Le vent dans la plaine"

"Danseuses de Delphes"

"La plus que lente "

"Estampes: La soirée dans Grenade "

"La Danse de Puck "

(I'm tired of the "Golliwogg"..... )

You can probably find all the remaining ones in the "related" box by the poster.

Debussy's timing is much more metrical than we heard in the "Clair" roll. Unfortunately, I've not studied any of these other pieces. How do these compare for those of you who have?

La Cathedrale engloutie : By the beginning of what is the second page in the Durand edition ("peu a peu sortant de la brume"), this interpretation was almost unlistenable, although I stayed with it out of curiosity; every one of the right hand chords is broken on that page.

Similarly the return of the "organ" theme 18 measures from the end, the broken chords sound more like a strummed guitar than the organ tones (I believe) they are supposed to represent.

The composer's original recording notwithstanding, I am much more willing to accept modern approaches to this work. Much of this, I reiterate, must be due to a change in performance practice.

Regards,

@Fataliac:

I've had a chance to listen the recording now. I can't say I like it much, though in view of who I suspect is the performer, I'll cut him some slack. I'm not against "old school", "unabashedly romantic" performances, for example, I really like Paderewski's piano roll recording of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #10. So indulgent but so good! And I mostly like Grieg playing Grieg and Rachmaninoff playing Rachmaninoff.

http://www.rprf.org/Rollography.html

According to the above, the only person ever to record Debussy's Clair de lune on the Welte-Mignon system was Cecile de Horvath. Five pianists recorded it on other types of piano rolls; in alphabetical order: George Copeland, Herbert Fryer, Walter Gieseking, Yolanda Mero, and Olga Samaroff. My guess is that the link starting off this thread is a recording by Walter Gieseking. It sounds like he might have played that way in his youth (sorry if that sounds rude, hehe), and I also notice that the works on the "Masters of the Piano Roll: Debussy plays Debussy" CD that were not (apparently) recorded by Debussy, are listed as recorded by either Gieseking or Rudolph Ganz. So maybe at some stage a mixture of Debussy, Gieseking and Ganz recordings were mistakenly attributed exclusively to Debussy?

Regarding "old school" virtues of interpretation, for me this cuts both ways. As much as I dislike dry, overly objective performances, I'd prefer to hear a deeply musical, slightly understated performance than a highly wilful one. Lenz once complained to Chopin that his performance of the variations in Beethoven's Op.26 sonata didn't have enough contrast/vigor. Chopin's response? "I say it's up to the listener to complete the picture." There are performers who draw the listener in, while others project so much, doing all the work so brashly, that listeners become no more than passive recipients. A couple of months ago I was listening to various Youtube recordings of Brahms's 2nd Piano Concerto. My goodness, what dross, for the most part! Then along came Pollini and Abbado: fresh air, poetry, magic.

While I haven't heard a wide range of Horowitz performances, I agree with pianoloverus's comments, and I've never heard Horowitz sound anything like the gushing indulgences of many historic recordings. Horowitz's 1932 recording of Liszt's Piano Sonata was/is a very modern performance, where romantic spontaneity is perfectly balanced by a clear illumination of the structure of the work. In contrast, a typical "historic" performance would likely have been an episodic mishmash leaving listeners thinking that maybe the sonata didn't hang together properly and was a failed experiment rather than a masterwork.

When Mendelssohn used it in the phrase "Songs Without Words," it was self-consciously figurative. It doesn't mean he used it categorically for any and all non-vocal compositions written by him or anyone else.

Steven

Bruce, if you have 2 minutes 21 seconds to spare, please watch this from beginning to end: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrvra2-7yxo

In my opinion, Debussy is not representing an organ, more a general sense of majesty, grandeur, awe, of a large, wondrous thing interacting dramatically with a large body of water. And when a large structure emerges from the sea, and when it sinks back again, there's water falling, rippling, sprinkling, not a perfect silkiness. Debussy, you beaut! You've sold me on slightly breaking those chords. I also love the yearning hesitation in the middle of bar 36.

Thanks for these links; I ought to go to bed now but I have to listen to them all now.