拉威尔，德彪西：双吉他改编作品
Ravel, Debussy: Music for Two Guitars
演奏家：ChromaDuo
（Naxos唱片2017年发行）
这张专辑首次完全收录法国印象主义音乐大师德彪西与拉威尔的吉他改编作品。他们的作品感性而直接，使用生动的标题和创造性的词汇，创造了富有想象力和自发性的世界。无论是赏月或观舞的环境，还是思考孩子们的玩具，以及对年轻人的表白，都会带来全新的感受和体验。他们的艺术作品通过使用东方五声音阶、完全的音阶、不和谐音序列、连续的完美音程等一系列手段来表达音乐的情感力量。
吉他改编版本为这些经典而流行的古典音乐带来了新的生命，增添了优美的音色和复杂的和声。推荐欣赏！
莫里斯·拉威尔钢琴组曲《镜:第4曲 丑角的晨歌》Miroirs: IV. Alborada del gracioso
斯蒂芬·高斯改编
《丑角的晨歌》作于1905年，最初是钢琴组曲《镜子》中的一首，1918年作者又将它改编成管弦乐曲。晨歌，是指一种带歌曲的诗体，内容描述一位热恋着的青年在黎明时分与情人依依惜别的情景。
1. Miroirs: IV. Alborada del gracioso 00:07:37
克劳德·德彪西钢琴组曲《儿童乐园》 Children's Corner
ChromaDuo二重奏改编
《儿童乐园》为法国作曲家德彪西为他的女儿爱玛所作的钢琴组曲，也常被称为《儿童角落》，全套组曲共包括6首小曲。大概是受穆索尔斯基的歌曲集《儿童歌谣》的启发，作于1908年，1908年12月由哈洛德·保亚首演。
2. I. Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum 00:02:44
《练习曲“博士”》德彪西将这首单调的练习曲加上“博士”学位，为对克莱门蒂枯燥、死板的指法练习曲的戏谑，乐曲中刻意模仿了克莱门蒂的练习曲，以刻板的分解和弦音型奏出，表现了儿童无可奈何地弹奏练习曲并感到非常厌烦的心理。
3. II. Jimbo's Lullaby 00:02:50
《小象催眠曲》乐曲中开始时的那种稳重的低音旋律，使人联想到小象的步伐。之后是天真的孩子为小象唱的一首催眠曲。最后的两个未解决的和弦，好像是孩子和小象不知何时都进入了梦乡。
4. III. Serenade of the Doll 00:02:41
《洋娃娃小夜曲》这是一首孩子对着可爱的洋娃娃唱的小夜曲，全曲贯穿着拨弦乐器的音响，在伴奏音型上，一支朴素而优美的旋律在回荡。
5. IV. The Snow is Dancing 00:02:40
《雪花飞舞》乐曲最初的4小节单音在描写雪花飞舞。表现孩子在冬天里凝视窗外飞舞的雪花，热切地盼望春天早日来临的心情。
6. V. The Little Shepherd 00:02:20
《小牧童》钢琴生动地模仿出玩具牧童在吹奏一支小牧笛时的音调。
7. VI. Golliwog's Cakewalk 00:03:26
《木偶的步态舞》乐曲描写一个滑稽的黑人小木偶在跳舞的形象。这是在欧洲音乐作品中选用黑人舞蹈音乐最早的实例。中段还引用了瓦格纳歌剧《特里斯坦与伊索尔德》序曲的主题，这里是德彪西以此表示对当时盛行的瓦格纳歌剧的嘲弄。
克劳德·德彪西钢琴作品《贝加莫组曲之三：月光》Clair de lune
ChromaDuo二重奏改编
《月光》隶属于《贝加摩组曲》，作于1900年，是德彪西第一时期作品中的钢琴曲。在这支曲子里，作曲家以清谈的笔墨、朴素的音调，给人们描绘出一幅万籁俱寂、月光如洗的图画。乐曲采用了古老的多里亚调式，充满了画意诗情。
8. Suite bergamasque: III. Clair de lune 00:05:00
莫里斯·拉威尔钢琴作品《高贵而伤感的圆舞曲》Valses nobles et sentimentales
ChromaDuo二重奏改编
这部作品一共有七首圆舞曲和一个尾声。1911年5月由路易·奥贝尔隐去作者姓名的情况下作为钢琴曲首次上演，它的公演引起了听众对作曲者的猜测，从萨蒂一直猜到科达伊。《高贵而伤感的圆舞曲》的芭蕾舞剧于1916年在歌剧院重演，此后，它的戏剧形式受到冷落，到现在一直以音乐会曲的形式出现。由于这几首乐曲具有十足的芭蕾舞剧特点，音乐会曲也许是它们最好的结局。从表面上看，这部作品似乎是在模仿夏布里埃的《浪漫圆舞曲》，但其第一首圆舞曲更具有勋伯格的音乐特点。
9. I. Modéré très franc 00:01:36
10. II. Assez lent 00:02:30
11. III. Modéré 00:01:37
12. IV. Assez animé 00:01:28
13. V. Presque lent 00:01:32
14. VI. Assez vif 00:00:48
15. VII. Moins vif 00:02:56
16. VIII. Épilogue: Lent 00:04:19
克劳德·德彪西《缓慢曲》 La plus que lente
ChromaDuo二重奏改编
德彪西在1910年创作了一首非常短的小品 La Plus Que Lente (Valse)（更为缓慢些－圆舞曲）。“圆舞曲慢板”在当时是一种非常流行的沙龙风格，而在德彪西稀奇古怪的笔下，竟把“更为缓慢些”写得胜过了此类的其他任何作品。德彪西把原稿交给了里奥尼（Leoni），他是巴黎新卡通大饭店吉普赛提琴手，这首作品他无疑是从那里取得了素材。斯奇密兹强调它具有严肃的意义，因为他创作的目的是为了一般的听众，对现代的听众来说，大多喜欢听一种特殊而带一点浅薄意味的音调。
17. La plus que lente 00:05:03
2 Arabesques (arr. T.A. Smith and R. MacDonald for 2 guitars)
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) • Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
Music for Two Guitars
曲目英文介绍
Impressionism in music was a powerful contemporary movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and Claude Debussy (1862–1918) and Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) were its greatest advocates. Their compositions are sensuous and immediate, using vivid titles and an inventive vocabulary to create a world of imagination and spontaneity. Feelings and experiences are evoked, whether watching moonlight, savouring the environment of the dance, or contemplation of a child’s toys and what they signify to the young. From their art new concepts arose of the emotive power of music as communicated through a range of devices such as the use of oriental pentatonic scales, the whole tone scale, sequences of unresolved discords, consecutive perfect intervals, and the abandonment of traditional development within movements.
Debussy entered the Paris conservatoire at the age of ten where it seemed he was destined to become a concert pianist. But he soon concentrated on composition, winning various prestigious awards including the Grand Prix de Rome (1884). Ultimately Debussy’s immense output included five operas, ballets, incidental music and dramatic works, orchestral pieces, choral and chamber compositions, songs, and many solo piano masterpieces.
The composer’s creative ambitions were totally opposed to the academic precepts of the time and his style evolved into a complex impressionistic art. Nicolas Slonimsky commented that despite the composer’s reservations about being labelled as an impressionist, ‘like Monet in painting and Mallarmé in poetry, Debussy created a style peculiarly sensitive to musical mezzatint from a palette of half-lit, delicate colours’.
Ravel, the son of a Swiss engineer and a mother of Basque origin, entered the Paris conservatoire at the age of fourteen to study piano and harmony. In 1897 he joined the composition class of Gabriel Fauré and two years later wrote Pavane pour une infante défunte which interprets the old courtly world through contemporary harmonies. Ravel went on to write some of the most expressive piano repertoire of the twentieth century as well as operas, ballet music, orchestral and choral works, and songs with piano.
Guitarists have been attracted by Debussy ever since the early twentieth century. In Segovia’s autobiography he mentioned how as a young man one of his favourite pieces for guitar was Debussy’s Second Arabesque. Almost sixty years later, Segovia returned to Debussy with a recording of La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin. In the 1960s the Presti-Lagoya Duo recorded Clair de lune setting a precedent of great significance.
In 1969 Julian Bream’s arrangements of Two Preludes (La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin and Minstrels), were published. In an editorial introduction Bream commented: “The timbre of the guitar is sympathetic to the delicacy of [Debussy’s] expression and to many subtle gradations of dynamics and tone colour which are so compellingly effective in these works.” Ten years later, after Bream joined forces to play guitar duo with John Williams, Debussy’s Rêverie, Golliwog’s Cake Walk, and Clair de lune became part of their concert repertoire.
Ravel’s richly textured music may seem less amenable to guitar arrangement but a precedent was set with Bream’s playing of Pavane pour une infante défunte at his 1960 Wigmore Hall recital. In the early 1990s Bream revived the Pavane for his recitals and paired it with the brilliantly whimsical Valse à la manière de Borodine.
This album by ChromaDuo is the first to present an entire programme of music by Debussy and Ravel arranged for guitar duo. With two guitars, as opposed to solo guitar, it is possible to expand the canvas bringing in whole suites, complex harmonies, and the range of sonorities implicit in the music.
Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso (Jester’s Aubade) (1905) was originally one of a set of five pieces for piano entitled Miroirs. The term alborada (morning song or aubade), is qualified by del Gracioso which means ‘of the jester’ as frequently depicted in Spanish comedy. The virtuosic piano work contains many evocatively Spanish touches such as reminiscences of strummed guitars, snatches of ornamented melody, and intricate rhythmic episodes. Roger Nichols, an authority on the composer, commented that Ravel ‘turns the keyboard instrument into a huge guitar’. Thus it seems appropriate to return the work to plucked strings.
Clair de lune (Moonlight), the most popular of Debussy’s pianistic masterpieces, is the third movement of Suite bergamasque. Debussy composed the piece in 1890, inspired by Verlaine’s poem of the same title, published in 1869, which mentions masques et bergamasques:
Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.
(Your soul is an extraordinary landscape
Where charming masks and bergamasques are found,
Playing the lute and dancing, as if sad
Under their capricious disguises.)
Later in the poem Verlaine depicts ‘moonlight, calm, sad and beautiful’, which causes the birds to dream and ‘fountains to weep with passion’.
F.E. Kirby in his book Music for Piano describes Debussy’s Clair de lune as ‘the first true example of impressionist piano music’, in which a new world of sound is revealed. The transition from keyboard to two guitars possesses its own magical chemistry, for the guitar has the power to evoke the dreams of moonlight poetically in its own romantic voice.
Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911) are made up of seven waltzes and an impressionist epilogue during which the themes of the previous waltzes are heard again. Ravel wrote: “The title Valses nobles et sentimentales sufficiently indicates my intention of writing a cycle of waltzes after the example of Schubert. They were given their première at one of the concerts of the Société Musicale Indépendante where the composers are not named, in the midst of protests and catcalls. By a small majority the paternity of the waltzes was attributed to me. The seventh strikes me as the most characteristic.”
Franz Schubert, among his hundred waltzes for piano, composed two collections entitled respectively 34 Valses sentimentales (Op. 50, D.779) (1823) and 12 Valses nobles (Op. 77, D.969) (c. 1827). Ravel’s waltzes therefore comprise elements of the ‘sentimental’ and the ‘noble’, and these aspects are not difficult to recognise. The musical vocabulary is contemporary to the twentieth century but the waltz idiom is timeless. Like Chopin’s waltzes, these movements are less a dance of the body than the spirit, uniting the intellect and the heart. The score is prefaced with a quote from Henri de Régnier: le plaisir délicieux et toujours nouveau d’une occupation inutile (‘the delightful and always fresh pleasure of a futile pastime’). Whether inutile refers to dancing or the composition itself can be left to the listener’s imagination.
Debussy’s Children’s Corner was dedicated to his five-year-old daughter Chouchou, with the words A ma chère petite Chouchou, avec les tendres excuses de son Père pour ce qui va suivre (To my dear little Chouchou, with tender apologies for what follows).
Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum, a parody of Clementi, represents a young pianist’s less than enthusiastic approach to the obligatory exercises. Debussy in conversation with the pianist Maurice Dumesnil (1884–1974) offered various suggestions about interpreting each movement. For Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum the composer advised the work should be played ‘with a little humour aimed at good old Clementi’, playing ‘faster and more brilliant towards the end’. Jimbo’s Lullaby, referring to the girl’s toy elephant, is to be performed doux et un peu gauche (sweet and a little clumsy). The scholar Léon Oleginni interpreted the work as the story of the stuffed elephant lulled to sleep with a fairy-tale.
On the dedication page Debussy wrote Serenade for the doll, but the text reads Serenade of the Doll (the French translation being Sérénade à la poupée). Thus the doll is being serenaded and not singing the serenade itself. Debussy’s comment, following the expression mark of léger et gracieux (light and graceful), was that this was to performed ‘with nothing of the passion of a Spanish serenader’.
The Snow is Dancing was described by the composer as ‘a mood picture as well as a tone poem’ and should be ‘brumeux. triste, monotone’ (misty, dreary, monotonous) and not too fast—not fast at all’. The Little Shepherd represents the shepherd’s improvisation on his flute and a dance motif, both aspects needing differentiation. Visions of mythical nymphs and naiads are evoked by the shepherd’s musical rapture.
The finale, Golliwog’s Cake Walk, was described by Ernest Hutcheson as ‘a merry romp before bedtime’. Debussy emphasized the ‘strong, sharp rhythm’ with a contrasting free middle episode. At the point marked avec une grande émotion (with great emotion), he advised the player not to be afraid of exaggerating this aspect.
La plus que lente (The more than slow), a waltz composed in 1910, was first performed in Paris in 1911 by Madame Delage-Prat. Marked Lent (molto rubato con morbidezza) (Slow, with much rubato and soft sweetness), the work is to be played with a flexible tempo. The waltz is characterised by a simple theme running like a single thread throughout. A middle episode changes key to allow the theme to be seen in different colours and harmonic patterns. The guitar arrangement makes effective use of high harmonics and gives the composition an emotionally reflective atmosphere which surely Debussy would have appreciated.
The concept of ‘arabesque’ was first used during the Moorish conquest of Spain to describe ornamented friezes in architecture and painting as in the Alhambra Palace, Granada. The term was first employed for piano pieces by Stephen Heller (1818–1838) for his Op. 49 and by Schumann (1810–1856) in his Op. 18. However, Debussy’s Deux arabesques (composed 1888–91) have been acclaimed as archetypal examples of the arabesque style in which decorative effects are predominant. Among the earliest of Debussy’s piano compositions, they were described by Edward Lockspeiser as ‘graceful reproductions of the ballet style of Delibes’ with ‘perhaps a hint of Schumann’s Phantasiestücke’.
The first Arabesque is very idiomatic for two guitars with its plaintive melody and intricate arpeggios woven round the theme. A middle section, marked Tempo rubato (un peu moins vite) (Tempo rubato, a little less quick) provides a thoughtful interlude before the recapitulation of the opening material. The second of these, marked Allegretto scherzando, and très léger (very light), uses a delicate filigree of rapid triplets with a contrasting middle episode of great charm.
Graham Wade
ChromaDuo
演奏家英文介绍
“Modern guitar music at its most powerful...” –Kirk Albrecht
Whether the work of groundbreaking contemporary composers, gorgeous instrumental music rarely heard on guitars, or the genius of J.S. Bach, ChromaDuo is vigorously commissioning, arranging, and performing some of today’s most exhilarating music.
“These are uncommonly beautiful works, highly inventive and personal,” says Kenneth Keaton (American Record Guide). “ChromaDuo...is simply exquisite. Their sounds are perfectly balanced, yet individual, and each has a ravishing tone with lots of range. Ensemble is perfection, even in the freest passages; and their interpretations of these pieces are convincing, even compelling. This is some of the most purely beautiful playing I’ve heard in a while.” Germany’s Fidelity agrees: “The playing of ChromaDuo is extremely subtle and sophisticated, the communication nothing less than perfect.”
Their first recording, Hidden Waters, featuring five world-premieres by Roland Dyens, Stephen Goss, and Christopher William Pierce, was re-released by Naxos Records in 2012. Garrett Schumann of Sequenza21.com called it, “one giant, convivial, through-composed exploration of the guitar’s expressive range... [T]he restraint of the performance makes you want to lean in closer to hear the expression on every note.” Minor 7th described it
as “modern guitar music at its most powerful, extending form and substance of the guitar to give the listener an almost orchestral experience,” and Jean-Baptiste Collinet raved, "Simply put, everything I heard blew my mind." The CD is also recommended in
Enrique Robichaud’s book, The Guitar’s TOP 100.
Their second album with Naxos, music of French Impressionist masters Debussy and Ravel is available now.
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