DEBUSSY, Claude Achille.

Cinq Poèmes de Ch. Baudelaire.

[Paris, Librairie de l’Art Indépendant], 1890. Folio, pp. [6], 35, [1]; some occasional foxing, heavier but marginal towards the end, with light browning on pp. 30–31; still a good copy in publisher’s original printed parchment over replaced boards, worn and lightly soiled. Very rare first edition, one of only 150 copies printed, of Debussy’s settings of Baudelaire’s ‘Le Balcon’, ‘Harmonie du Soir’, ‘Le Jet d’Eau’, ‘Recueillement’ and ‘La Mort des Amants’ for voice and piano. These are Debussy’s only settings of poems by Baudelaire, and show the composer using non-diatonic scales and chord streams inspired by the symbolist interest in the concept of ‘pure’ sound. Debussy met the dedicatee Étienne Dupin in 1887 and started composing these settings in 1888.‘Debussy knew nearly all Wagner’s works long before he went to Bayreuth, but his Wagnerism reached its peak in 1887–8 when, according to Pierre Louÿs, he made and won a bet that he could play Tristan by heart … The early works in which the Wagnerian influence is most evident are La damoiselle élue and the Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire; the latter pieces are exceptional among Debussy’s output of songs in their length, their wide intervals and their chromatic harmonies’ (New Grove).The music was only available in this limited edition and not produced for general sale until 1902. This edition was engraved by R. Rodier and printed by L. Parent.Lesure no. 64. OCLC records copies at Harvard, New York Public Library and Texas.

• GBP 1,800.00 > autres monnaies
• Commande nro.: F1144

• libraire: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)