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Lot 8

MUSIC - CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Autograph sketch-leaf for his unfinished opera "La chute de la maison Usher", no place or date [Paris, between 1908 and 1917]

1 December 2021, 12:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £7,650 inc. premium

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MUSIC - CLAUDE DEBUSSY

Autograph sketch-leaf for his unfinished opera "La chute de la maison Usher", comprising a passage of some thirteen bars, in vocal score (voice and piano), written in black ink on three systems each of three staves, with some additions in pencil, some corrections and alterations, a setting of Lady Madeline's lines: "Et toute de perles de de rubis éclatante...une troupe d'é[chos]...'', with title in black ink in another hand, 1 page, 200 x 290mm., framed and glazed, overall size 275 x 360mm., no place or date [Paris, between 1908 and 1917]

Footnotes

Debussy, like Beethoven, completed only one opera, his masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande (1894-1903). Opera fascinated him, and he sought other subjects and texts to set, including King Lear and Le diable dans le beffroi, but he did not get far with them. His final operatic project was a treatment of Edgar Allen Poe's story The Fall of the House of Usher, which he worked on in his final years, between 1908 and 1917, drafting three versions of the libretto and a number of musical sketches. The writings of Poe, beloved of Baudelaire and the later French poets, were fascinating to the highly literary Debussy, whose writings and journalism are still read today. The subject of La chute, with its air of mystery, terror and grand guignol, was attractive to Debussy, and he responded fully to the dramatic possibilities of the text. The present passage, though only written as a sketch for voice and piano, is harmonically extremely rich and chromatic, containing a brocade of sound. Had he completed the opera, it would no doubt have been regarded as among his finest compositions.

The present draft contains lines from Poe's poem 'The Haunted Palace' ("In the greenest of our valleys") which feature in the story. Debussy's version contains some similarities to the translation made by Baudelaire and which the composer knew well.

Sketches for major works of Debussy are comparatively rare on the market. A shorter sketch for the opening of the opera was offered at Sotheby's, London, 28 May 2015, lot 237.

Provenance: Emma Bardac (née Moyse), wife of the composer; and thence by descent to the present owner.

We are grateful to Stephen Roe for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.

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