Classical Music | Soprano

Claude Debussy

Pierrot, from Quatre chansons de jeunesse  Play

Leah Partridge Soprano
Anne Breeden Piano

Recorded on 01/31/2006, uploaded on 01/18/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

The character of Pierrot, a shortened form of the name Pierre (Peter), originated during the 17th century as one of the stock characters of Commedia dell’Arte. He was originally portrayed as a buffoon, and a trademark characteristic of Pierrot is his naiveté. In many representations, he is seen longing for the love of Columbine, usually unsuccessfully as she typically breaks his heart by leaving him for Harlequin. During the first half of the 1800s, the character of Pierrot was forever solidified by the famed pantomime Jean-Gaspard Deburau, whose performances served as the archetype for all future reincarnations of the character. Many artists began to turn sympathy towards Pierrot and the plight of the sad clown. By the close of the century, he had further become a representation of the artist himself and the proponents of the various schools of thought—the Decadents, the Symbolists, the Modernists—used him to their own explicit purposes.

Prior to Claude Debussy, few of the major composers had depicted Pierrot in their works. Telemann included a section inspired by him in his Burlesque Overture; Mozart, in his 1783 “Masquerade;” and, Robert Schumann, in Carnaval. Between 1881 and early 1883, Claude Debussy produced two settings of poems based on Pierrot, after which followed many more musical portraits by other composers including Arnold Schoenberg’s famous Pierrot lunaire. The first setting, that of Théodore de Banville’s Pierrot, was composed in 1881, but was left unpublished until after the composer’s death. Debussy’s music is humorous with a particularly taunting melodic figure that appears within the first few measures of the song. This motif then becomes a principle element of the accompaniment, appearing both as a sort of counterpoint to the vocal line or as an addition to the end of its phrases. In the final line of text, treated by Debussy in a sort of quasi-recitative, Banville makes a direct reference to Deburau himself as the sad and hapless clown.      Joseph DuBose

Pierrot, from Quatre chansons de jeunesse      Claude Debussy

Pierrot (Théodore Faullin de Banville)

The good Pierrot, whom the crowd watches,

Having finished at Harlequin's wedding,

Wanders as in a dream along the Boulevard du Temple.

A young girl in a flimsy blouse

In vain entices him with her scamp's eye;

And meanwhile, mysterious and shiny

Making him its dearest delight,

The white moon with horns of a bull

Casts a glance offstage

At his friend Jean Gaspard Deburau*.

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* Jean-Gaspard Deburau: a famous French mime