Lazy and atmospheric, it’s perhaps most effective as an exaggerated parody of the sentimental slow waltzes that were enjoying a fad just then, such as a now long forgotten popular song named “ La Valse lente,” which seems to have been the direct inspiration for the one-upmanship of Debussy’s title. That “characteristic feeling of melancholy” must have related in the composer’s mind to La Plus que lente ( The Slower than Slow), a little piano waltz he had penned four months earlier. Of one Gypsy musician, Debussy wrote, “In an ordinary, commonplace café, he gave one the impression of sitting in the depths of a forest he arouses in the soul that characteristic feeling of melancholy in which we so seldom have an opportunity to indulge.” INSTRUMENTATION: Flute, clarinet, cimbalom (here played by harp), piano, and stringsĭuring a brief visit to Budapest in 1910 Debussy was impressed by the Gypsy-style cafe ensembles he encountered in the city. MOST RECENT-September 2013, in performances captured for SFS Media. Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the composer’s own orchestration from 1912. WORLD PREMIERE: It is unclear when La Plus que lente was premiered in France, but it reached Britain on November 26, 1910, when an obscure pianist named Cernikoff played it in London’s Aeolian Hall Saint Germain-en-Laye, Department of Seine-et-Oise, France
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