DEBUSSY CELLO SONATA

Cellist Abel Selaocoe delves deep into the first movement of the work that marked the composer’s unexpected return to chamber music at the end of his life

From Debussy Cello Sonata in D minor. Urtext edition, paperbound with marked and unmarked string parts. Ed. Ernst-Günter Heinemann. Pf fingering, Klaus Schilde. Vc fingering and bowing, Reiner Ginzel. Order no: HN633, ISMN 979-0-2018-0633-4. €14.00. Printed with permission of G. Henle Verlag, Munich © 1998

When you start to learn this piece, you first need to understand Debussy’s influences and why he wrote it. There’s a beautiful, poignant story behind it: he was dying of cancer and hadn’t composed for a long time, and in a letter to the conductor Bernardino Molinari, he talks about having to relearn how to write. Being able to have a new perspective on your own practice is really interesting to me. When you return after time away there is an unfamiliarity but also a freshness because of new influences you may have picked up.

Debussy speaks about celebrating all things French, and the beginning of the sonata is a homage to the French Baroque, but as it continues you begin to see other styles. There are influences of gamelan on his sound world and, of course, Pierrot Lunaire (he originally subtitled the work ‘Pierrot is angry at the moon’). So you have to understand that layer of bizarre comedy and the influence of the commedia dell’arte characters before you begin to learn the music.

Three different realms

The beginning seems regal to me. You can be expressive but within certain rhythmic constraints that come with the Baroque style. The piano starts with the feeling of a dotted rhythm that allows for expression but also demonstrates that there is a rhythmic integrity to be adhered to. And when the cello comes in, it’s both a celebration of the key of D minor and at the same time a kind of fanfare, in keeping with this regal character.

Structurally, Debussy is using the rules of sonata form but in a contemporary way. To my mind, making contemporary music is like drawing a circle, respecting that form and then playing freely with everything outside it.

THE SOLOIST

MLUNGISI MLUNGWANA

NAME ABEL SELAOCOE

NATIONALITY SOUTH AFRICAN

STUDIED WITH HANNAH ROBERTS

RECORDS FOR WARNER CLASSICS

To achieve the right kind of phrasing, imagine putting paint on your nose and drawing a line on the wall

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Very soon after the regal statement comes a bizarre idea and then, just as quickly, an ethereal one. I feel the opening section is asking: are we in the right place? Or perhaps Pierrot has walked into a hugely decorated French Baroque building and is speaking his own language that almost nobody understands.

In bars 5 and 6, the music changes from ‘positive’ harmony – clear diatonic language – to a strange world far removed from D minor. Here, it’s about finding the thread that connects these two worlds. It’s a scale made up of open intervals that makes the arrival at that top B flat completely unexpected. It’s incredible! Debussy travels through three different realms: the regal, the bizarre and a place of solitude where I can imagine someone lamenting by the strange light of the moon.

Respecting the integrity of time

It’s important to understand how the rhythm feeds the expression. At the beginning, in bars 17 and 19, then with the reprise at bar 29 and again towards the end, we can create a regal feeling by putting flourishes as close to the beat as possible. You can play these super quickly as long as you respect the arrival of the beat. The music seems hugely improvisational and between the pillars of time you can follow your intuition, but there is no negotiation about when the beat comes.

Singing informs the bow

From bar 4 and in similar places like the reprise in bar 29 we must follow the tenuto line: imagine pulling a thread out of a jumper! Begin the tenuto notes with a very slow bow and sustain right up to the end of the note to get that searing effect. If you sing the phrases, it creates an organic way of understanding the expression and it will perfectly inform how you use the bow, especially on long notes.

Improvising to find technical solutions

There is a lot of information packed into bars 5 and 6. When there are so many notes at once it’s important that you see the arc, so practise the notes slowly to understand where they are placed and then play the shape of the phrase. Ask yourself whether you are going to sustain right through the D that is tied on to the fourth beat of bar 5, or release it before beginning the flight through the rising arpeggios. For me, it is the first way so I allow the next note, an open G, to be strong too, and from there we disappear upwards into nothingness.

In terms of finding a fingering that feels right for these fast scale passages, it’s helpful to play the scales away from the music. By improvising on them you discover the relationship between the intervals. This is so important because the mood changes are so concentrated: sometimes within a triad and sometimes within just one note.

The mood changes are so concentrated, sometimes with a triad and sometimes within just one note

Inhabit the character

Moving on to the second theme from bar 8, we again find the Pierrot Lunaire character. Pierrot has a need to be seen so his movements are quite deliberate – there’s nothing nonchalant about them! To achieve the right kind of phrasing, imagine putting paint on your nose and drawing a line on the wall: the movement and pressure would be consistent. This can be translated directly into how you use the bow, starting at just the right speed and getting deep enough into the string to ensure the line is filled out. Again, I recommend singing the phrase to understand when to play sostenuto and when to play animando within a short phrase.

Practising motoric passages

In bar 16 the cello and piano exchange roles, so the cello takes on motoric accompaniment figures while the piano plays more lyrical material. This is contrary to the nature of each instrument and Debussy seems to make the point by marking a crescendo between crotchets (q) in the piano part – something natural for the cello but not so easy for the piano. The semiquaver (s) figures in bars 16 and 18 demand something completely different to what came before. Practise them as if you were measuring the weight of a piano key to play each note. Once you have mastered that gradation of tone, the challenge is to play through the crescendo on each beat and return immediately to piano for the next beat. Practise this in groups of four notes, resetting the hand in between; then in groups of four notes plus the first note of the next group to master the sudden drop in dynamic.

The Animando poco a poco passage from bar 21 should start very rhythmically, even though we are sul tasto, which I like to underline by playing on the C string. Practise with a metronome, first slowly in order to understand what the bow needs to do to bring out the dynamics, and then at tempo, letting the right hand act like an anchor in how it plays the staccato. Hold on to the piano’s rhythm – the bass-line will tell you how and when to play.

While the cadenza in bars 37 and 38 sounds free, practise playing all the notes evenly before allowing the wave shapes to form in bar 37 and then to calm in bar 38.

Bar 28 can be understood as a single rhythmic gesture leading to the pinnacle of the movement. Loop it in short sections to secure the rhythm and then let it fit to the bell-like piano part.

Same worlds, different context

Following the reprise of the dolce sostenuto theme in bar 39, it is used again in bar 43, in slightly truncated form, to herald the end. It is the same world of Pierrot but in a different context. The regal idea becomes tinged with the bizarre in bar 47 as it is broken up to melt into the ethereal for the last few bars.

All the expression you are seeking to achieve is detailed in the score. Simply adhere to this and the music will come alive in all its intricacy.

INTERVIEW BY HELENA RUINARD