Thibaudet Traverses Debussy’s 24 Preludes

Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet (photograph by Andrew Eccles, courtesy of San Francisco Symphony)

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall the San Francisco Symphony presented the latest installment in its Great Performers Series. Like the last installment two weeks ago, this was a solo performance, this time by French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The program was devoted entirely to the solo piano preludes composed by Claude Debussy.

These 24 preludes were collected in two books. The first of those books was completed in 1910, and the second appeared in 1913. Unlike the preludes of Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier or Frédéric Chopin’s Opus 28, the preludes do not systematically traverse the major and minor modes of the twelve pitches in the chromatic scale. Also unlike those predecessors, each prelude is given a title, which allows the listener to form a mental image while the music is being played. While most recitalists tend to perform small groups of selected preludes, both books were played in their entirety for their premiere performances.

Last night one could appreciate both how Thibaudet rose to the many technical challenges encountered on the score pages and how he found interpretations that would reflect on the evocative titles assigned to the preludes. If Debussy did not account for every major and minor key, he still endowed each prelude with its own distinctive mental image. Many of these involve reflections delivered with hints of sadness, as is the case with “Des pas sur la neige” (footprints in the snow). At the other extreme, the composer was capable of being raucously comic, which is probably most evident in “Homage à S. Pickwick, Esq. P.P.M.P.C.”  (Who knew that Debussy had an interest in Charles Dickens?)

Taken as a whole, this was a program that imposed serious demands on audience attention. However, as Thibaudet progressed through the collection, delivering just the right rhetorical stance for each prelude, that attention was well rewarded. The rewards also included an encore selection, even though Thibaudet had clearly given his all to accounting for Debussy. That encore was Edward Elgar’s own piano arrangement of his Opus 12 “Salut D’Amour,” suggesting one final reflection on a unique rhetorical disposition.