Podcast No. 87
Debussy’s Chamber Music (34.32 MB)
Works for clarinet, piano and string quartet performed by clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, pianist Peter John Stoltzman, and the Borromeo String Quartet.

•Debussy: Premiere Rhapsodie
•Debussy: String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10

Compared to classical era composers like Haydn and Mozart, Debussy’s chamber music output was rather small: not counting solo piano or vocal works, he wrote only about a dozen chamber music pieces. His string quartet is nonetheless considered among his top compositions, and one of the important impressionist era chamber pieces.  The music is classic Debussy in its search for unique colors and sonorities. Before the quartet, we’ll hear one of Debussy’s shorter chamber works. The rhapsodie is the more substantial of two works he composed for clarinet in 1910, written for the conservatory as a tool for evaluating their clarinet students. The previous year, Debussy had apparently been taken with the quality of the woodwind players.