Review

Paul Dukas and Claude Debussy
Two Orchestral Fanfares: Fanfare pour précéder “La Péri,” and Fanfare to Act 3, Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien

Arranged by David Mathie


Upper Nyack, NY, United States
Publisher: Alessi Publications
Date of Publication: 2007

Score and parts

Primary Genre: Trombone Ensembles - 8 trombones

These fanfares were originally written for orchestral brass. Both come from works composed for the stage, and the two composers were close friends. Paul Dukas (1865-1935) wrote his colourful and virtuosic ballet La péri in 1912, and this was his final major work. The story, an oriental counterpart of the Adam and Eve story, concerns Iskender’s search for the flower of immortality. He finds it in the possession of the Peri, a fairy descended from a fallen angel but her seductive dance distracts him. The fanfare is brilliantly scored using a richly chromatic harmonic vocabulary.

The Martyrdom of St. Sebastien, written in 1911, is a strange work, and is one of Debussy’s least known compositions; like the 15th century painting by Andrea Mantegna which hangs in the Louvre, showing the saint’s body riddled with the arrows of his tormentors, there is much emotion, but little blood. The prelude to the third act, ‘Le Concile des Faux Dieux’ (the council of the false gods) is a brazen evocation of pagan hubris, and its spare harmonic language stands in striking contrast to most of the rest of the work, and to the sumptuous companion piece by Dukas. There is little chromaticism and much use of open fifths and triads.

These two pieces (and their respective composers) are a fascinating contrast, and the transcriptions for trombone choir are superb. Ranges are not extreme, 1st and 2nd parts top out at b-flat1, but extreme precision of rhythm and articulation is required. Production of score and parts is exemplary. Dr David Mathie is Professor of Music at Boise State University in Idaho.

-Keith Davies Jones
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada