Tombeau

Two of Claude Debussy’s unfinished opera projects were to have been settings of Edgar Allan Poe tales, so it seemed very appropriate to use Stéphane Mallarmé’s memorial sonnet to Poe as a memorial for Debussy himself.

Tombeau uses the instruments employed by composers in the 1920 issue of La Revue musicale dedicated to the memory of Debussy, minus the guitar used by Manuel de Falla. Perhaps for that reason in both the opening and closing of the work the ensemble is transformed into an imaginary giant guitar.

Julian Anderson