Debussy: Suite Bergamasque (Cho Seong-Jin, Bavouzet)

The Suite Bergamasque was published in 1905, but completed in 1890. It hence represents something of a callback to Debussy’s early style: it’s not as intensely evocative as Estampes or Images (the latter of which came out in 1905, too), as abstractly imagistic as the Preludes, or as pungent as the late Etudes. Nonetheless, this suite is a really beautiful bit of work: Debussy revised it before publication (though we don’t actually know what he changed), and there are lots of his trademarks in evidence here: modal playfulness (especially in the Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Dorian), unprepared coloristic modulation, and the use of extended chords (the suite opens with an F 13th) – all paired with early Debussy’s Chopin-like gift for melody and attractive figuration. There are also rather Romantic flashes of open emotion at points (such as the 30 seconds or so after 7:55), which are practically nonexistent in Debussy’s later piano works. It would be a little silly to spend too much time discussing the struc