1. Avec emportement
2. Lent. Sombre
3. Scherzando 

One of Debussy’s last compositions, En blanc et noir for two pianos was completed in June 1915. It was originally called ‘Caprices en blanc et noir’, the title under which it was first performed in January 1916 at a private concert in the Paris salon of the Princesse de Polignac (played by Walter Rummel and Thérèse Chaigneau). Later the same year, in December 1916, it was given under its definitive title by Debussy and Roger-Ducasse, at a concert given for the benefit of French prisoners of war. Fiercely patriotic, and unafraid to express his anti-German sentiments in time of war, Debussy prefaced each movement with a literary quotation. The first is from Jules Barbier and Michel Carré’s libretto for Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette: ‘He who stays in his place and does not dance, admits to disgrace’, almost certainly a bitter self-reflection: Debussy, greatly weakened by cancer and now very ill, was unable to take part in the ‘dance’ of fighting for France. Debussy’s music is less confrontational: dedicated to Serge Koussevitzky, it is essentially a kind of waltz, the writing brilliantly exploiting the potential of two pianos. The superscription for the second movement is taken from François Villon’s Ballade contre les ennemis de la France (written in 1461): ‘worthless is he … who would wish evil on the state of France!’ The dedication is a memorial to Jacques Charlot, ‘killed by the enemy on 3 March 1915’. Charlot was the nephew of Debussy’s publisher Jacques Durand, and the composer’s quiet rage can be heard at the start of this movement when low chords are interrupted by a dissonant chord followed by distant bugle calls. After a radiant section marked ‘calme’, what follows (‘sourdement tumultueux’) is hushed and disturbing, with the German chorale melody ‘Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott’ emerging from the texture. The final Scherzando is prefaced by a line from Charles d’Orléans: ‘Winter, you are nothing but a villain’ and it is dedicated to Igor Stravinsky. Though the music is sometimes playful, the mood is often equivocal, as are Debussy’s intentions: En blanc et noir is a bewitching combination of boldness and ambiguity. 

© Nigel Simeone 2026