Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago

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Score: fabermusic.com/music/symphony-in-b-minor-finale-6280
Audio: youtube.com/watch?v=8oqo4130laQ
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Mikko Franck, conductor

"In 1880 Debussy spent the first of three summers teaching and playing the piano in the household of Tchaikovsky’s patron Nadezhda von Meck, travelling with the family throughout Europe. He had attended the Paris Conservatoire since 1872, but had not shown any great aptitude for composition up to this point. The discovery in Moscow in 1925 of a manuscript of a four-hand piano work with Debussy’s signature entitled ’Symphonie en Si’ reveals one of his earliest surviving works, and, although hardly a pointer to the future composer, is surprisingly accomplished. It was published for the first time in 1933.

A letter from Mme von Meck to Debussy indicates that the symphony was dedicated to her, and sent to her early in 1881, but quite what she received remains open to debate. The surviving manuscript, has the titles of three movements - _Andante, Air de ballet, Final_ - but the music is in one movement headed _Allegro ben marcato,_ and although attempts have been made to establish that the three movements are incorporated within this movement, or that it is the first movement, the musical evidence indicates that it is the Finale. In particular the rather grandiose coda could surely only come at the end of a symphony. The more recent discovery of an E major _Andante cantabile,_ also for four hands and composed in 1881, might perhaps be the second movement.

It is impossible to establish whether or not Debussy intended to - or indeed did - orchestrate it, but it seems more likely that it was an exercise in writing for piano duet: Mme von Meck had shown Debussy the four hand transcription of Tchaikovsky’s recently completed Fourth Symphony. Stylistically the music owes something to Tchaikovsky, along with touches of Franck and Massenet, but with only a very few foreshadowings of Debussy himself. The work falls into three sections before the coda - two sonata like developments separated by a gentle dance-like interlude. In orchestrating it I have not tried to look forward in any way to Debussy’s later style, and the only score I have referred to is his 1889 _Fantaisie_ for piano and orchestra." - Colin Matthews