Jeux, poeme dansé en un acte
Khamma, légende dansée
La Boîte a joujoux, ballet pour enfants

Several works by Claude Debussyhave become ballets ‘after the fact’, so to speak –as early as 1912, Nijinsky and the Ballets Russesused his Préludea l'apres-midi d'un faune, and later choreographers have created ballets based on scores like Printemps, Gigues(from Images) and Nuagesand Fetes(from Nocturnes).

Debussy only conceived three works as ballets, however, and those are gathered on this present disc from the Singapore Symphony Orchestraand Lan Shui. All three were written between 1911–1913, during a period when the composer was under some financial pressure, and in the case of Khamma, Debussy himself admitted that ‘considerations of domestic finances’ contributed to him undertaking the commission for this ‘danced legend’ about an Egyptian dancer struck down by the sun-god Amun-Ra. Having finished the piano score, Debussy asked Charles Koechlinto complete the orchestration under his supervision. He was more enthusiastic about a commission from the highly fashionable Ballets Russes, and did indeed complete Jeuxhimself –but only two weeks after the first performance, the company’s premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Springcompletely eclipsed Debussy’s new work. Jeuxhad to wait until the 1950s for full recognition, championed not least by Pierre Boulez, who regarded it as one of the most prophetic works of the twentieth century.

Of the three works on the disc, it is probably the children’s ballet La Boîtea joujoux(The Toybox) that gave its creator the greatest pleasure. He finished a version for solo piano in 1913 and dedicated it to his daughter Emma. The music includes children’s songs, bugle calls and imitations of musical boxes as well as parodies of well-known operas and quotations from his own and other works.

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Three ballet scores by Debussy performed by Singapore Symphony Orchestra