Symphony b minor

Between the years 1880–1882 Debussy occasionally accompanied Nadescha von Meck, Tchaikovsky’s patroness, on journeys, also working as her house pianist. At the beginning of 1881 she thanked Debussy for sending her his “charming symphony”, which, however, only comprised one allegro movement. In 1912 Debussy mentioned a proposed symphony, yet he never completed it.

As a critic of traditional forms and as a musical innovator who was not particularly interested in producing symphonies, this is hardly any wonder. For a long time the autograph of the Allegro lay untouched in Russian archives so that the work was only published for the first time posthumously in 1933, in Russia.