Pelléas centenary and Préludes

On 25 January 1913 Pelléas et Mélisande received its one hundredth performance at the Opéra-Comique. A celebratory dinner was held on 28 January at the Café Riche which both Debussy and Emma attended. Marcel Proust wrote to his close friend and lover Reynaldo Hahn à propos of this centenary performance that he had read an article in the paper L’Intransigeant which noted that Fauré and Debussy had chosen the same heroine, Mélisande. ‘Perhaps Sigismond Bardac thinks they ought to have left it at that,’ he remarked. Even nine years after Debussy had abandoned Lilly for Emma, Proust still felt that scandal and that of Emma's prior relationship with Fauré worthy of scurrilous comment. It is hardly surprising that neither Proust nor Hahn were ever part of Debussy's and Emma's circle of friends.

At the beginning of 1913 Durand commissioned Charles Koechlin to orchestrate Khamma. On 5 March he presented the third of his concert series in the Salle Érard, at which Debussy himself performed the first three of his second book of piano Préludes. No one would ever forget his luminous interpretations, Durand wrote. Typically, when he had to take numerous bows to acknowledge the enthusiastic applause, Debussy came onto the stage wearing his overcoat, hat in hand, indicating to the audience that he was going home. But it was a copy not of the second, but of the first book of piano Préludes that Debussy dedicated to his wife in March 1913, with the affectionate wording, ‘In these 12 preludes there is not one harmony which is as engaging or tender as the name “petite Mienne”. Her Claude, her husband, Claude Debussy, March 1913.’ This was his first dedication to her since June 1911. At the end of the month Ricardo Viñes came to Debussy's house to play him his interpretation of three more preludes, which he performed in public on 5 April. The whole second book was published on 19 April.

Birth of Emma's second grandchild; dedications to Emma

On Easter Day 1913 Debussy gave a gift to Emma and Chouchou of a bowl of chocolates saying the dish was for ‘Chouchou-mère’ and the accompanying chocolates were for Chouchou. It was the role of Emma as mother of his beloved daughter, rather than wife or lover, that was foremost.