New Year's Greetings

Erik Satie's New Year's greeting to Emma for 1912 was a picture of a hand holding a bouquet of flowers. In his message Satie asked her to shake hands with him. By mistake he had left behind the macaroons last time he had visited them, he added, and promised that on Saturday he would keep them on his knees all the time, even at the table. Satie's fondness for Emma is demonstrated by the fact that it was she, not her husband, who received this personal New Year's greeting. It may well be that Satie acted as an intermediary between her and her husband when their relationship was strained, despite feeling overshadowed by Debussy.

Whilst Emma began the year 1912 suffering from a recurrence of liver trouble, Chouchou was delighted to receive New Year's gifts of two fragile miniature table settings from Gabriel Mourey, which to her frustration were placed behind glass in a cabinet, a Hungarian doll from Madame Bárczy and a book with illustrations by Arthur Rackham from Robert Godet. The latter delighted Debussy as much as his daughter, for he loved Rackham's watercolours. He was also proud of the grown-up way in which Chouchou had asked him to pass on her wishes for a Happy New Year to Godet. The singular maturity of this child never failed to impress.

The first contract of the new year signed with Durand on 31 January 1912 was for the second book of piano Préludes, the fourth of which was entitled Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses, one of Rackham's illustrations for J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, the very book given by Godet to Chouchou. For this collection Debussy received twelve thousand francs – two-thirds now, the other third constituting performing rights – a considerable and no doubt welcome advance on the sum of seven thousand francs for the first book of Préludes. The new contract stipulated that the composition would be delivered by 1 April 1912. In fact, he did not complete the Préludes until January 1913.

On 23 January Louis and Chouchik Laloy were invited to dinner with the Debussys, as well as Ricardo Viñes and Madame Charpentier. ‘Naturally there was no music-making and we hardly talked about it, as happens amongst real artists,’ wrote Viñes in his diary.