This piece dates originally from May 1882, when Debussy made his first public appearance as a composer, at a musical soirée in Paris accompanying the violinist Maurice Thieberg. Among the other works performed on that occasion was a Nocturne and Scherzo for violin and piano by the 19-year-old composer, which has since disappeared. 
In June Debussy made a new version for cello and piano, which survives in autograph manuscript and is published here - in this new edition by the musicologist and cellist Neil Heyde - for the first time. 
Although the title implies two separate pieces, the Nocturne et Scherzo is a hybrid piece, in which the opening Scherzo material surrounds a cantabile episode of nocturnal character.