This diary, and my next two, will explore three composers who came after the Romantic movement: Debussy, Bartok, and Schoenberg; and we'll compare and contrast their music. And Debussy is a sheer joy to cover, his music by far the sweetest of these three.
Sweet like this, Reverie, by Claude Debussy.
Oh, my life is so hard! Pity poor Dumbo, buried in the drudge work of having to surf through Youtubes like this one when he could be doing his bills! Actually, it's quite pleasant, because some of the most visually beautiful classical music clips on Youtube are of Debussy works. Probably because his music is so inherently visual.
Beautiful clips like the animation for this one, Debussy's Arabesque #1, rearranged for guitars.
Debussy is known as the father of French Impressionism in music. Some other composers categorized as Impressionist include Ravel, Satie, Delius, Scriabin, Ravel being the other really big Beret.
Impressionism? Wait, isn't that that painting style with the big globs of color and sloppy brush strokes? Like the painting by Degas, to the left? Well, yes, but we need to distinguish Impressionist painting from Impressionist music, which has little in common other than that they were contemporary movements that began in France that rejected traditional techniques. I would also say that they share another feature in common -- that they both achieve their expression through greater simplicity.
We know that Debussy resented being called an Impressionist and saw no parallel between what he was doing and what painters like Degas and Monet were doing. Tough, Claude. The label stuck, fair or unfair. Personally, I see it as just a great opportunity for me to pad my diary with art work.
Debussy's ghost will have to be satisfied with being a French National God. I mean, hell they even put him on their money! Elvis only got a stamp.
[Note. At this point, I've lost my diary draft about four times. Thanks a fucking lot, Markos.]
What can you say about a country that puts Debussy on its money? Going back through my Imageshack folder, I found another french bank note, this one with the Little Prince on it. The Little Prince! Face it. Our Treasury Department just sucks compared to the French.
And now here is my secret [, said the Fox]. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
At a time in history when German Romanticism was becoming oversized, unwieldy and pompous under the weight of its complicated Wagnerian harmonies, Debussy developed a totally different style in reaction, an Un-German, Un-Wagnerian style.
From a Time article on Debussy:
To France's Claude Debussy, Germany's Richard Wagner was "that old poisoner" of the pure wells of music. In the 1890's, fuming at the "grandiloquent hysteria" of the Wagnerian heroes—and calling his predecessor "a beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn"—Debussy, singlehanded, set about creating a new anti-Wagnerian style. The result was the only opera he ever finished, Pelléas et Mélisande. Based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, it had a shadowy, once-upon-a-time plot that actually bore a genteel resemblance to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.
Here is a scene from Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande, with Natalie Dessay, soprano as Melisande. (And, oh, I know we have some Natalie Dessay fans here!)
My favorite quote about Debussy concerns this opera. When German composer Richard Strauss saw Pelleas et Melisande performed, he said (and I'm quoting from memory): I have just listened to three hours of music! And I heard no music! And I'm a composer!" Probably the most endearing part of it is that last part, his reminding us of his status as Richard Strauss, as if it's all the amazing because of that! Honestly, I don't know if he was ripping Debussy or if he was just commenting on his own shock. Perhaps both?
But there's some sense to his statement. Debussy's music is nebulous. At times it is hard to grasp hold of. You can feel the music, you can visualize it, but you can't get a firm grasp on it, that certain sense of where it starts, ends, and where it's going. And that is clearly by design. Although we may lump Debussy with Ravel as Impressionists, Ravel's music, so similar in other ways, is more tangible. Debussy's nebulosity is his voice.
Our two appetizers, Reverie and Arabesque, at the top, were actually quite easy to grasp compared to some of his other music. Debussy uses modes and alternate scales often to make more vague where the music starts and ends. Even in Reverie, it is difficult at first to tell what key it is in. if you play around with it on a guitar, as I just now did, the first bar sounds like maybe it's going to be in G minor, but you're not sure... and then it goes in the next bar to a soft landing in an F major chord (at 0:26). It's not so complicated that you can't follow it, at least not this piece, and by the second time you listen to it, you probably know the landscape well enough to grasp it. But as is typical of him and his music, he deliberately obscures the beginning. It is Debussy's style that once you are frustrated by his atmospherics that a clear, tangible melody finally does arise out of the mist. It makes you want to go back and listen to it again to see just when and where it started, because it sneaked up on you.
And so I think I understand what Strauss was saying, although I hope he wasn't deriding Debussy. He felt the way I did when first exposed to Debussy, loving the sound, but not feeling like he hears the song. It wasn't what he, great Wagnerian composer that he may have been, understood as music. This is the brilliance of Debussy.
About La Mer, by Debussy
La Mer, (meaning, The Ocean, for those of you who are French-challenged), is one of Debussy's more ambitious orchestral works. Reverie and Arabesque are lovely, but they are not Debussy's red meat. I almost went today with Jeux (Games), an even more challenging work, but it was too complicated for me, so we'll go half way with the final movement of La Mer, one of the most strikingly visual examples of program music ever made.
As we remember from last year, the Romantics of the nineteenth century loved program music, music that told a story. Romeo and Juliet, for instance, showed us the love, the hot hook-up, the family feud, sword fighting, death, hearts-beating their last, priests chastising them. It was a real story where stuff happens. Program music after the Romantics, though, became more static, musical representations of visual scenes.
Take this as an example of everything I've said about Debussy so far, The Snowflakes are Dancing. Where is the melody. Where did it come from? Where does it begin and end? Does it matter? What do you see? And if you want to get technical, what is the dominant key?
So let's begin with the final movement of La Mer and I'll try to break it down a little bit.
La Mer, by Claude Debussy, third and final movement, "The Dialogue of the Wind and Waves." Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
(0:00 to 1:27)
The movement begins with turbulent rumbling in the lower strings. The first minute and a half describes something deep, powerful, primal, perhaps a nascent storm.
Musically, I want you to pay attention to one thing in particular at (0:21). The woodwinds play a motif with two falling notes. That motif is the key to the construction of the movement. At (0:51), a trumpet plays a longer motif made from the shorter two note motif. That will later become our main melody.
(1:22 to 3:26) The music reaches a brief climax, settles back a little, and a new mood emerges, and in fact, a new melody, one of Debussy's characteristic neither major-nor-minor melodies, played by the woodwinds, based on the trumpet motif from 0:51. A strong rhythmic figure accompanies this section, descriptive of storm at sea, before reaching a new, more violent climax, at 3:01.
(3:26 to 6:15) The music settles down again from this climax, and another mood emerges, a sweeter, calmer one. At (4:15), we hear a new statement of the main melody, based on our motif, played by flute and oboe. And, oh, how much sweeter it is now. The violent rhythmic figure of the last section is gone, replaced by a serene high held note in the violins. (Perhaps difficult to hear on this Youtube clip). And at 5:45, we begin a build-up to another climax with full orchestra and lush harmonies, a restatement of the main theme, this one filled with ecstasy.
(6:15 to 8:04) We begin the final stretch to the ending and the final ultimate climax. A hushed galloping rhythm accompanies variants of the motif and main theme. At (7:16), another restatement of the main theme, but this time with shrill whistling (the wind!) sounds buried in the woodwinds and drums beating violently. The horns enter now (7:37) as a majestic chorus atop all of this and in a different rhythm, stating a theme from the first movement (which we didn't hear today, but go hear it as soon as we're done here, to grasp the full effect!)
(8:04 to 8:37) The coda, full orchestra.
Ah, this is fun!
Next week: Samer will write next week's diary. I'm not sure what it will be about, but I understand it will have to do with famous examples of pedal point bass lines in music. I'll be there in the comments. The following two weeks, I will be back to do diaries on Bartok and Schoenberg. If anybody wants to volunteer to do a diary on any other twentieth century composers, SPEAK UP NOW in comments or hold your peace, because after Schoenberg, I'm going to circle back to the eighteenth century. I'm looking forward to, in coming months, covering the Beethoven symphonies in detail.
And as homework, for those who are that obsessive, compare these two piano pieces, one by Debussy, one by Bartok
And I'll speak in comments today about my ongoing battle with DK4.