One of Debussy’s most celebrated orchestral works, Prélude à “L’apres-midi d’un faune” (Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun”) is based on Mallarmé’s prose poem “L’après-midi d’un faune.” (Mallarmé was reluctant to have anyone else set his poetry to music, but was ultimately impressed with the Prelude when Debussy invited him to the premiere in 1894). In fact, for the Symbolist movement, music represented the ideal medium for expressing realm of the intangible, capable of suggesting multiple possible meanings and psychological states rather than spelling out specific concepts or narratives. Of course, each of the fine arts has a unifying principle specific to that art. His Faun’s character is very complicated and contradictory. Debussy’s adventurous uses of harmony and orchestration would come to impact nearly every distinguished composer of the early and middle twentieth century. Near the middle of the Prelude, Debussy slides the listener into a B section that introduces a lyrical tune in D-flat major, reminiscent of a more traditional French operatic interlude. His focus on the potential of sound itself encouraged further explorations in experimental music by Varèse, Cage, Crumb, Penderecki, and others. You merely have to listen. The whole-tone scale contributes to the hazy, mysterious quality of the piece because it doesn’t belong to any particular key and thus lifts the urgency for the harmony to resolve anywhere. Instead, in Debussy’s music, the listener is invited to enjoy each moment as it comes. Enter Europe at the end of the 19th century. Accessed 27 March 2018. In a conversation from around 1890 with his former teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, Ernest Guiraud, Debussy was said to have remarked “There is no theory. Interspersed between the two images are several contrasting episodes, including a chordal idea in the strings and a unison melody that gradually intensifies. Throughout the piece and especially at the end when the opening flute melody returns again, there are hints of E major being the tonic or home key. Just as music was a source of inspiration for Symbolist poetry, Symbolist poetry was an exxential source of inspiration for Debussy’s music. Like Mallarmé’s poem, Debussy’s Prelude is fluid and mysterious. Similar to Impressionism, Debussy’s works typically suggest a mood or atmosphere, rather than expressing a strong emotion or depicting a narrative or story. Web. Oftentimes one instrument will be associated with a particular motive. Arrangement in Grey: Portrait of the Painter, 1872 by James McNeill Whistler. His Faun’s character is very complicated and contradictory. Symbolists were interested not in representing or describing reality, but in exploring the intangible and inexpressible truths hiding behind external appearances. Debussy’s music, however, breaks away from his traditional training, indulging in sound for sound’s sake and in the simple pursuit of pleasure and beauty. Composed during 1897-99, Debussy borrowed the title not from the music genre of the same name, but of a series of Impressionist paintings by the American artist James McNeill Whistler. The first image of Nuages emerges in the opening theme, a pattern of alternating fifths and thirds. Content: C. Debussy. His music leaves behind classical structures and agendas and moves toward beauty for beauty’s sake. It is probably his best known work. of undulating motion in varying crests and troughs without necessarily Your browser is not using Javascript. Debussy and Symbolist Poetry: Prélude à “L’apres-midi d’un faune” (Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun”). b) nontraditional instruments. The Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun” is considered by many as the beginning of modern music. One experiences a profound sense of dreamlike improvisation and wandering when listening to Debussy’s music. I tried to release a pianist from the necessity to imitate an orchestra, otherwise it would be no more than just a pale shadow of that rich palette of orchestral colors which was so masterfully used by Debussy. Some composers, such as Mahler and Strauss, extended the romantic harmony of Wagner. Debussy’s music often consists of juxtaposed images, which he creates out of motives, harmony, exotic scales, or tone colors. There is a mildness and luxury of midday heat in it, together with the high level of strain, inner conflicts and animal passions that combines with the shrill yearning for the nymph Syrinx, that special person who did not allow him to catch her but turned into a flute in his hands. Debussy and Impressionist Painting: Trois Nocturnes, Claude Monet’s impressionist painting Charing Cross Bridge, 1903. In Nuages, we hear Debussy’s use of “images” come to the fore. chromatic and freely flowing Which best describes the character of the opening theme of Debussy’s Prelude to “The Afternoon of […] Whistler’s painting Nocturne: Blue and Gold—Southampton Water, 1872. Some features will not work correctly. Many Impressionistic techniques can be seen in "Prelude." This work also provided a basis for his later ballet Afternoon of a Faun which was first performed in 1912. And yet the most important thing I would like to draw a performer’s attention to, is neither timbres and orchestral colors, nor its picturesqueness, but to the nuances of the psychological states of that mythological creature whose passions are so amazingly human. Symbolism sprang from literary roots, gaining inspiration from writers including Charles Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe. A term that is often heard in conjunction with Debussy’s name is “Impressionism,” a style of painting centered in Paris that concentrated on depicting the effects of light and color of a scene rather than clear and exact detail. Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. The piece requires a different way of listening – as you follow where the sounds take you, and enter a dream-like state much like the faun himself. Debussy’s Nocturnes for orchestra, a suite of symphonic poems, is an apt example of the influence of Impressionist paintings on Debussy’s work. any real movement underneath. ” Ed., William W. Austin, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1970) 156. The flute solo was played by Georges Barrère.This version is for solo flute with piano accompaniment. The work that ushers Debussy into his second (Impressionistic) period is "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" (1894). While there are still definable keys in Debussy’s music, he moves through them via non-goal oriented processes: one sound world merges and melds into another. fragmentary and well suited to the French language, filled with advanced and colorful orchestration techniques, each explores a different technical problem, on the fluid and asymmetrical organization of. Printed edition is available only in complete volume! The piece begins with the music the faun plays in the poem, a lugubrious melody on the flute that descends a tritone (an interval equivalent of a diminished fifth or augmented fourth) before rising back up. 503-943-5828 | 211 SE Caruthers St. Suite 200, Portland, OR 97214, 211 SE Caruthers St. Suite 200, Portland, OR 97214. rong emotion or depicting a narrative or story. Symbolist poets rejected previous artistic leanings towards naturalism and realism, instead favoring dreams, visions, and the power of the imagination. Superimposed upon this first image is a second idea, a motive in the English horn that rises and descends in a different time meter than the other instruments (4/4 time against 6/4 time). surge Just like Mallarmé’s poem, where the normal meanings of words are clouded which vague metaphors and simultaneous references, Debussy’s Prelude is like an ambiguous dream barely out of reach. They are: “A Brief Guide to the Symbolists.” Poets.org. However, an intentional ambiguity remains through Debussy’s insistent use of the tritone interval, unresolved seventh chords, and obscured boundaries between different tonal areas. This challenge, a paradox of creating new sounds while still respecting the classics, became the defining feature of modernist music at the fin de siècle. preference for muted string sounds and "nonheroic" brass, importance of melody over harmonic progression and rhythm, harmony as a dimension of melody instead of as accompaniment, use of modes and scales such as the whole-tone and pentatonic, mixture of functional and non-functional progressions, overall concern for private communication, ranks as one of the finest operas of the 20th century, voices engage in recitative-like singing style that is conversational The faun plays his pan-pipes, but, upon realizing that his music fails to capture the viscerality of his experience with the nymphs, he abandons his pursuits to a sleep filled with dreams and visions. and 01 Prelude a l'Apres-midi d'un faune** (Entire), Claude Debussy 02 MEASURES 54-55 03 MEASURES 29-30 04 ... 2 Claude Debussy, Prélude to “The Afternoon of a Faun. The piece requires a different way of listening – as you follow where the sounds take you, and enter a dream-like state much like the faun himself. "subjects", Programme illustration by Léon Bakst for Vaslav Nijinsky’s 1912 ballet Afternoon of a Faun, set to Debussy’s music. Debussy found new ideas from a multitude of diverse sound worlds: Russian composers such as Rimsky-Korsakov and Musorgsky, medieval music, and music from Asia, including Chinese melodies Javanese gamelan music. Pleasure is the law.” For Debussy, music was, above all, an art of sound. Debussy likely encountered pentatonic scales during at the Paris Exposition, ancient five-note scales that can be heard in folk traditions from around the world. Burkholder, J. Peter, Grout, Donald Jay, and Palisca, Claude V. Burkholder, J. Peter, and Palisca, Claude V. “Symbolist Movement.” Poetry Foundation. Intern: Winter 2018, © 2020 All Classical Public Media, Inc. In this way, the shape and structure of Debussy’s works are defined more by contrasts of timbre and texture rather than tonal function or other traditional formal devices. Were they but a creation of his own desire? Like Mallarmé’s poem, Debussy’s Prelude is fluid and mysterious. Common for all modernist composers was the act of defying traditional aspects of the language of classical music. Others went on to explore new “post-tonal” ways of organizing pitch, eventually leading to practices such as atonality (music that lacks a key or tonal center) and serialism (music based on formulaic orderings of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale). That is the reason for perhaps a rather arbitrary use of the cases and texture, these are the means that a piano can contrast to the different orchestral timbres. It’s hailed as ground-breaking — some claiming it as a historical turning point for music. An analogy might be drawn from one of Debussy's own musical It is well-known that Debussy created his symphonic prelude L’Apres Midi D’un Faun (The Afternoon of a Faun) under the impression of the eclogue written by Stephane Mallarme. https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-symbolists, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/symbolist-movement. Debussy was also significantly influenced by the writers of the French Symbolist poetry movement. Later, a calmer-sounding section recalls Asian influences, with sustained strings underpinning a pentatonic melody in the flute and harp, possibly in reference to a Japanese flute melody or Javanese gamelan music. Debussy’s Nocturnes is comprised of three movements: Nuages (Clouds), Fêtes (Festivals), and Sirènes (Sirens). Throughout the movement, this image repeats itself, but is slightly shifted each time, with winds replacing the strings, new intervals such as full triads and seventh chords replacing the original thirds and fifths. The interplay between the two “images” and the contrasting episodes in Nuages are set apart by contrasting keys. Debussy broke the rules, and he was very aware of it. Unlike established practices in Western music which create a sense of tension and resolution through goal-oriented motion towards a tonic key, Debussy’s music undermines the need to resolve entirely. For the first movement Nuages (Clouds), Debussy wrote that he sought to capture “the unchanging appearance of the sky with the slow and melancholy progress of the clouds, ending in a gray dissolution gently tinged with white,” and he commented to a friend that he was thinking of the play of clouds over the Seine in Paris.
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