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Claude Debussy

89K views 486 replies 117 participants last post by  Richannes Wrahms 
#1 ·
When I was a teenager I first discovered Debussy and opened my ears to a whole new way of listening to music... I'm not even sure what prompted me to purchase some bargain cassette of Debussy's Nocturnes (side 2 had Ravel's Bolero which was another lovely surprise to my budding ears).

Whether its orchestral music, music for piano or chamber music, what is always so striking to me about Debussy is that it is such colourful music, which of course is also in part to his unusual harmonic language-- where chords sometimes cease to be "functional" but are there strictly for the sound-- there is something very sensual and even erotic I find in Debussy's music.

Back in the summer of 2006, I went on a big Debussy spending spree (I do these obsessive things from time to time LOL) and bought up at least one good recording of each of his major compositions, as well as a few not-so-well known ones. But it took me till then to listen to his one opera, Pelleas et Melisande, which totally blew me away! I am not a big opera listener, but this was an emotionally overwhelming experience for me (I went on for a couple weeks listening only to Pelleas).

If you intend on seriously getting into Debussy, the following are ESSENTIAL compositions:

Orchestral:
The Afternoon of the Faun (this piece never ceases to amaze me)
Nocturnes
La Mer
Images
Jeux
Symphonic Sketches from The Martyrdom of St. Sebastien
Danse sacree et profane for harp and strings
And Claudio Abbado has done a concert suite from Pelleas et Melisande which is good as well

Piano:
The Preludes (one of the greatest works of the 20th century for piano)
Suite Bergamasque (especially for the lovely Clair de lune)
Estampes
Children's Corner

Reverie
Deux Arabasques


Chamber music:
String Quartet
Syrinx (a short piece for solo flute)
Sonata for cello and piano
Sonata for flute, viola and harp
Sonata for violin and piano


Choral/vocal:
La Damoiselle elue (for soprano, chorus & orchestra)
The Martyrdom of St. Sebastien (a dramatic work for soloists, chorus & orchestra)

Opera:
Pelleas et Melisande


And I'd recommend watching DG's DVD of the opera as well, with Boulez conducting.
 
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#2 ·
Debussy is one of my favourite composers. The colours he achieves in both his orchestral works and pieces for solo piano are just remarkable.
I was turned onto classical music by a friend of mine who works as a professor. His favourite composer was Debussy, and he showed me La Mer. From there I was hooked.
On your recommendation i purchased the Zimerman recording of Debussy's Preludes. It is one of my most enjoyable recordings now, and actually may have just got me through this last week of exams.
 
#4 ·
The minute amount of compositions I have heard by him have been boring. :)

I learned the first section of Goliwogg's Cakewalk in the Children's Corner. It was nice. I liked the bass rhythm.
 
#5 ·
The minute amount of compositions I have heard by him have been boring. :)

I learned the first section of Goliwogg's Cakewalk in the Children's Corner. It was nice. I liked the bass rhythm.
A couple of points here:

1) Debussy's music developed in subtle ways across his unfortunately short career. The Wagnerian influences evident in La Damoiselle gave way to what one might term "original" Debussy in L'Apres-midi d'un Faun. But his denial of traditional forms in favour of his own led to a situation where every work (or set of works, eg the Preludes Book 1) had (essentially) a different form. So you possibly do yourself an injustice pronouncing on just a "minute amount".

2) While Debussy is easily approachable these days, his work may not appeal to listeners tied to traditional classical forms. He had no time for such forms nor the harmonies, the progressions etc, that accompanied them. It's easier for a classical musician tied to regular pulses and cadential phrases to appreciate popular music that essentially follows the same "form" (many pop songs can be fitted to the "rondo" form) than Debussy with his irregular phrases; his way of forming melodies from motives and the way they evolved into a form often peculiar to a particular work.

So he may not appeal to you at all!
 
#6 ·
The Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faun is amazing! I absolutely love the "Sirens" movement of the Nocturnes (though I've not really listened to the others); I never thought that a whole TEN MINUTES had gone by until I'd looked at the timer on my MP3 player. I'm convinced that Debussy did that on purpose. :)

La Mer is the pinnacle of orchestral music in my mind. I've not heard Pelleas et Melisande, but I will try to get the DVD with Boulez conducting.
 
#8 ·
I can't get enough of Debussy's piano works. His free flowing and unpredictable structures are in complete contrast to the rigid, uniform style of say...Mozart. I listen to piano works by Mozart, Chopin and Debussy a lot and when I spontaniously create something of my own that combines their styles exhileration is an understatement.

His works exudes a laid-back almost accepting emotion the French are renowned for. I can't think of any other composer who has produced music so influenced by their national identity than Debussy.

In a smiliar vein to the film The Mask where a blind girl visualises colours by holding objects of different textures I think you could make someone who has never visited France 'feel' like they have just by listening to Debussy.

"C'est la vie"

:)
 
#9 ·
I'm studying French in school... and Debussy just fits into it seamlessly. The flowing, sensual nature of all of his music is just like the language itself, and the lack of "traditional" climax (of course, an overload of the senses is not generally "traditional" to me) is perfection in itself. Everything is loose, uncontrolled (rather; control is not needed), melodies flowing into and out of each other as effortlessly as water: the music is water. All these things about Smetana's Moldau being the best representation of a flowing river... Debussy shames him easily!
 
#12 ·
I really love Debussy's work. He's the only non-baroque composer I like!
His beauty lies on the unique harmony, the pentatonic-like tune and the calming atmosphere of his song such as the sunken cathedral.

My first encounter with Debussy was his vocal work, Fetes Gallantes no. 2, En Soundie - Clair de Lune - Fantoche
It's amazing how he turned the dissonance into harmony!
 
#13 · (Edited)
I highly admire this composer like maybe the most innovative, original and unprecedentable (I am not sure if this word exists in English :) ) composer in the history of music. He changed course of everything he touched - piano, chamber and also orchestral music. His work is qualitative equal. I don't know any bad piece composed by him.

I like his extremely reachful harmonic language. His works are exceptionaly well balanced, proportional, with high level of aesthetics and fancy.

My favourite works:

Piano
Arabesques
Petite Suite
Suite bergamesque
L'Isle Joyeuse
Preludes

Chamber
String quartet
Cello Sonata
Beau Soir

Orchestral
Fantasy for piano and orchestra
Rhapsody for clarinet and orchestra
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Nocturnes
La Mer
Jeux

and of course Pelleas et Melisande...the most beautiful opera ever

but the most beloved for me is Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
 
#14 ·
I love Debussy too. I even orchestrated the whole of the first book of Preludes for string orchestra! I am hoping that the London Chamber Orchestra will include them in one of their 'South Bank' series of concerts next year!

I find his method of composing for orchestra very interesting. It seems like he wakes up in the morning and asks himself what 'color' will I write today and then painstakingly composes 4 or 8 bars in that color and then stops. This goes on for a few weeks ant then the piece is finished.

I'm not sure how much he even cares about melodic content when writing like this, just color (or at least color first then everything else like harmony melody dynamic change etc.) His works become very 'terraced' but they somehow have a cohesion despite this constant changing.

For example (more for the musically literate now and I'm sorry for making the distinction but I will get technical here) in Gigues (first part of Images) it would seem logical to me that he wrote up to the double bar line after figure 1 in one sitting, or at least in one conscious chunk, and then the 'Un peu plus allant' in another single sitting. From figure 3 onwards, where the orchestration gets thicker and more complicated the 'bars-per-day' fall to about 4 or 8. Certainly every four bars from 3 changes color and if I am to judge by my own rate of work (I am a professional orchestrator and composer), the amount of detail and the fact that he was writing in pen, I would guess that these 4bar chunks represent a days (or a mornings or afternoons) work. It is easy to imagine Claude D. getting up and debating over his croissant and coffee which orchestral color he would write that day, rather than whistling the (sorry Claude) quite banal 'Schottiche' melody (in the section from figure 3 right up to just after fig. 12.) to his wife over the breakfast table!

Does any one have any opinions about this or even know if this is the case or not. I'd love to know if my theory was true.
Fergus
 
#15 ·
Warning! I think your idea is quite romantic. About 1909 Debussy detected first symtomps of cancer...next season of life was very difficult to him. He partially lost enthusiasm for composing, that's why he entrusted André Caplet with orchestration (or finnishing of orchestration) of Gigues (originally composed by Debussy for two pianos). Up to this day isn´t definite, what from orchestration of Images is work of Debussy and what is work of Caplet.
 
#16 ·
Thanks for that information. Perhaps then, Caplet worked in the manner I suggested. But looking at 'La Mer' which is all Debussy's work, there is still the same structural trait. A 'blocking off' into chunks of orchestral tone color. Again those chunks seem to be about a days work for a professional composer, so maybe there is still something here. Take for example the 6/8 section which begins at bar 31; firstly four bars, then six bars with a strange French Horn melody, then 2 bars of ww and tremolando violins swell. This takes us to figure 4 in the score where more color change takes place in 4 bar chunks. It goes on and on. Do you know any thing about how he wrote? I know that Brahms wrote orchestral scores a bar or so at a time in full orchestration, so could the Debussy chunking effect which I describe be a result of this?
 
#17 ·
Being fairly acquainted with Debussy's scores (in particular La Mer, Ibéria, Les Nocturnes and Jeux) and also being a composer highly attuned to Debussy, I'd say that he worked in no consistent way. My belief is that he dreamed up most of his music before ever committing it to paper, would often work in 4-stave short score (although he was composing orchestrally, so to speak) - plenty of evidence for that. But little can be found among his letters and comments about his modus operandi, so we'll never know exactly how he worked. We know he was threatened over deadlines; would neglect compositions to finish later and so on. But he seems averse to talking about his own musical methods

His lifestyle impinged on his composing: He liked women, socialising, the Paris cafes, he smoked a little opium had no time for the musical orthodoxy. About the only time he "obeyed the academic rules" was to get to Rome because he knew he had to. As for his evolution of form, unique to him of course, and as far as I can see, unique to each composition (major compositions, at least), that seems to evolve from his use of "Melody" in individual works. I use the word melody with great caution because, apart from a few Franckian melodies that appear in various pieces, La Mer, notably, his thematic material is derived from motifs that develop into new motifs, etc. Hence he rarely repeats anything, never does without some change creeping into the harmony or instrumentation. Jeux best illustrates this but it's visible in La Mer, in fact most of his work.

So if I had to conclude at all, I'd hypothesise a general approach: he composed in his mind, carrying things as far forward as he wanted to, then wrote things down mostly as a matter of clerical procedure when he had time, perhaps at a keyboard; and which might have been completed in logical chunks, maybe not. I dare say, like all composers, he experimented at the piano to try things out, to discover etc. and perhaps when he got to the writing down stage. Maybe he did compose a few things that way.

Incidentally, I've never approved of anyone orchestrating his piano music - his preludes specially - simply because 1) if he wanted them orchestral, he'd have written them orchestrally; 2 - more important - many of the preludes depend on the timbre and colour of the piano alone for their effect. It's impossible to imagine "Brouillards" from Book 2 to ever be for anything than piano. Same with Des Pas sur la Neige - or for that matter, La Fille. Sure, people can orchestrate these things but in doing so, they turn them into different works.
 
#18 ·
Thank you for that insight, Frasier. I know how hard it was to not destroy the Preludes while orchestrating them. I went to great lengths to 'translate' pianistic effects into string effects and maintaining the overall atmosphere of each piece (in case you're in any doubt about my string writing I direct you to my recent CD with the London Chamber Orchestra, Music For Strings - http://www.myspace.com/fergcurrie ).
Five of the Debussy set have been played play professional orchestras - Danseuses, Des Pas, La Fille, La Cathedrale and Minstrels with fine results. Of course they are 'different' from the originals but then apparently there is ahistory of Debussy orchestrating his own piano music (see mention of 'Iberia' earlier in this thread) so I don't feel too guilty! If you like I can send you a pdf of some of the score to examine. I did toy with the idea of doing the second book but as you say, in Bk.2 some things get too pianistic to be transported. And since I am an all or nothing kind of guy I decided to leave them alone. I am however looking at the Brahms Op. 118 piano pieces which I might do for wind ensemble (if I can get a commission!).
 
#19 ·
I really love Debussy. I think that his music is very transparent and has a lot of colors that constantly change. I often think of reflections in water, waves, little rainbow in the air, and tropical fish swimming very quickly. Many of his pieces are very playful and full of joy.

I have also always felt that his music has some Japanese taste, especially in his small piano pieces. Then I recently learned that he was influenced by Japonism. He was fascinated by Japanese prints. But I still cannot get why his music has a touch of Japanese music when perhaps it would have been very difficult for people in Western countries to have access to any Japanese music at that time.
 
#20 ·
Debussy is just perfect! Everyone till now has said how colourful his music is, and it's fascinating that so large a number of people can actually feel it. So all those pentatonics, modes and whole-tone scales are not just fancy spices. They do make his music his.

Elgar mentioned the Cello Sonata. So short and yet so unforgettable. I could listen to it five times in a row without getting bored!

Jeux - his bluest piece
Prélude a l'apres-midi d'un faune - his greenest
Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra - this one's burgundy, black, teal and dark gold
 
#21 ·
As for orchestrating the Préludes, I always thought La cathédrale engloutie would work brilliantly in an arrangement for organ and orchestra - perhaps just strings, double woodwind, timpani and celesta. In any case, the sound of the main theme on the organ is incredible. Especially if you add a low pedal C under the melody.
 
#27 ·
People have hinted at it, but no one has mentioned how his music sounds more 'objective' and less emotional than that of the high Romantics. It's more concerned with the images & colours of nature, for example, than conveying an inner struggle. It's more about the 'here & now' of the 'real' world than the composer's psychological world. I think that this is important, as the movement we call Impressionism was a reaction against the sturm und drang of late Romanticism.

Having said that, I'm not devaluing his music, just making a point. I also enjoy his music & agree with what everyone has said. Perhaps he made more psychological insights, and painted less pictures, in his only opera Pelleas et Melisande? I remember hearing it on the radio a long time ago, but I can't remember what it was like...
 
#28 ·
Debussy's music wasn't Romantic. It was a counter reaction to that movement. He was truly about doing something radically different with music, and, needless to say, I believe he succeeded everybody's wildest expectations. :D
 
#29 ·
I find it interesing how Debussy was indeed radical, and yet his music was treated with much less hostility than Stravinsky or Schoenberg.

Debussy's music is the musical equivalent of Monet and Stravinsky's music is the musical equivalent of Picasso. Both of these painters are equally appreciated as artists so why is this not the case with the composers? I suppose the eyes are the ears of our time. What we hear is relatively obsolete.

I find the idea of Debussy and Ravel at the premier of The Rite of Spring jumping up and down screaming "GENIUS" hilarious!
 
#80 · (Edited)
I find the idea of Debussy and Ravel at the premier of The Rite of Spring jumping up and down screaming "GENIUS" hilarious!
Bumping an old thread here....

Sorry to burst what may be a bubble, but it was Debussy who played (sight-read, actually!) the second part of Stravinsky's four hand piano reduction of Le Sacre with Stravinsky, Stravinsky wanting to show the work to Debussy.

Ergo, Debussy was first-hand familiar with the score, and if he was hollering "Genius" at the premiere, it was as a player-participant in that very Parisian tradition of "let's riot over an artistic work," and not out of stunned first-exposure surprise.
 
#30 ·
If there was one thing I would criticize Debussy for it would be his lack of orchestration. My problem with this is he didn't really mind who orchestrated his pieces. For a composer as great as Debussy, I can't imagine him being so careless about the orchestration of his compositions.

Ravel once said he would loved to have re-orchestrated "La Mer."
 
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#36 ·
If any of you have ever studied any of Debussys scores, youll agree with me. At first glance they really do not make sense at all, its as if he just lumps the notes it - but the sound produced is quite magical.

Thats impressionism for you I guess.
 
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#37 ·
Debussy composed music that dealt with colors and textures more than anything else. His ignited the senses and invoked mental imagery. "Impressionism" during the time of Debussy and Ravel was an insult (and still is to some degree because the term doesn't mean anything really), especially to Debussy who felt that he was trying to do something different with music, which needless to say, he seceded.

I remember reading on a thread here somewhere when somebody said they don't understand Debussy and just hated "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune," then after they slammed this very beautiful composition they asked "Are there any other pieces you could recommend by Debussy?" I think I replied with something like "If don't like Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, then you won't like anything else Debussy composed." I still feel this way. That very composition has everything that's great about him wrapped up inside of it.

There's no mistaking a Debussy score. Those woodwind parts, the way the strings kind of swell and fade, the swirling harp's arpeggios, etc. these are all elements of his music that made him the iconoclast he's regarded as today.
 
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