Debussy: Plelude a lapres midi dun faune

When was it written?

1894

Describe Debussy's life

-Grew up in Paris
-Born in 1862 to ordinary non musician parents
-At 10 years old he entered the Paris conservatoire studying piano and composition
-At the time he was their youngest student and he remained there for 11 years
-His time there wasn't always a happy one as he was impatient and temperamental
-He often confessed to being bored in his composition lessons and he rebelled against the rules of both the college and of harmony and counterpoint
-By 1885 he decided to go his own way and his music began to grow more dissonant and extreme as he struggled to find a new sound
-In 1889 he visited the Paris exhibition and it was there that he found the inspiration and the unique sound that changed his music forever

What is the Programme of prelude a lapres midi dune faune?

-1894 Debussy was out of education and trying to make a living as a composer so he regularly attended a meeting of intellectuals called the Tuesday club and made friends with a poet called Stephane Mallarme
-Mallarme released a poem called Lapres midi dun faune in 1876 which describes the lazy, dreem like visions of a faun who has just woken up and is watching a group of nymphs from afar
-When Mallarme first heard Debussy's plans to set the poem to music he was unimpressed as he felt that the whole point of poetry was to create music with words
-After the first performance Mallarme was completely won over and declared the work a marvel

How does the realisation of Prelude a lapres midi dun faune differ from the realisation of Symphonie fantastique?

-Symphony fantastique was inspired by events and feelings of Berlioz's own life whereas Prelude is an evocation of the feelings of the poem as a whole
-Symphony fantastique is chronological in the order whereas Prelude is less based around a chronological story and instead creates an impression of the general mood

What key is it in?

E major

How does the piece start?

-Melody in the flutes
-Doux el expressif meaning sweet expressive
-Played piano

What is bars 1-54

A

What is bars 55-78

B

What is bars 79-95

A

What is bars 94-110

Coda

Describe the orchestra of the piece

-The orchestra Debussy employs consists of a full complement of strings allied to ten woodwind (not least the solo flute representing the Faun's pipe), four horns and two harps
-Unsual addition of cymbals and they appear near the end of the Prelude playing the interval of a perfect 5th

List some examples of orchestration in the piece

-Strings use mutes for extended piees
-Tremolo used in strings
-Sur la touche (bowing over the fingerboeard) is specified to create a gentler string timbre
-Pizzicato and arco used sometimes in rapid succession
-Harp glissando creates shimmering effects
-Horns are also muted (sourdines) in some passages

Describe the texture of the piece

-Most of the piece consists of various types of melody- dominated homophony
-Opening flute solo is monophonic
-Doubling of instruments is common
-Pedals occur
-Bar 107 homorhythm is employed in horn and violin 1 parts

Describe the tonality

-Tonality is a hazy concept
-Moments of tonal clarity when they occur are important to the clarity
-Perfect cadence in bar 105-106 at the end of piece in E major
-Bar 55 there is a V-I bass outline and so the key that is reached is D flat major
-Opening of the piece with a chromatic melody outlining the interval of a tritone provides no sense of key
-Persistent C sharps in the melody give the notes a sense of importance, but clarity only emerges at bar 21 when the melodic C sharps sit comfortably above an E major chord

Describe the harmony of the piece

-Debussy uses chords in a non functional way
-Harmonies exist to create musical colour which was an original concept at the time
-One example of the colouristic, non-functional harmonic language Debussy uses is the unusual shift in Bars 19-21 from a C#7 chord to an E6 chord. The piece abounds with similar examples
-Much use of 7th chords
-Use of chord extensions such as 9th/11th/13th notes
-Non resolving dominant 7th chords such as bar 5
-Pedals bar 94-99
-Chromatic harmony
-Half diminished chords such as bar 4

Describe the metre of the piece

-Opening metre is compound triple
-Frequent changes of metre are present
-The B section has a more stable metrical framework and remains in simple time throughout

Describe the rhythm of the piece

-Use of triplets
-Quintuplets in harp bar 21
-Duplets in bar 105 and bar 106 quadruplets
-Cross rhythms eg bar 67
-Syncopation such as bar 55 in accompanying strings

Describe the use of melody

-Opening two bars are a chromatic combination of tones and semitones
-Bar 3 the melody expands to cover the range of an octave and could be viewed as either diatonic or as a minor pentatonic on C sharp