Claude Debussy
Impressionism
→ Debussy doesn’t consider himself as an impressionist
→ term “impressionism” came from Monet’s Impression Sunrise painting
Aria and Recitative in Wagner’s operas?
→ lines between aria & recitative are more blurred bc the dramas are much more narrative
What is interesting about Debussy’s opera, Pelleas et Melisande?
→ Debussy took the play & did not change the text - only removed very few scenes
→ set his music to the libretto - his music was to support the story
→ basically set his music around the play
→ the play is going on, and the music is there to serve the storyline
Pelleas et Melisande (1902)
→ only opera written by Debussy with the French libretto taken from Maurice Maeterlinck’s play of the same name
→ while other composers were trying to transform the play and libretto to fit the music, Debussy was opposite
→ Debussy’s goal was literary rather than musical
→ lots of tension
→ similar to Tristan - the only way for the lovers to be together is death
→ only opera Debussy wrote
→ lots of similarity to Wagner:
1) light motifs
2) lots of recitative - dialogue carries the music
3) “breaks the rules” → ex. parallel motion
Maeterlinck’s main idea
→ similar to Tristan und Isolda, Maeterlinck wanted to express the irrational fate of the characters towards death
→ the mood that defines the opera is a sense of fatality
Language of the 20th century?
→ dissonance (ie., half-diminished 7th chord
→ reintroduction of parallel motion (planing)
Storyline of the 20th century?
→ yearning - half-diminished chord, eventual resolution
→ constant want to get somewhere, but make it ambiguous so that you can feel the journey
→ because there’s so much ambiguity, the resolutions carry more meaning
1889 Paris Exposition Universelle
→ the world’s fair held in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution
→ Debussy attended the fair and spent many hours in the Javanese section listening to Indonesian gamelan music
→ he would start composing music inspired by this new style
Pentatonic Scale
→ Gamelan music uses the Javanese traditional slendro scale
→ the piano, with its equal-tempered chromatic tuning, cannot possibly reproduce gamelan scales. but the pentatonic scale roughly simulates the five-note slendro
→ leading tones are missing
→ Debussy starts to use lots of pentatonic scale in his music
→ pentatonic scale = most “global” scale
Pagodes (1903)
→ Debussy composed a 3-movement piece Estampes and Pagodes was the first movement
→ there is a combination of both Western and Eastern musical thinking
→ Gamelan music is entirely polyphonic, but Debussy does employ chords
→ some counterpoint & polyphony, mostly homophonic
→ sustained pedal in Debussy’s music
Planing
→ two or more voices moving in parallel motion
→ ex. Prelude for Piano no.10
Whole-tone scale
C D E F# G# A# C
→ no leading tone = no tonal center
→ floaty feeling
→ ex. Prelude for Piano no.3
storyline > ternary form
→ Prelude for Piano no. 8
plagal cadences
Children’s Corner (1908)
→ a piano suite dedicated to Debussy’s daughter, Claude-Emma “Chouchou”
→ he explores music as seen through a child’s imaginative eyes
→ four of the six movements are named after her toys
→ he write' “to my dea little Chouchou, with her father’s tender apologies for what follows”
→ 6 movements:
1) Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum
2) Jimbo’s Lullaby (Chouchou’s toy elephant)
3) Serenade for the Doll (Chouchou’s favorite doll)
4) The Snow is Dancing
5) The Little Shepherd (Chouchou’s toy shepherd boy)
→ Lydian, wholetone, dorian hints
→ eventually establishes A major key
6) Golliwog’s Cakewalk (Chouchou’s popular minstrel doll)
→ example of how Debussy was influenced by western ragtime music
→ Debussy starts w Tristan chord (half-diminished chord), resolves quickly
→ the piece is a commentary on Debussy’s dislike for Wagner (ie. resolves Tristan chord quickly, melodically laughs at Wagner’s yearning theme)
Minstrel Shows
→ shows for caricatures of Blackface, white actors would put on blackface
→ super racist
→ use pentatonic scale
Debussy was inspired by Minstrel music
→ ex. Golliwog’s Cakewalk
Golliwog
→ minstrel doll first introduced as a character in Florence Kate and Bertha Upton’s 1895 book The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls
→ the doll was a favorite children’s toy in many Western European homes
Cakewalk
→ a dance that has roots in African-American slavery
→ they would dance in a line in competition and the winner would be awarded with a cake
→ African=Americans would dance the cakewalk in minstrel shows