The grammar of impressionism

[Tarantella]

I certainly respect your arguments, and thanks for the opportunity to engage with them!! Logical and well-reasoned. My pleasure.

I'm not a 'mate', I'm a 'shiela' in Aussie parlance - and a retired one.

There's always beer? Can I recommend some fabulous Austrian cheeses (I'm living in Vienna) to go with some fine Australian wine instead? (My son is a winemaker!)

[marquis66]

Originally Posted by Tarantella

I certainly respect your arguments, and thanks for the opportunity to engage with them!! Logical and well-reasoned. My pleasure.

And same here! Nothing to be feared by good discussion

Originally Posted by Tarantella

I'm not a 'mate', I'm a 'shiela' in Aussie parlance - and a retired one.

DOH! Sorry about that.

Originally Posted by Tarantella

There's always beer? Can I recommend some fabulous Austrian cheeses (I'm living in Vienna) to go with some fine Australian wine instead? (My son is a winemaker!)

I am a low brass player and a composer, wine is so very high brow! But as with Debussy, to each their own.

[Tarantella]

Nothing "low" about playing a musical instrument - God knows I've tried with the piano. I got to the start of 8th grade, saw those Beethoven sonatas, looked at my own lame technique and headed for the hills...!! (You know, they say there's 'gold in them thar hills..."!!)

[marquis66]

Haha, not a class statement - I am a euphonium player. Still trying to figure out why my son started on clarinet, but that is a topic for another thread.

Speaking of which, I need to get pressing my tuxedo, I have a stage call in a couple of hours...

[Neumerologist]

Hi Marquis,

Glad I struck a chord! Will try to respond to all your posts ... you raise some great points. In short, I don't want to try to "label" debussy, labels aren't my thing, I was trying to provide practical insight into how to pursue approaching the style of the impressionists.

Originally Posted by marquis66

You had me up until you said that Debussy is rooted in tonality. Symmetry... sure, but tonality? On the whole no, if we are talking about, to coin the phrase from another thread, "common practice tonality". Maybe "tonality influenced"? But the key about understanding Debussy is that he was a NOTED anti-romantic. He was rebelling against everything, musically, that was going on, easily making him the first "20th C. Composer" (even though he misses the cut off by about 15 years).

For me at least, whether Debussy felt that he was rebelling against romanticism or using it as something to merely rub up against or depart from, he was quite rooted in it. The sheer fact of how pervasive the motive is in his music could argue this alone, however hopefully what follows will illustrate that he is definitely thinking of tonal centers on some level. I actually agree with what your saying that he was rebelling against romanticism, HE WAS! I actually remember a piano piece of Debussy's where he does the thumb on the nose to Wagner, starting with a Wagnerian chord progression, might've been the Tristan chord, and then he starts tweaking it with other impressionistic devices. It's hilarious, gotta find out what piece it was.

All that being said, Debussy at one point was very dedicated to understanding romantic music and definitely put in his stripes learning to interpret it on the piano at least, who knows if he ever wrote in the style, he was said to have been able to play back every measure of Tristan und Isolde from memory. Now in my own experiences, when you can do something like play a large work from memory, when you compose music, the things that you can do from rote are going to come out in some capacity because it becomes a part of you. It may come out in a different way but it will influence the ideas that you come up with.

One example of romanticism and blatant tonal devices creeping in to Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun are the long arching melodic ideas at the "Meme mouv et tres soutenu" starting in the middle of the piece all the way through to rehearsal 8 where he ends with imitative counterpoint very reminiscent of romantic composers. Look at how the triplet motives are passed around and he actually uses the melodic material from the beginning of the section as a counterline in the viola in the last three measures and the triplet counterlines are also motives he uses earlier in the piece. Beautiful stuff!!!!

Debussy obviously uses parallels all over the place, however it's still very rooted in tonality, he's just pushing the limits of thinking in tonal centers. He's not just jumping anywhere either, he's being free but still being a composer and choosing places for a certain effect. And when you look at his music a lot, you realize he only goes certain places, and also realize he's still pretty rooted in key centers and bass notes. One way to think of it is, he's taking romanticism and stretching it, compacting it, focusing on minute portions of it. He'll take one chord and create static diatonic movement around it, then go to a knew chord and hover around that one for awhile. The two chords he's using might be distantly related, but the movement around them is tonal. Why it may not appear as tonal might be because he's using a lot of mode mixture and tonal devices rather than block chords. The tonal centers in Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun are actually quite simple, if you want me to elaborate I can. Why it might not appear so simple at first glance is that he's a genius! He is a clever composer. He often modulates through changing modality using modal devices while in the key centers (similar to Baroque devices) venturing mainly to mediant and parallel related key centers.

The best way to look at something like Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun is that it's "snippets" or "vignettes" of tonal centers that are often very distantly related, but related nonetheless (mediant, parallel minor, parallel Major). I'd say I'm making this up, but I've spent A LOT of time looking at Debussy's music.

Originally Posted by marquis66

Could there be any further contrast than Mahler's Second Symphony, and Debussy's First Book of Preludes, which are contemporary works?

Not sure comparing an orchestral symphony to a book of piano preludes will provide a lot of insight. Not sure I can comment on this more than saying I'm not big on categories ... For me, Mahler comes from a very unique background as does Debussy. They both internalized romantic music on a very deep level and it came out different. They are both influenced by romanticism greatly ...

One of innumerable examples of the differences in their surroundings that influenced their music:
1. Debussy probably wasn't exposed to German street songs, folk songs, military bands as a child. Maybe French, but certainly not the same ones Mahler was.
2. Mahler didn't go to the world's fair and listen to gamelan music and start using pentatonic scales because of it.

That's my 2 cents ... hope it at least adds some insight, will try to respond to your other posts.

[Neumerologist]

Originally Posted by marquis66

Still not buying what you are selling, my friend.

Debussy's music isn't in the tonal sound world, although it is tangential to it. It hints at tonality, without coming right out and saying it, but it is the explicit statement of tonality that makes it what it is. Tonal is a fairly narrowly defined term. If Prelude is tonal, than what key is it in? E Major? C# Minor? What about the <<Animant>>, is that... D Dorian? Then D-flat, to E-flat, to D-flat Mixolydian with a sharp-five? What is the hierarchy of pitches that gives it its structure?

I LOVE the way you said he's tangential tonality that's a perfect way of saying it. You're probably gonna flip, but at least with Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, I'd say it meanders all over the place but is based around E Major. You have to get inside the piece to see this though. The ending chord kind of gives it away, I don't think he would have ended the piece like that without some overarching purpose. From all of my time studying I've definitely come to feel that the key signatures in his music actually can be indicative of the tonal center below I'll hopefully demonstrate that to you.

Originally Posted by marquis66

First book of Preludes? Not a one that comes anywhere near that close.

Such beautiful pieces. Definitely not tonal like mozart, however, I'd still say there are tonal foundations there, but it's geniusly disguised. Have you studied jazz harmony? That can help immensely to understand how Debussy actually is rooted in tonality as is Ravel. The proof is in that a lot of jazz musicians actually quote Debussy and Ravel chord progressions in jazz tunes. But, for a quick example, hopefully you've got the preludes...take Danseuses de Delphes. You can do it with the whole piece, but for an example, take the first 5 bars. Don't play the inner voices, just play the upper most melodic voice (melody) and the lower most bass voice (bassline) and play them without the sostenuto pedal. Ironically, this little phrase actually modulates to the key of the V (F Major from Bb), he just blurs it all with the inner voices...hope this makes sense. It sounds VERY romantic with just soprano and bass lines, however sounds VERY impressionistic when you add the inner voices and the sostenuto pedal. Hopefully we agree that this is tonal, it's just really disguised.

Also, the piece begins and ends with a Bb chord ... another unmistakable indication that he's at least conscious of Bb major (the key signature of the piece). To further demonstrate here is a short harmonic analysis -- m. 1 is 3 chords diatonic to Bb major embellished with non-chord tones - it's not "functional" however it's surely diatonic in modern terms (jazz musicians would say this is diatonic), which, at least to me is "tonal" and in the key of Bb.
Harmonies in m.1 - Bb to Ahalf-dim (9-b3) to F+ (I to VII to V) -- could go through this whole piece like this. He's using heavy mode mixture with chromatic and modally related non-chord tones, this is the type of stuff jazz musicians can do in their sleep improvising over diatonic chord changes.

Hope this makes sense.

Honestly, it seems like this has turned into a Debussy is tonal or non-tonal discussion. How about we say Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun is a precursor to Pantonality and that Debussy is an early "Pantonalist"? All this back and forth should give invitapriore an insight into impressionism and into the fact that you gotta do what works for you, because everybody's got an opinion and can bring up a valid point. The preludes are textbook impressionism and they are beautiful...eat it up invitapriore!

Originally Posted by marquis66

Schoenberg to Debussy is also a very difficult connection to make. What Schoenberg was doing - early and later - was exactly what Debussy was rebelling against. Schoenberg was taking to absurdity, and ultimately trying to destroy, what Debussy was merely ignoring entirely. I certainly don't follow you that Debussy was influenced in any way by Schoenberg, the chronology just doesn't line up. Liszt is a little bit easier to grasp compositionally, especially his later music, but stylistically they could not have been more opposite. Liszt was the embodiment of the Romantic era, and Debussy was a clear break from that entire aesthetic.

For the record, Schoenberg was nearly 10 years younger than Debussy. When I used the term Romanticism I was implying Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Wagner, etc. But I do hear quite a bit of textural pianistic similarities in Debussy's etudes and Liszt's piano music as well as a strong romantic influence for melodic/bass relationships similar to the Danseuses de Delphes example. Schoenberg, at least for me, doesn't seem like solely a romantic composer ... unless Pierrot Lunaire is channeling Liszt in some strange way that I haven't been able to uncover yet : )

[Neumerologist]

The piece of Debussy poking fun at Wagner is the sixth movement from Children's Corner "Golliwogg's Cakewalk"


http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...15550305124489
-- the poke is at about 1:25 (you can hear the tristan und isolde prelude get interrupted by tone clusters); this video is classic, you get a "wipe the forehead" before the performance and everything.

[Tarantella]

I don't understand how Debussy is "poking fun" at Wagner in this piece. I thought Debussy wrote it as a 'tilt of the hat' (thanks Stephen Colbert) to the jazz age and the emergence of that type of music.

[Neumerologist]

Originally Posted by Tarantella

I don't understand how Debussy is "poking fun" at Wagner in this piece.

Oops...put the wrong time for the video, listen starting at 1:25 -- Debussy quotes the opening of Tristan und Isolde then interrupts the gesture with clusters.

Originally Posted by Tarantella

I thought Debussy wrote it as a 'tilt of the hat' (thanks Stephen Colbert) to the jazz age and the emergence of that type of music.

As a piece overall, it may be, I'm actually not familiar with this piece's subtext besides the Wagner thing ...

[Despina41]

Originally Posted by Neumerologist

Oops...put the wrong time for the video, listen starting at 1:25 -- Debussy quotes the opening of Tristan und Isolde then interrupts the gesture with clusters.

As a piece overall, it may be, I'm actually not familiar with this piece's subtext besides the Wagner thing ...

Well, remember that the golliwog was some racist parody of an African servant.

So he's dancing the cakewalk, which itself had origins as a parody dance black slaves would do to imitate their masters in the States (don't ask me how this got to Europe, but the cakewalk grew into its own dance genre where it had lost more or less of its facetious intent). So here is a golliwog dancing perhaps something "suited" for him--- but then this Tristan quote comes in-- how do we interpret that? is it a joke because it's the golliwog and how could he possibly understand Wagner? is it a joke because its implying he could possibly have romantic interactions with anyone? is it a joke like Satie where Debussy is demystifying Wagner by putting it with a cakewalk??

I don't know, but it's a joke for sure