Page 232 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

230 IMPRESSIONISM

Debussy follows a fairly traditional one or two common pitches or by
tonal structure that stops the piece subtle semitonal shifts. Debussy
from sounding incoherent. manipulates his audience’s
Nine bars after the arrival of the listening experience by subverting
tonic key, Debussy even quotes their expectations of what will
Wagner’s “desire” motif in the come next; unusual harmonies
clarinet, getting as far as the catch our attention, and we listen
third note, which he distinctively closely to their “color” and effect,
accompanies with Wagner’s own hence, the reason why this sort of
dominant-seventh harmony so it is harmony is often called “coloristic.”
unmistakable. Debussy strips the The pulse of the Prélude is slow
chord of Wagner’s context, making beneath the surface filigree. While
it sound not tersely dissonant but mostly in triple meter, some of the
lushly exotic. Turning the unfinished passages are in duple time, which
motif back and forth in descending contain bars of two or four beats;
and ascending chromatic scales, likewise the subdivision of the
Debussy makes Wagner’s profound beats varies between compound
utterance into his own plaything. time (each beat of the pulse
The Afternoon of a Faun was subdivided into three) and simple
adapted into a ballet by Vaslav Nijinsky Technical experiments (divided into two). Triple and duple
in his first choreography for the Ballets The Prélude is notable for its use rhythms sometimes coexist; in the
Russes. It premiered at the Théâtre du of “Debussian” added-note chords. middle section, the accompaniment
Châtelet in Paris, in May 1912.
While dominant sevenths, ninths, plays triplet cross-rhythms against
11ths, or 13ths are easy to find in the duple melody, moving attention
(above which an oboe plays the four the works of Wagner and Liszt, away from any regularity of pulse
chromatically rising notes of the Debussy strips them of any toward the music’s rich textural
“desire” motif). Debussy’s chord, expectation that, for example, fabric. While impressionist music is
however—shimmering amidst a a dominant chord must always
harp glissando—dissolves into resolve to its tonic. Rather
a seemingly unrelated dominant than working toward resolution, Sasha Waltz & Guests, a German
dance troupe, reinterprets L’Après-midi
seventh, colored by the horns Debussy progresses chromatically d’un faune as a brightly colored and
with a major ninth and sharpened in unexpected directions: often, provocative beach scene at Sadler’s
11th. Unlike Wagner, Debussy’s chords are joined to each other by Wells Theatre, London, in 2015.
work contains little tension—
each chord is to be appreciated
for the sensuality of its sound.
The similarities to Wagner’s
work make Debussy’s subversions
all the more obvious. Like Wagner,
Debussy also states his opening
melody twice more—each time
over increasingly lush harmony.
This establishes E major as the
tonic (“home”) key of the piece, but
the ambiguity of the chords used
up to this point—which do not
point clearly to a single key—
means that the arrival at E major
goes all but unnoticed in the
moment. Despite this seeming
ambiguity, under the surface,

US_228-231_Debussy.indd 230 26/03/18 1:01 PM