When I was in high school I would always argue with a good friend of mine over Debussy. She was enamored with the way the French “impressionists” of music wrote and idolized composers like Debussy and Ravel. So I decided to listen to him and decide for myself if there was anything worth listening too in his music and immediately balked. After listening to people like Berio, Stravinsky, Crumb, and Schoenberg, Debussy just seemed tame and honestly a bit too pompous. I immediately disliked him and would always tease her for liking his music. It wasn’t until I went to a concert last year that my entire world shifted.
The first “Nocturne”, Nuage, by Debussy is perhaps one of the most atonal of his time. Debussy loved his dissonant chords, he loved to leave the tension in the atmosphere and refused to diminish their beauty by resolving them. This is something I can respect in a composer: the bravery to let the audience sit in discomfort. Perhaps I had been listening to all of the wrong Debussy before this moment, but here I see a brave and innovative composer who is not afraid to explore all that music has to offer. Shifting from octatonic scales to pentatonic scales, he never sits in a key for too long. He allows the rhythms to add even more to the piece, understanding that music is so much more than just the notes. We see this use of rhythm as a huge factor in a piece (especially with shifting the fluidity of a beat) in Stravinsky, and that’s not all we can see of him in Debussy. Stravinsky might as well have written a large “FROM DEBUSSY” in his score for the “Rite of Spring”. You know that creepy little line that happens in part 2 of the Ballet: The Sacrifice, Ritual of the Ancients?
The echo of this line can be heard everywhere in Nuage, and it is just as chillingly beautiful.
Another piece that is perhaps even more exotic in it’s atonality is “Syrinx”. Originally written for a play by Gabriel Mourey, the piece is now a standard in flute repertoire and is not only beautiful to listen too on a level of interpretation and musical skill, it is also interesting to analyze. Chromatic ornamentations take us out of our comfort zone in this piece, making what would otherwise be a flute solo in Db major turn into a wonderfully complex piece.
At first, Debussy represented a composer who found dissonances pretty but never delve too deeply into them to ever be truly interesting. He seemed to be rather “safe” and stuck to what was comfortable, but after delving more into his compositions I have found myself delightfully mistaken. This can just go to show: never write a composer off for a couple of “bad” pieces. Sometimes your first impression is completely correct and the composer just isn’t suited to your taste, but every once in a while you find a composer you dislike who has written a piece you fall in love with. In music, and in most things, keeping an open mind is perhaps one of the most important aspects of exploration.
the music corner 