# Debussy and Impressionism



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I used to think that this connection was somewhat of a fantasy, or an imprecise analogy, until I started realizing that, yes, *Debussy* was somewhat of an "impressionist," a throwback to "program music," no different than the "storm" scene in *Beethoven's 6th.
*
I thought Debussy was more modern than that. But in listening to the Preludes, we run across pieces which seem to be "nature poems," which evoke natural scenes. *Book I, No. 7, Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (What the West Wind saw)* is definitely trying to evoke "wind" in the listener's mind. Of course, I can't prove this, but from the title, it seems obvious.

Other evocations include references to an English literary characters _(Puck in Book I and S. Pickwick, Esq., P.P.M.P.C. in Book II)_. This second one opens with the British national anthem. You can't get much more musically literal than that.

These observations lead me to reluctantly conclude that Debussy was much more of a traditionalist in his music than I thought, even though the harmonic sophistication of the music itself would lead one to conclude that he was a much more forward-thinking modernist, or more abstract.

The exception in the Preludes might be *Book II, No. 11: Les tierces alternees (Alternating thirds)*, a toccata-like piece which foreshadows the later Etudes; you have to supply your own impressions here.

*Debussy* is definitely a mixed-bag of both modernism and older, more traditional notions of music used to evoke imagery, sort of like a "poetry of the piano," no doubt influenced by the example of *Chopin*.

What are your "impressions?"


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It's always seemed pretty obvious that Debussy was an "impressionist" composer. There's a reason everybody calls him that. Yes, he objected to the label, but -- hey -- c'mon Claude, fess up.

Speaking of descriptive music, here's Erik Satie on 'From Dawn to Noon on the Sea' in La Mer: "I liked the bit about quarter to eleven."


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

A literary inspiration seems to be underlying the mentioned prelude - an *Andersen* fairy tale:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ce_qu'a_vu_le_vent_d'ouest

which would suggest a more symbolic dimension to the piece, beyond just a literal description of the wind. Also, the wind seems to be "sensing" or "talking" and it is thus somewhat "spirited".

*EDIT*: There are also two possible other literary models for the piece - the Breton poet *Grandmougin* talks about the West Wind calling out "the searing cry of souls in anguish", and *Shelley*´s "Ode to the West Wind", admired by the composer in translation, sings of the power that reduces arrogant Man to nothing (cf. liner notes to Fu Tsong´s recording, released on a Diem CD 1998, DIM 6107-2).

Bretagne and Breton myths and folklore were subjects that fascinated composers and painters contemporary to Debussy, including the symbolist Gauguin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Grandmougin
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Grandmougin


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> I used to think that this connection was somewhat of a fantasy, or an imprecise analogy, until I started realizing that, yes, *Debussy* was somewhat of an "impressionist," a throwback to "program music," no different than the "storm" scene in *Beethoven's 6th.
> *
> I thought Debussy was more modern than that. But in listening to the Preludes, we run across pieces which seem to be "nature poems," which evoke natural scenes. *Book I, No. 7, Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (What the West Wind saw)* is definitely trying to evoke "wind" in the listener's mind. Of course, I can't prove this, but from the title, it seems obvious.
> 
> ...


He hated the term "impressionist" but he definitely tried to evoke images with his music. One of my favorite examples is Reflects dans l'eau, the clearly suggests the idea of the movement of the water fragmentating the melody in the second part of the piece. Anyway I don't see this necessarily as something old: after all, non descriptive music is older than program music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Drawing inspiration from literary, pictorial, or other extra-musical sources and engaging in tone-painting or mood-painting was one of the major interests of Romantic composers, prefigured by Beethoven's "Pastoral" symphony and already full-blown in Berlioz and Weber. I've always thought of Debussy as fundamentally a Romantic composer who discovered some new sounds - parallel chords, whole-tone scale, pedal effects - with which to portray a range of subtle moods and atmospheres.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I used to think that this connection was somewhat of a fantasy, or an imprecise analogy, until I started realizing that, yes, *Debussy* was somewhat of an "impressionist," a throwback to "program music," no different than the "storm" scene in *Beethoven's 6th.
> *
> I thought Debussy was more modern than that. But in listening to the Preludes, we run across pieces which seem to be "nature poems," which evoke natural scenes. *Book I, No. 7, Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (What the West Wind saw)* is definitely trying to evoke "wind" in the listener's mind. Of course, I can't prove this, but from the title, it seems obvious.
> 
> ...


Some random thoughts about this.

Well impressionism is "modern" too. I've just been listening to Luc Ferrari's Petite Symhonie Intuitive pour un paysage de printemps. I'd say there's even some impressionism in Ferneyhough's Transit, maybe.

And a lot of the best of Debussy isn't impressionistic. He considered the Etudes to be his most significant contribution to piano and I think he was right. There's also Jeux.

Boulez and Stockhausen liked Jeux so much because of its formal qualities, the way it rejected traditional structures and seemed to them to be constantly creating itself in a new and fresh and sponaneous way. That's what makes Jeux modern. Modernism vs reactionary music has nothing to do with mimesis v abstraction.

Also a lot of reactionary music isn't representational - Shostakovich for example.

I just wonder whether the impressionist side of Debussy was the influence of Ravel. Before he had really created his own voice.

When someone (Schiller?) said that all art aspires to the condition of music, did they mean that all art aims to reject representation?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I've never thought of Impressionism as fundamentally pictorial. From a very early point in his career (before his contact with Ravel's music), his music had the characteristics we think of as impressionist. Note the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, with its hazy tonality and shimmering atmosphere, or even the String Quartet in G minor.

Contrary to Woodduck, I've always thought of Debussy as fundamentally modernist. My own first encounter with his orchestral music (Images for orchestra) gave me something of a shock at the dissonance and radicalism of the music(to the degree that I remember thinking _"this is why I hate modern music,"_ even), and in terms of expression it tends towards the objective rather than the subjective of romanticism. In other words, the feelings, emotions, and images expressed in this music are primarily external ones, however idiosyncratic and individual their presentation may be.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

As an aside, as far as I know, Debussy didn't particularly like impressionist painting.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> *Debussy* was somewhat of an "impressionist," a throwback to "program music,"


These are two different things.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

How much should we separate Debussy from the lineage of music? I've always considered him an impressionist... with heavily modern inclinations. Debussy and Ravel were the first composers whom I'd set my ears on, and from the start they were impressing colors, images, environments... it was more about the inner reactions to those objects, but it was so obvious that I would've thought you were joking to tell me differently. 

Again, how do you argue a subjective experience? I didn't have the chance to sit down with Debussy and have a chat.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

In response to the OP: Sure, the "music image" aspect of his music can be seen as a throwback to Romanticism, but that aspect is not necessarily inherent to the music and one can choose to ignore it. In fact, in my own listening to Debussy or whomever I consider the musical picture aspect entirely secondary or even tertiary to the actual music because I am not a very "image" oriented person when it comes to any kind of music. 

In terms of the actual music, the notes, the chords, the scales, the forms, Debussy is anything but a throwback to the Romantic Era.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Off the top of my head I cannot think of any music that isn't in some way a throwback to music that came before it - composers learn from the musical culture into which they are born. This doesn't make them somehow tainted. Quite the contrary: how much music is known by composers who grew up in a musical vacuum and never learned anything from anyone else?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> I've never thought of Impressionism as fundamentally pictorial. From a very early point in his career (before his contact with Ravel's music), his music had the characteristics we think of as impressionist. Note the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, with its hazy tonality and shimmering atmosphere, or even the String Quartet in G minor.
> 
> Contrary to Woodduck, I've always thought of Debussy as fundamentally modernist. My own first encounter with his orchestral music (Images for orchestra) gave me something of a shock at the dissonance and radicalism of the music(to the degree that I remember thinking _"this is why I hate modern music,"_ even), and *in terms of expression it tends towards the objective rather than the subjective of romanticism. In other words, the feelings, emotions, and images expressed in this music are primarily external ones, however idiosyncratic and individual their presentation may be.*


I agree with this observation, but hear more than a little of this "objective" feeling in some composers we consider late Romantic. Some of Liszt's piano music feels distinctly "impressionistic"; Faure can have a quality of refined detachment and emotional obliqueness and elusiveness; Rimsky-Korsakov can be purely atmospheric with nothing "personal" about the quality of expression. I don't like to characterize things too rigidly, but surely _L'Apres midi_ arises out of this refined aspect of late Romanticism even while introducing a quality we call, in retrospect, "Impressionist." Debussy's late work moves quite a bit beyond this, and I wouldn't call it Romantic, but I don't think I'd want to call it impressionistic either. Given that the term "Impressionism" was invented to describe paintings by a group of artists who didn't care for the word, I'm very sympathetic to Debussy's objection to having an already questionable term applied to his, or any other, music.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> My own first encounter with his orchestral music (Images for orchestra) gave me something of a shock at the dissonance and radicalism of the music(to the degree that I remember thinking _"this is why I hate modern music,"_ even)


Really? I was sort of 'prepared' for that one, having listened to great stuff like this:






;

I don't really care about lables. My favourite Debussy is the Debussy of the _Trois Nocturnes_, which were supposedly inspired by a series of impressionist paintings. Of Jeux I like the sense of development, I'm very interested in that aspect of music, but its 'playful' aesthetic is not really my thing. I like ear-born freedom in modern composition, and in that Debussy was the master. As a wagnerian I think Debussy was the only one of his admirers to truly understand, musically, where the game was going to. In another perspective, if Wagner told us about the twilight of the gods, Debussy tells us about...


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I've never had too much of a problem with the impressionist label, his music does evoke that description at times to me, and his style was very fresh and distinct from the styles that preceded it so it needed some other name or classification. Some people feel his music is closer to symbolism, but I'm not so sure - there really isn't an exact correlation with any painting or literary style, but impressionism I think is fairly close to the mark. 

One thing is for certain Debussy's music was brilliant and groundbreaking and often seems to please listeners that are more conservative as well as listeners who are more progressive. Because it has this wide appeal it is not surprising that those who prefer romanticism tend to like to call him more of a romantic and those who prefer modernism tend to see him as more of a modernist.


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> *Debussy* is definitely a mixed-bag of both modernism and older, more traditional notions of music used to evoke imagery


How many composers were 'a mixed-bag'? Surely few of note composed only in a single style, without any evolution?

Of course, no label is 'necessary', and there can be no criticism of Debussy himself that the _range _of his music cannot be readily characterised by 'impressionism' or 'romanticism'.

As for being 'influenced' by Ravel, this too is not as clear cut as some seem to think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ravel#Ravel_and_Debussy


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I used to think that this connection was somewhat of a fantasy, or an imprecise analogy, until I started realizing that, yes, *Debussy* was somewhat of an "impressionist," a throwback to "program music," no different than the "storm" scene in *Beethoven's 6th.
> *
> I thought Debussy was more modern than that. But in listening to the Preludes, we run across pieces which seem to be "nature poems," which evoke natural scenes. *Book I, No. 7, Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (What the West Wind saw)* is definitely trying to evoke "wind" in the listener's mind. Of course, I can't prove this, but from the title, it seems obvious.
> 
> ...


Re. the Preludes, Debussy put the "title" at the end of each piece, not at the beginning. He deliberately didn't want to give the player (nowadays the listener mostly) a clue related to "nature poems" or anything else. 
His perspective is uspide down if compared to those writing program music. A very modern statement at his times.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I used to think that this connection was somewhat of a fantasy, or an imprecise analogy, until I started realizing that, yes, *Debussy* was somewhat of an "impressionist," a throwback to "program music," no different than the "storm" scene in *Beethoven's 6th.
> *
> I thought Debussy was more modern than that. But in listening to the Preludes, we run across pieces which seem to be "nature poems," which evoke natural scenes. *Book I, No. 7, Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (What the West Wind saw)* is definitely trying to evoke "wind" in the listener's mind. Of course, I can't prove this, but from the title, it seems obvious.
> 
> ...


The one box set of instrumental music I ever bought was of Debussy and Ravel piano music. I was getting along pretty well with it as background music until the godawful National Anthem jumped out at me- I had assumed that with French music I would be safe from British jingoism, although God Save the King/Queen might not be so offensive to the French as it is to British republicans. (Was it perhaps composed during the reign of Edward VII, who was famously Francophile?) Perhaps too 'musically literal' for me in this case, although usually it's the abstract nature of music without words that I struggle with.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Debussy was forward-thinking and innovative in many ways, but in other ways, he had some aesthetic ideas that to me, anyway, now seem old-fashioned; especially the idea of music being descriptive, describing wind, water, fog, and the like. That's kind of a "literary" idea of music, which fits right in to the nineteenth century.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Some of Liszt's piano music feels distinctly "impressionistic"


Liszt and Debussy met several times and Liszt himself actually played one of his most "impressionistic" pieces, "Au Bord D'une Source", for Debussy when they met in Rome.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Debussy was forward-thinking and innovative in many ways, but in other ways, he had some aesthetic ideas that to me, anyway, now seem old-fashioned; especially the idea of music being descriptive, describing wind, water, fog, and the like. That's kind of a "literary" idea of music, which fits right in to the nineteenth century.


To be honest I'm generally not crazy about those kinds of titles for pieces either, however composers continued to do that after Debussy (Takemitsu) and continue to do it to this day, so I don't think it is particularly old fashioned. Had he simply titled his pieces "preludes" that would be in fact even more old fashioned technically. The titles just don't effect the notes on the page, so as far as an "aesthetic" choice it is pretty non-consequential to me.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Debussy was forward-thinking and innovative in many ways, but in other ways, he had some aesthetic ideas that to me, anyway, now seem old-fashioned; especially the idea of music being descriptive, describing wind, water, fog, and the like. That's kind of a "literary" idea of music, which fits right in to the nineteenth century.


Tristan und Isolde, Pierrot Lunaire, Le sacre du printemps, Le marteau sans maître...

My question is: How many non-literary really innovative works there are?


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

What's in a name? I'm not usually interested in these completely extramusical approaches, but it would be a little interesting to map this to the Second Viennese School in that their interest in Romantic and Classical techniques and forms made them romantics (I'd say yes - much more so than Debussy).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

tdc said:


> To be honest I'm generally not crazy about those kinds of titles for pieces either, however composers continued to do that after Debussy (Takemitsu) and continue to do it to this day, so I don't think it is particularly old fashioned. Had he simply titled his pieces "preludes" that would be in fact even more old fashioned technically. The titles just don't effect the notes on the page, so as far as an "aesthetic" choice it is pretty non-consequential to me.


I see "old-fashioned" as being 'literary' descriptions of nature or narratives; I see "preludes" as being more objective and modern, since it avoids this. No title at all is even better.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> I see "old-fashioned" as being 'literary' descriptions of nature or narratives; I see "preludes" as being more objective and modern, since it avoids this. No title at all is even better.


I do see where you are coming from, as I said I generally prefer the pieces without specific descriptive titles too, but I'm not sure that I see that being the current trend in modern or contemporary music. Do you not agree that today we have more composers than ever naming pieces with such descriptive titles?

I also think there are certain cases where a well chosen title really works for a piece or a collection of works such as with Bartok's _Mikrokosmos_ or Debussy's _La Cathédrale Engloutie_.

Sometimes I like the title. I don't think there seems to be any wide consensus among contemporary composers on this issue. It seems to be more of a personal preference thing.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I suspect giving names to works is partly because calling it something like "Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67" would seem more than a little snooty and offputting to most people these. More than a century ago, Sir George Grove called this sort of thing a "repulsive nomenclature."


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Debussy's Passepied sounds to me like something Bach would have written if he was
born in the 19th Century. There is a wonderful rhythm and mathematical precision in
quickly changing and developing harmony. And, it's completely innovative.


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## Guest (Nov 18, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I see "old-fashioned" as being 'literary' descriptions of nature or narratives; I see "preludes" as being more objective and modern, since it avoids this. No title at all is even better.


I think 'preludes' have been around for some time...



> Johann Sebastian Bach's (1685-1750) "prelude and fugue" pieces are much more numerous and well-known today


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_(music)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> I've never thought of Impressionism as fundamentally pictorial. From a very early point in his career (before his contact with Ravel's music), his music had the characteristics we think of as impressionist. Note the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, with its hazy tonality and shimmering atmosphere, or even the String Quartet in G minor.
> 
> Contrary to Woodduck, I've always thought of Debussy as fundamentally modernist. My own first encounter with his orchestral music (Images for orchestra) gave me something of a shock at the dissonance and radicalism of the music(to the degree that I remember thinking _"this is why I hate modern music,"_ even), and in terms of expression it tends towards the objective rather than the subjective of romanticism. In other words, the feelings, emotions, and images expressed in this music are primarily external ones, however idiosyncratic and individual their presentation may be.


Could not agree more. Unless there is hard documentation, there are more indicators that Debussy titled his pieces at some point after they were conceived and he had commenced writing. Certainly, some were triggered by image, narrative poem or abstract literal idea, some more 'literal' (where there are direct quotes in Debussy, you're almost always hearing / looking at something pointedly satiric, vs. some high philosophical implication.)

The _fact_ that both manuscript and 'official' editions of the Preludes present them as "No. __" and _place the title after the ending double bar_ points towards a strong subtext of "If the performer cannot essay these abstract pieces and their structures on that same abstract plane, and without the aid of an image or story, then here is _one suggestion._"


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> I think 'preludes' have been around for some time...


Yeah, we got that, MacLeod.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Unless there is hard documentation, there are more indicators that Debussy titled his pieces at some point after they were conceived and he had commenced writing. Certainly, some were triggered by image, narrative poem or abstract literal idea, some more 'literal' (where there are direct quotes in Debussy, you're almost always hearing / looking at something pointedly satiric, vs. some high philosophical implication.)
> 
> The _fact_ that both manuscript and 'official' editions of the Preludes present them as "No. __" and _place the title after the ending double bar_ points towards a strong subtext of "If the performer cannot essay these abstract pieces and their structures on that same abstract plane, and without the aid of an image or story, then here is _one suggestion._"


The piece I mentioned; *Book I, No. 7, Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (What the West Wind saw)*, sounds to me as if the pianist/composer was trying to imitate the effect of wind, in its very conception; and knowing the title, it ruins it for me even more. I think this one was definitely composed with the "wind" in mind, and is imitative.

Here's the video:


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## Guest (Nov 19, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Yeah, we got that, MacLeod.


Yeah, then why do you say you see it as 'modern'?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> The _fact_ that both manuscript and 'official' editions of the Preludes present them as "No. __" and _place the title after the ending double bar_ points towards a strong subtext of "If the performer cannot essay these abstract pieces and their structures on that same abstract plane, and without the aid of an image or story, then here is _one suggestion._"


Or just as likely, "I call this one..." I'd guess that Debussy was smart enough to realize that anybody with sufficient interest to play these would see the titles he gave them sooner rather than later, whether they were placed at the beginning or the end.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Yeah, then why do you say you see it as 'modern'?


Well, for my taste, it's more modern to say "Prelude No. 24" than it is to say "Golliwog's Cakewalk."


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## Guest (Nov 19, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Well, for my taste, it's more modern to say "Prelude No. 24" than it is to say "Golliwog's Cakewalk."


So, not 'we' at all then, just 'you'. That's fine, though I can't see it myself.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I don't think the highest purpose of music is to evoke imagery, make literary associations, or to represent anything other than the sound that it is. That's all too literal. And if it has a title which aids in this literal association, I think that's an old-fashioned idea. And if the music itself sets out to imitate the wind, etc, that's even worse.

On the other hand, titles which have the names of musical forms do not bother me at all, since they do not "evoke" anything. "Sonata No. 5", "Symphony No. 7", "String Quartet No. 3," are all fine.

I do, on the other hand, think it's OK for music to evoke emotions, or to evoke more complex "states of being."

There are exceptions, however: Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" has always been a very effective title, and provides an association with a historical event which is a statement in itself.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Fine, except if it's a choral work like Britten's War Requiem. The ugliness of war is evoked in music successfully, thanks to the accompanied verses of Wilfred Owen's devastating pacifistic words. 

For purely instrumental music, agreed! It doesn't work.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Then again, maybe I'm wrong. If a Japanese composer tried to evoke the wind, I'd probably tolerate it. Maybe it's that precious nineteenth-century French aesthetic that I'm repelled by.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Then again, maybe I'm wrong. If a Japanese composer tried to evoke the wind, I'd probably tolerate it. Maybe it's that precious nineteenth-century French aesthetic that I'm repelled by.


I wonder what that aesthetic difference is. I have a vague idea of what you're pointing to, but I can't put my finger on it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Vesuvius said:


> I wonder what that aesthetic difference is. I have a vague idea of what you're pointing to, but I can't put my finger on it.


Maybe there's a certain artistic pretentiousness in the nineteenth-century French aesthetic, or among the French in general, who think that everything they do is the best.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Maybe there's a certain artistic pretentiousness in the nineteenth-century French aesthetic, or among the French in general, who think that everything they do is the best.


It could also be the strong cultural view of the Japanese that space is a positive void, rather just a vacant nothing to shove something in. The French can come off a bit more sultry.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Maybe there's a certain artistic pretentiousness in the nineteenth-century French aesthetic, or among the French in general, who think that everything they do is the best.


Perhaps, but then I've never really been much into the 19th century French aesthetic. But if we are talking about early 20th century French aesthetic, that stuff is pretty hard to beat.

You don't think the Germans, Austrians or Italians have ever had such pretensions?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Then again, maybe I'm wrong. If a Japanese composer tried to evoke the wind, I'd probably tolerate it. Maybe it's that precious nineteenth-century French aesthetic that I'm repelled by.


Busted! In fact I remember you defending Takemitsu's descriptive titles in another thread, referencing the Tao Te Ching.

*edit* - I think we may have another classic case of MR just making up an opinion on music in this thread for the sake of discussion.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Maybe there's a certain artistic pretentiousness in the nineteenth-century French aesthetic, or among the French in general, who think that everything they do is the best.


That's the kind of hasty generalization I expect from the man of the streets. Please don't let it invade this space.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Maybe there's a certain artistic pretentiousness in the nineteenth-century French aesthetic, or among the French in general, who think that everything they do is the best.


Maybe it's all that flute and harp stuff. More artificial olfactants than a strawberry milkshake from McDonalds. A bit more deodorant, of a manly scent, would be preferable.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Maybe it's all that flute and harp stuff. More artificial olfactants than a strawberry milkshake from McDonalds. A bit more deodorant, of a manly scent, would be preferable.


Well these things are largely subjective, but I'd take Debussy's music over the "manly" music of Beethoven any day of the week and twice on Sundays.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Beethoven's music isn't manly and Debussy's isn't unmanly. There.


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## Guest (Nov 21, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> I've never thought of Impressionism as fundamentally pictorial.


I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you referring to the idea of music that is somehow expected to be almost literally 'painting a picture'?


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Maybe there's a certain artistic pretentiousness in the nineteenth-century French aesthetic, or among the French in general, *who think that everything they do is the best*.


Says the American:lol:


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Piwikiwi said:


> Says the American:lol:


'Murica! The best country on God's green earth!

Commence flag waving.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

violadude said:


> 'Murica! The best country on God's green earth!
> 
> Commence flag waving.


We Dutch people created our country with our own bare hands, we didn't need no fancy gods


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

But your gettin all flooded cus the climax change ur smth like tha....


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

tdc said:


> Busted! In fact I remember you defending Takemitsu's descriptive titles in another thread, referencing the Tao Te Ching.
> 
> *edit* - I think we may have another classic case of MR just making up an opinion on music in this thread for the sake of discussion.


*Hey! You're criticizing my posting style!*

And since Takemitsu is Japanese, I can tolerate his "A Flock Descending into the Pentagonal Garden" without it sounding pretentious, since I like Japanese culture more than French. And that doesn't contradict what I said:* If a Japanese composer tried to evoke the wind, I'd probably tolerate it.* You need to read my posts more carefully.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> That's the kind of hasty generalization I expect from the man of the streets. Please don't let it invade this space.


How insulting and condescending! Don't bring your belligerence to me!


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> How insulting and condescending! Don't bring your belligerence to me!


Maybe you should refrain from generalizing statements about the French to avoid such insults.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> That's the kind of hasty generalization I expect from the man of the streets. Please don't let it invade this space.


Okay, I will, if you'll get rid of that Wagner picture.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Piwikiwi said:


> Maybe you should refrain from generalizing statements about the French to avoid such insults.


I heard that the French don't like Americans, so we're even.

_And are you criticizing my posting style?_


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Maybe it's all that flute and harp stuff. More artificial olfactants than a strawberry milkshake from McDonalds. A bit more deodorant, of a manly scent, would be preferable.


In the seventh grade, I wanted to play flute, but they told me it was a "girl's instrument." So they bought me an electric guitar instead. That's where my "street sensibility" began. Yeah, me & Frank Zappa. As he said in his song Down in France, "The girls are all salty, and the boys are all sweet..."


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you referring to the idea of music that is somehow expected to be almost literally 'painting a picture'?


Yes. "Tone painting" of the kind found in Strauss where there is a one-to-one correspondence drawn between external image and musical sound. Debussy's style is very different from that, and seems more like there is something of an association between the object and the music, and this can be created in either direction, without having the object dominate the music.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> I heard that the French don't like Americans, so we're even.
> 
> _And are you criticizing my posting style?_


Yay more generalisations!


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Piwikiwi said:


> Yay more generalisations!


We still are barbarians. One insults the French, another claims pride of his Dutchland, I alluded to the presumption that all Japanese adore space, and America is still the blind kid with the biggest stick.


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## Guest (Nov 21, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes. "Tone painting" of the kind found in Strauss where there is a one-to-one correspondence drawn between external image and musical sound. Debussy's style is very different from that, and seems more like there is something of an association between the object and the music, and this can be created in either direction, without having the object dominate the music.


I see. I agree. Whilst some Debussy might _suggest_, for example, movement, it is not a simple attempt at representation. It might also aim to evoke emotion or atmosphere, but this is even less direct and liable to fail given the variable context in which the listener listens.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> I see. I agree. Whilst some Debussy might _suggest_, for example, movement, it is not a simple attempt at representation. It might also aim to evoke emotion or atmosphere, but this is even less direct and liable to fail given the variable context in which the listener listens.


I don't see much difference. If he didn't want the association, he shouldn't have titled it.

How is R. Strauss' Alpine Symphony any more or less literal than Debussy's nature poems and imitations of the wind?


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I don't see much difference. If he didn't want the association, he shouldn't have titled it.
> 
> How is R. Strauss' Alpine Symphony any more or less literal than Debussy's nature poems and imitations of the wind?


You ought to have addressed your question to Mahlerian. I'm less familiar with the Alpine Symphony - I've heard it precisely once! I was just assuming the accuracy of his example, along with the difference he identified, which is the difference between 'impression' (a suggestion of something) and 'representation' (a direct correspondence).

If _'La Mer'_ is one of Debussy's most programmatic works, it fails, at least with me, since although I certainly picture a whole scene involving the sea, I can't actually distinguish the waves and the wind without having someone point it out to me. As for the idea that the horns represent the rising sun, again, I can only hear it once I've been told (by Stephen Johnson in a BBC programme).

[For those who can access the BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00jh28m ]

One interesting observation is about the use of fifths, giving an oriental flavour to the piece. Is it just that he liked the sound and wanted to use it to suggest something mystical, or did he want us to literally picture an oriental sea?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> One interesting observation is about the use of fifths, giving an oriental flavour to the piece. Is it just that he liked the sound and wanted to use it to suggest something mystical, or did he want us to literally picture an oriental sea?


Parallel fifths are a pretty consistent feature of Debussy's style, but there is a link to the East as well: the first edition of the score had this famous woodcut on it.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I think both Ravel and Debussy started to make a heavy use of quartal-quintal harmony and pentatonic scales because of their fascination with Eastern music and cultures.

At the beginning of the XXth century, with the new possibilities of traveling and also archeology, new aesthetic movements emerged, like 'exotism' or 'orientalism', which, as they name suggest, are based on a fascination with exotic and far away cultures (both in space and time). Often, there's an explicit desire of emulation of some aspects of these cultures and the incorporation of them into the western style. One of the most prominent aesthetic movements to incorporate this in a serious way was Art Deco. Ravel loved Art Deco. His house is fully decorated in an Art deco style.

I don't think the incorporation of these aspects has to do with some romantic ideal. I think it's more related to what naturally occurs when two cultures find each other, there's a natural flow between them. And, at the beginning, that flow obviously will include explicit emulation. And it never stops; sixty years later, you have ultra modernist composers like Boulez being directly influenced by Eastern music and its conception of sound in pieces like Le marteau sans maître or Rituel, not to mention the explicit use of exotic percussion instruments playing in a similar style. Ligeti, another ultra modernist, does the same with African music (in the third movement of his Piano Concerto, there are African sounding instruments like the bongos playing African polyrhythms)

With Debussy and Ravel, we have these things at the beginning: Estampes: I-Pagodes (as wikipedia says, and it's also obvious from the piece: "Pagodes evokes images of East Asia. It makes extensive use of pentatonic scales and mimics Chinese and Japanese traditional melodies while also incorporating hints of Javanese Gamelan percussion"); Ma Mere l'Oye: III-Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes.

But later, after these influences have been incorporated, they are used in much more abstract ways. For example, there's a lot of pentatonic scales in Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin, but the context is neoclassical, and certainly it doesn't seem to have anything to do with Eastern music, nor it sounds like it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Escape from the West! This was truly the dawning of a radical new conception of music.

I think the European interest in the East was also manifest in Beethoven particularly the Ninth, with its "we are all one" entreaty. The Masons, in whom Beethoven was also interested, had some ideas of a religious nature which alluded to a universalism.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The pentatonic scale is interesting, in that when you begin "stacking fifths" as Pythagoras did on his way to "the twelve," the first five notes you yield are C-G-D-A-E, which, when rearranged are the pentatonic scale C-D-E-G-A. So, the pentatonic can be viewed as the first "primal" scale, since almost all folk musics have it. It is also the "leftovers" of a diatonic scale, or its complement. The C major scale (all white notes) leaves the five black keys, which make up a pentatonic scale.


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## Guest (Nov 24, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Parallel fifths are a pretty consistent feature of Debussy's style, but there is a link to the East as well: the first edition of the score had this famous woodcut on it.


So, he was a literalist then?


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