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Claude Debussy after his CentenaryfootnoteRef:1], authors Francois Lesure and Denis Stevens review the legacy of Debussy's work and his life at the one hundred years anniversary of his birth. The authors are particularly concerned with exploring misconceptions, contradictions and areas requiring further study that have arisen as a result of the recent scholarship on the French composer. [1: Lesure, Francois and Stevens, Denis. Claude Debussy after his Centenary. The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 3 (July 1963), pp. 277-288. ]
Among the issues addressed, the writers compare the findings of scholars Marcel Dietschy and Edward Lockspeiser, who study Debussy from different perspectives, the disagreement of the extent and origins of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov on Debussy's Pelleas, the obsession with Poe and composing the Fall of the House Usher and his turbulent but influential relationship with Ravel. Debussy's temperament is explored via excerpts of biting letters he wrote to friends complaining of his peers,...
Finally, the authors survey Debussy's financial difficulties and his mentoring of emerging new talents, notably Portuguese Francisco de Lacerda and French-born Edgard Varese.
Lesure and Stevens objective is to bring into focus some of the issues raised by recent scholarship on Debussy. Further, without attempting to brand any one researchers work as more less effective than other, the authors highlight which areas of Debussy's work and life still require further explanation and/or research[footnoteRef:2]. Through a careful review of many selected works, it is clear that authors succeed in accomplishing this. [2: With the notable exception of Victor I. Serov's Claude Debussy, Musician of France (New York, 1956), which the authors condemn as filled with "distinguished errors" and unsubstantiated gossip disguised as fact.]
The authors are most intrigued about the recent research which reveals Debussy's motivation after Pelleas…
Debussy repeats this flute melody throughout the piece at different paces against a variety of chords. While the overall form of the piece is considered to ABA, it is important to note how one section of the piece blends beautifully with the next. The piece has a continuous flow and it is so subtle that listeners are not tempted at any point to beat time to any rhythms. The typical
Schoenberg developed a kind of experimental method of music composition that was completely relativistic: the free use of 12 tones, in which the relationships are merely one-on-one and not related to a whole (in the traditional sense), mirrored the philosophical modern worldview of the times. This method was meant by Schoenberg to follow in the Germanic tradition of greatness. However, his break from traditional methods of composition (and even
DEBUSSY'S PELLEAS & MELISANDE Music Debussy's Pelleas & Melisande Debussy's Pelleas & Melisande I found this opera to be enjoyable from the vey onset. I knew nothing of the opera and knew just a little of the story/myth from antiquity of Pelleas and Melisande. At the time of my viewing, I did have a solid background with the music of Claude Debussy, but I was excited to engage a work of Debussy's with which
And the goal of Impressionist painting is always just that -- to given an impression, rather than to suggest a coherent, linear picture of experience. Impressionists depicted emotions and subjective concepts, rather than attempted to convey a singular view. There is no 'point' to Monet's paintings of water lilies; there is merely the artist's reflection on color. The story goes nowhere in "Prelude to the afternoon of a faun,"
" This he maintained was the highest honor he could claim. " (Seroff, 1956, 113) Some of the melodies that Claude Achille Debussy created for example the C'est l'Extase' -- based on the ninths and series of common chords has continuous modulations which are embedded with a lot of changing tones and may have been symbolic of a breeze and the sounds of small voices. Like wise the use of rhythmic
It is as if the art was improvised, much like Monet's portrait of flowers gives the impression that the artist simply happened upon a cluster of flowers one day, and was moved to paint by the beauty he saw before him. Of course, it must be argued that neither composition, although they create such an extemporaneous impression, was truly spontaneous. Both works were carefully and consciously planned by the artist