Sorry for the late post - better late than never, I suppose. While I won't be in class tomorrow due to not feeling well, I thought I would post some of the discussion notes on Debussy for everyone to ponder over.
Key Points from Debussy Readings
- Strong desire to shift away from Austro-German influence and to make French music stand out
- Debussy was prominent French composer at the time
- interest for Russian music (colorful sounds and textures) arose from working for patron of Tchaikovsky
- considered a tonal "modifier" because he showed interest in Eastern musical influences
- Javanese gamelan
- pentatonic scale
- evocations of Spain, such as La soirée dans Grenade (The Evening in Granada) in 1903
- also used other nontraditional scales (whole-tone and octatonic) and church modes (i.e. Lydian)
- these types of scales were of basis of the "letting go of glue" - or tendency tones - as discussed in class; they contain less half steps that really serve as the foundations for the major and minor modes.
- was dubbed "Impressionist"
- didn't like this term
- term is somewhat synonymous with art style at the time; uses of tone colors and harmonies that often times lack resolution; music evokes particular feelings or ideas.
- Samson puts it best by saying Debussy's "reinterpretation of tonality" is best displayed by his "harmonic fingerprint"
- "planing" or harmonic parallelism
- contrasting harmonic ideas such as the ones in Voiles (whole-tone + pentatonic + whole-tone) in 1909
- didn't "entirely eschew" from established tonal ideas, but did approach late 19th-early 20th century musical establishment in unique ways to create his own sound.
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