Debussy, Claude (1862-1918)

[Serial_Apologist]

He has modernism in his genes, S_A!

Reminds me of something Stan Tracey said about his son Clark, and how at the age of 17, after having shown little jazz inclination ever, he became his regular drummer: "I'd never realised - there he was, just lurking in my loins"!

[Richard Barrett]

Never took you for a Lysenkoist.

[Richard Barrett]

I've been (forced into) furthering my Debussy investigations in recent weeks and I've been reading Stephen Walsh's newish biography, which is advertised on the basis of being as much about the music as about the person, which I thought would be a nice idea since there are so many pieces I'm not very familiar with, plus it's useful to have such things as explanations of where the titles of the Préludes come from, etc. Well, I can see why SW didn't want to stick to the biographical material because it's mainly a story of more and less successful performances, missed deadlines, projects that took years to never get off the ground, and so on, which I don't really need to read about for obvious reasons apart from getting a feeling of plus ça change. On the other hand I wish his writing on the music could have assumed even a tiniest bit of prior knowledge of basic musical concepts (I mean those things are so easy to look up nowadays, like what a chord in "root position" is), and there's a pervasive undertone of disapproval of non-tonal music in general, which feeds into the author's downplaying of how revolutionary the music is. Obviously I'm not its intended audience... I guess I could recommend it to anyone who feels the need to know how frustrating and precarious life can be for a composer, especially one from a working class, "non-musical" background who finds it difficult to be ingratiating with the right people - these are definitely not things I need to be told about! There must be better books on the music though.

[Pianoman]

You're probably familiar with this from quite a few years ago, but it's still an absorbing read...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Debussy-Wagner-Robin-Holloway/dp/0903873265

[Serial_Apologist]

You're probably familiar with this from quite a few years ago, but it's still an absorbing read...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Debussy-Wag.../dp/0903873265

I would bet it is! - I hadn't come across that book before. From admittedly rather limited acquaintance with Holloway's "fully mature" works I'd hazard a guess that he is or was more of a "Wagnerian", or more specifically a "Straussian" than an advocate for Debussy? The Frenchman would not, I would think, approve. I seem to remember he had some things to say (or write) about differences between his own approach to orchestration and that of Strauss, though I would have to plunder through a few books to locate the source.

[Pianoman]

Actually he makes quite a case for Debussy’s forward-looking qualities, but the main thrust is his contention that Debussy never quite shook off the ‘ghost of old Klingsor’. He backs this up with copious quotes from the music, not just the obvious stuff (particularly Pelleas) but a very interesting comparison of Jeux and Parsifal. I remember a talk linked with the book on Michael Oliver’s much-missed Sunday radio show (which I taped and still have) but Holloway’s monotone nearly sent me to sleep, so the book was far more useful...

[Serial_Apologist]

Actually he makes quite a case for Debussy’s forward-looking qualities, but the main thrust is his contention that Debussy never quite shook off the ‘ghost of old Klingsor’. He backs this up with copious quotes from the music, not just the obvious stuff (particularly Pelleas) but a very interesting comparison of Jeux and Parsifal. I remember a talk linked with the book on Michael Oliver’s much-missed Sunday radio show (which I taped and still have) but Holloway’s monotone nearly sent me to sleep, so the book was far more useful...

That's very interesting, given Debussy's qualms over whether or not he had expurgated the Wagner influence, on "Pelleas" at least. It was personal hangup over Wagner that others including Dukas, Roussel, Schmitt, and, in other countries, Delius and Bax, all of whom managed to blend Wagnerian chromaticism and grandeur of gesture in with Debussyian ideas about harmony, had less problems in dealing with. In Bartok's music we hear Straussian harmonic procedures alongside Debussy's in the forward march of his own thinking. Personally I would presume Holloway makes too much of this, however: the main lineage of Wagnerian harmonic innovation passed with selective discrimination through the developments of Wolf, Strauss, Mahler, Schmidt, Schoenberg and his pupils Berg and Webern - the last three also benefitting (in my reckoning) from Debussy's colouristic sensibility towards timbres and instrumental combinations. Anyway.....

[Richard Barrett]

Anyway.....

For me one of the most innovative aspects of Debussy's music is the way it lets go of a primarily harmonic way of articulating structure - since harmony as such is often absorbed into melody, timbre and textural movement, all of these (as well sometimes as harmony) individually and/or collectively serve to create a network of structural relationships. The influence of Wagner is often to be felt when harmony comes to the surface but that could be said for very many composers of Debussy's generation - Mahler and Strauss for sure. Walsh cites various moments where Debussy is disparaging about Strauss; he seems to have known Schoenberg only from looking at scores and Mahler not at all. I don't think he would have appreciated the way Schoenberg let go of tonality only to fill up the resulting "tonality-shaped hole" with something else; Debussy might have said that when you remove functional tonality it isn't necessary to regard something as being missing, which could be seen as a more radical attitude than Schoenberg's.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Walsh cites various moments where Debussy is disparaging about Strauss; he seems to have known Schoenberg only from looking at scores and Mahler not at all.

I can't find my copy of Three Classics in the Aesthetics of Music, but I'm sure I remember () Monsieur Croche reviewing the Resurrection Symphony (summary: he didn't like it). Violinist Arthur Hartmann in Claude Debussy as I Knew Him (written in one of the "Tributes" published just after the composer's death) wrote of his last meeting

I well recall Debussy's characteristic comments about the Germans and their Music. "Ouf!" he said with disgust, "Those people drink whether they are thirsty or not! Everything with them is 'en gros'. A theme must be long, regardless of its content or value; the longer the better. Then another interminable episode and then another theme. Then, after sixteen quarts of beer, they begin a development so long, so long, that there is scarcely room in this house to hold it. Take, for instance, the symphonies of Mahler [ which he of course pronounced "Mal-air" ] with its [sic] thousand voices and whips, submarines and whatnot ... "

Here, of course, there is no real sense of knowing any of the Music, just a series of caricatured clichés. But when has that ever been an obstacle to the presentation of a good rant?

I don't think he would have appreciated the way Schoenberg let go of tonality only to fill up the resulting "tonality-shaped hole" with something else; Debussy might have said that when you remove functional tonality it isn't necessary to regard something as being missing, which could be seen as a more radical attitude than Schoenberg's.

Well, certainly - in the way that Debussy uses such an "attitude" - as "radical". A fascinating idea - and one it would be good to pursue from the origins in the Music of Musorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff, and how it was taken up by Stravinsky.

[Richard Barrett]

I'm sure I remember () Monsieur Croche reviewing the Resurrection Symphony (summary: he didn't like it).

So that's something else of potential interest that Walsh leaves out. My opinion of this book is falling further...

edit while I'm thinking about it: another irritating thing Walsh does is to emphasise stereotypical ideas of how German and French composers think and write - just because Debussy supposedly did that (more after 1914 I think, for obvious reasons) doesn't make it a valuable thing for a commentator to do!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

So that's something else of potential interest that Walsh leaves out. My opinion of this book is falling further...

Well - I wouldn't place too much faith in my "memory"; not only can I not find the book, there's nothing immediately obvious on the Internet that comes up when "Monsieur Croche, Mahler", or "Monsieur Croche, Resurrection" is Googled.

Anyone got a copy handy?

[Bryn]

Well - I wouldn't place too much faith in my "memory"; not only can I not find the book, there's nothing immediately obvious on the Internet that comes up when "Monsieur Croche, Mahler", or "Monsieur Croche, Resurrection" is Googled.

Anyone got a copy handy?

Well he attended a performance of the Resurrection, conducted by the composer, on 17 April 1910. However, I can find no mention of his views on either the work or the performance.

[smittims]

This is just to alert anyone who missed it that 'Khamma' had a rare broadcast early this morning on 'Through the Night' just before 4 am. A good performance too - Concertgebouw/Chailly. I'm hearing it now on BBC Sounds.

[Serial_Apologist]

This is just to alert anyone who missed it that 'Khamma' had a rare broadcast early this morning on 'Through the Night' just before 4 am. A good performance too - Concertgebouw/Chailly. I'm hearing it now on BBC Sounds.

Thanks smittims. I love this work to bits and place it next to Jeux and La mer in my pantheon of Debussy favourites. The composer appreciated Koechlin's orchestration - which virtually out-Debussies Debussy in exquisite attention to each and every timbre - citing being thrilled by the use of trumpets in one particular passage (from memory). .

[Mandryka]

I've become really intrigued by Albert Ferber’s recording of the etudes. Is there anyone else who makes these etudes sound so beautiful? And makes them sound so consistent with Debussy's style in other music like Preludes II.


I just tried to listen to Joseph Moog play the first book, and though it's clearly fabulous pianism, I felt it didn't have the magic of Ferber. Somehow Moog seemed reductive, reducing the music to thrills about speed and piano technique. Ferber makes them sound to me like some of Debussy's best poetry.


Here, if you don't know it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk_bU7nlX2c&ab_channel=OnTheTopofDamavandforever

Ferber was one of Gieseking’s students - I think there’s only one recording of Gieseking playing the etudes and I like Ferber much more!