V

For a discussion of the general musical art of Debussy the reader is referred to the third volume of this series. His system of harmony and scales has there been explained. Here we will regard him as a composer for the pianoforte and attempt only a brief analysis of his pianoforte style and an appreciation of a few of his compositions. His pianoforte style has been no little influenced by his conception of harmony which admits chords of the seventh and ninth among the consonances. The pianoforte being essentially a harmonic instrument, composers have spent a great part of their skill in devising rapidly moving figures which would keep its harmonies in vibration. Such harmonies have either constituted a music in themselves, or have furnished a vibrant background behind a melody or an interweaving of several melodies. The shape of the figures has been determined by harmony and the figures have been blended into a general effect by the use of the pedal. One of the most prominent characteristics of Chopin’s style was the intrinsically melodious conformation of many of such figures. Hence there is a suggestion of polyphony in his music; and hence, too, the pedalling of his music must be most delicately and skillfully done.

With Liszt, on the other hand, such figures rarely had this melodious significance. They were founded rather flatly on the notes of chords or on the scale. Hence a mass of notes with little or no individuality. Such we shall find many of Debussy’s figures to be, and it is indeed easy to say that there would have been no Debussy had there been no Liszt. Not only this density, which in the case of Debussy may be more properly called opaqueness, of figures; but also the free use of the arms over the keyboard point to a relation of the style of the one to that of the other. But Debussy’s style is in two features at least sharply differentiated from that of Liszt.

The first of these is owing to his different conception of harmony. Liszt’s harmonies are clearly defined, Debussy’s, by contrast, vague. There are few instances of harmonies in Liszt’s music which are not related to a tonic scale; Debussy’s whole-tone scale has destroyed the relation of major and minor keys, even their definitions. With Liszt the various degrees of the scale suggest their proper harmonies; and as his melody or his bass moves from one to the other of them, the harmonies must change to follow it. The harmonic figures must be constantly moved here and there. Sometimes, as in the first phrase of the Waldesrauschen, they do not change to follow the melody, it is true; but in such a case the melody is so conceived as really to accentuate the notes of the chord on which the accompaniment figure plays. But with Debussy the progress of the melody entails no such change of harmony, or at least no such frequent change. Even if he chooses to conceive a passage as in a clearly defined key, his fondness for the chord of the ninth plays him in good stead. He can keep a ninth chord running up and down the keyboard and still enjoy the proper use of five notes of the scale in melody. And in the case where he is using the whole-tone scale and has consequently thrown his music out of all relation to the traditional system of keys, he is even more free. Therefore, the fingers, not having to find a new position every measure or so, or even twice in a measure, are let free, without hindrance, over a wide range of the keyboard. Furthermore, since having once struck the desired notes within this range the use of the pedal will sustain the vibration a long time, they have not to repeat them over and over again with the distinctness necessary to establish a new harmony, but touch them lightly, or graze them unevenly. With the result that the sparkle which even in the dense runs of Liszt was created by the more or less distinct sound of indispensable notes, is veiled, and the general effect is one of fluid color.

A second feature which distinguishes the style of Debussy from that of Liszt is the relative absence in it of the sensationalism of speed. The sort of run we have been discussing, which may be studied in the Reflets dans l’eau, or in Pagodes, is as rapid as Liszt’s runs. But the monotony of it, the lack of change and therefore of emphasized points, reduces the effect of speed. For speed is chiefly appreciable between definite points. In fact the background of Debussy’s music may be compared to mist, while that of Liszt’s is, we might say, more like a curtain of chain mail.

The effect of this prolongation of harmonies by means of the pedal, lightly aided by the fingers, and of this lack of sharp contours is to take from a great part of his music a certain hard substantiality. In other words, recalling what we said of the qualities of sound in the pianoforte in the chapter on Chopin, the sonority of his music is one of after-sounds. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, more than any composers before them, have consciously made use of this peculiar quality of the pianoforte.

It is not only their treatment of runs which makes it audible, nor do they depend only upon the after-sounds of notes which have been struck. Holding the dampers off the strings for relatively long spaces allows an almost distinct vibration of overtones or of sympathetic tones to enter into the mass of sound. Both Debussy and Ravel count upon this. The notes they write upon the page are but the starting point of their effects. It is what floats up and away from them that constitutes the background of their music. One finds in the later pieces of Debussy not the old-fashioned indication of the pedal, but such directions as quittez, en laissant vibrer, or laissez vibrer (let the vibrations continue), which must be intended to attract the ear to after-sounds. He has even invented a notation of such un-substantial sound. Here is an example, from Les collines d’Anacapri:

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He will fill up a whole measure with notes that find their reason only in the vague sound of the next measure, as here in La cathédrale engloutie:

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Note also that his spacing of chords, and particularly his strange doubling of parts, brings overtones into prominence. One hears not so much a doubling of parts on the keyboard as an accompanying shadow of sound which is, as it were, cast by them. Witness the choral passages in La cathédrale engloutie, and the treatment of chords in Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut. Here, at the beginning, one notices too the inclusion within the chord itself of notes which may properly be considered overtones.

It is true that Schumann experimented with sympathetic vibrations and overtones, that the player who would give to Chopin its special charm must have an ear tuned to after-sounds, and that Liszt experimented with many similar effects and really opened the way for a treatment of the pianoforte such as that Debussy and Ravel have perfected. But all earlier experiments were limited by a clear perception of certain harmonic proprieties. A chord was defined by the notes struck in it. But in this music of Debussy and Ravel a chord is not such a restricted thing. It is a potentiality rather than an actuality. It spreads and grows in after-sounds so that its boundaries become vague and merge with other boundaries or cross them. So they have created a pianoforte music that seems almost to have no dependence upon the mechanical levers and hammers, a sort of music liberated from the box, and yet the most subtly and intimately related to the instrument that has been written.

Debussy’s music is by no means all compact of these vague effects. It is often as clear-cut as crystal, having a netteté hard to match in other music for the instrument. Witness for example Les jardins sous la pluie and La sérénade interrompue. In these cases it is plain to see that he is no less aware of the charm latent in the percussive quality of tone in the pianoforte than of that in its peculiar after-sounds. He can be incisive, also, and sharply rhythmical as in La puerta del Vino, or sparkling as in the Feux d’artifice.

Technically, then, Debussy’s pianoforte style seems to have been influenced by a clear perception of the two qualities of sound of which the instrument is capable, and so remarkable has been his revelation of them that one cannot but feel that they come to our ears as fresh discoveries. His ingenuity seems inexhaustible and always successful. He can be rapid without being sensational, forceful without pounding. Except that an occasional use of chords suggests the organ or some new mysterious wind instrument, his music never departs from the piano, to the spirit of which it gives a new expression. It is extremely difficult to play. It requires the utmost fleetness and lightness of fingers; and also a perfect freedom of the arm, for he seems at times to ask the player to touch all parts of the piano at once. In a measure, however, it may be said of some of his music that it conforms to types as Liszt’s does, and that consequently, compared with Bach and Chopin, it is not so difficult. Nevertheless, by all tokens the music of Debussy, though technically it springs from Liszt, is going to elude the grasp of most fingers even as that of Chopin does. Perhaps it is a spiritual rather than a technical difficulty that stands in the way.

His compositions show signs of a very great development both in his ideals and his means of expression. An early group comprises a Nocturne, a Suite Bergamasque, and another suite called Pour le piano which consists of a Prelude, Sarabande and Toccata. There are signs in nearly all these pieces of originality and some attempted departure from traditional commonplaces. The nocturne is hardly distinguished either in sentiment or in treatment of the piano. Only the section in 7/8 time is interesting. But in the Suite Bergamasque one finds a Passepied and the well-known Clair de lune which hint at the works to come, the former in its piquant scoring and rhythm, the latter in its harmonies and its employment of the lower and higher registers. The Toccata is original in harmony also, and well-scored for the pianoforte. But except in the Clair de lune there is no trace of the delicate impressionism which has made his better known music unique.

This comes out strongly in a second group of pieces in which one may include the L’isle joyeuse, the Estampes and the first series of Images including the Reflets dans l’eau in which he seems to us to reach the height of this middle achievement. L’isle joyeuse is a strange, wild piece, full of his characteristic harmonies, especially those founded upon the whole-tone scale. It is the longest of his pieces for the pianoforte, and is rather unsatisfactory in structure. Perhaps the monotony of key is to blame—for in spite of passages in whole-tone scales, the whole is very clearly in A major. Yet it must be said that this very sameness of key intensifies the early languor and the later Bacchanalian fury—is intoxicating in itself.

The Estampes (‘Engravings’) are among the best of these middle pieces. A comparison of them with works of an early period, with the two arabesques or even the Suite Bergamasque, shows an extraordinary development in Debussy’s art and a change or a more marked independence in his ideals. There is hardly a trace in the earlier works of the new expansion in pianoforte technique which marks the Pagodes, La soirée dans Grenade, and Jardins sous la pluie. Especially in the first of these pieces the whole range of the keyboard is blended into effects of a new sonority of sevenths and ninths. The second is a study in impressionism, in the combination of a few fragments of melody, harmony and rhythm into a whole of new poetic intensity. In the former his technique, in the latter his procedure, are strange and unfamiliar in pianoforte music, yet wholly successful. Their effectiveness is no doubt largely due to the nature of his material. The motives of the Pagodes are Oriental, those in La soirée both Spanish and Moorish. Perhaps for this reason they sound more exotic than the Jardins sous la pluie, which, in spite of odd blendings of harmony, is essentially more conventional than its two companions in the set. Certainly the Jardins is a wholly poetic and effective piece of keyboard music; but it lacks the originality and the elusive suggestiveness of the Pagodes and of La soirée.

The Reflets dans l’eau is superior to the Hommage à Rameau and the Mouvement, with which it is combined in the first series of Images. Technically it is a masterpiece, and both by the quality of its themes and its perfection of form is fitted to stand as a piece of absolute music of rare beauty. The plan of it is logical rather than impressionistic. It is the development of a single idea, not the combination of suggestive fragments. Hence it seems to stand as the most complete result of the art of which the Pagodes and Les Jardins are representative. In the second series of Images the strange piece, Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut, is a further experiment in the kind of music of which La soirée is an example. Here as there the music is fragmentary. Here as there there is but an occasional touch of vividness against a background of misty night. In both pieces pictures, words, almost sounds are only suggested to the ear, not completely represented.

On the other hand, the Cloches à travers les feuilles, and the Poissons d’or, respectively the first and last pieces in this second set of Images, are what we might call consistently motivated throughout, in the manner of the Reflets dans l’eau. There is always the rustling of leaves and the faint jangle of bells in the former, always a quiver of water and a darting, irregular movement in the latter; whereas in neither La soirée nor in Et la lune is there the persistence of an idea that is thus predominant and more or less clearly presented.

The last two series of Préludes show us his art yet more finely polished and concentrated. In general these twenty-four pieces are shorter and more concise than the Estampes and the Images, certainly than the representative pieces in them—Pagodes, Les jardins, and Reflets dans l’eau. Most of them, moreover, are in his suggestive rather than his explicit manner. He accomplishes his end with a few strokes, and usually in a short space. The placing of the titles at the end rather than at the beginning of the pieces is an interesting point, too; for one cannot believe that such a finished artist as Debussy shows himself in these pieces to be would have sent his work before the public without a consciousness of the significance of such an arrangement. He does not, as it were, announce to his auditors his purpose, saying, imagine now this sound which you are about to hear as representing in music a picture of gardens through a steadily falling rain. He rather draws a line here upon his canvas and adds a point of color there, all in a moment, and then, having shown you first this strange beauty of combinations, says at the end you may now imagine a meaning in the west wind, a church sunk beneath the surface of the sea, a tribute to Mr. Pickwick, dead leaves, or what not in the way of exquisite and incomplete ideas.

Many of these postscripts are significantly vague: Voiles, Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir, Des pas sur la neige (Alkan called a piece of his Neige et lave), La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune, etc.

Yet, however vague the subject or the suggestion, there is a sort of epigrammatic clearness in the music. The rhythms are especially lithe and endlessly varied, the phrase-building concise yet never commonplace. There is a glitter of wit in nearly all, an unfailing sense of light and proportion. This, not the strange harmonies nor the imagery, seems to us the quality of his music that is typically French. There is infinite grace and subtlety; sensuousness in color, too, though it is spiritualized; but there is little that is sentimental.

The delicacy and yet the sharpness with which he has reproduced qualities in outlandish music must be noticed. In earlier music he gave proof of his insight into the essentials of other systems of music than the French, or the German which has been considered the international. The Suite Bergamasque has a local color. There is Oriental stuff in Pagodes, Spanish and Moorish in La soirée dans Grenade, Egyptian in Et la lune. Traces of Greek or of ecclesiastical modes are abundant. Here, in the Préludes all this and more too has he caught. Greece in Danseuses de Delphes, Italy in Les collines d’Anacapri, the old church in La cathédrale, Spain in La puerta del Vino, cake-walks in General Lavine, England in Pickwick, and Egypt in Canope. There seems a touch of the North, too, in the exquisite little pieces, La fille aux cheveux de lin. In this way alone Debussy has rejuvenated music, doing more than others had done.

Finally, it would be hard to find more essence of comedy and wit in music than one finds in Debussy’s Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum in the ‘Children’s Corner,’ with its ludicrous play on the erstwhile sacred formulas of technical study. This alone should place him among the wits of a century. The Sérénade interrompue and ‘Puck’s Dance’ are both full of mockery. Then there is the eccentric General Lavine, and, perhaps most laughable of all, the merry homage to Pickwick, made up of ‘God Save the King’ and a jig in the English style.

No one can say what the future of his music will be, nor how it will be related to the general development in music by students a hundred years hence. Yet it is certain that it recommends itself to pianists at present because it has expanded the technique of the instrument. It is made up in part of effects which, as we have said, if they are not new in principle, are newly applied and expanded. He has developed resources in the instrument which had not before been more than suggested. His pieces bring into striking prominence the qualities of after-sound and sympathetic vibrations or overtones in the piano, which are as much its possession and as uniquely so as the bell-like qualities it had before been chiefly called upon to produce. Therefore though his accomplishments in harmony and form, in the possibilities of music in general, may be regarded with a changed eye in the years to come, and though he may even some day appear in many ways reactionary, because he has once more associated music with ideas and weakened the independence of its life; yet as far as the pianoforte is concerned he is the greatest innovator since Chopin and Liszt.