He was surrounded by painters who like Claude Monet, Pissarro and Sisley did not paint actual things, but rather ideals of things; and by poets who like Verlaine, Gustave Kahn, Henri de Régnier, Pierre Louys and Stéphane Mallarmé did not write about things but rather the impression and images things gave them. He was absorbed and delighted by this non-photographic kind of art and translated into his music the veiled, mystic, idealistic, silver glimmering impressions that others put into paint and into words. This is Impressionism in art.
Musically, Debussy was influenced by Wagner, although he fought against him, and by some of the French composers in whose day he began to write, like Chabrier and Chausson. From Moussorgsky and other Russians he learned much about old modes, color effects and free expression; and with Erik Satie he talked over many musical problems, no doubt gaining much from this curious musical caricaturist and humorist. No matter how extreme and absurd Debussy’s music might have sounded twenty-five years ago to the people, they must have felt the mystic beauty and rare poetic charm of his work.
Someone, as a joke, put a Butterick pattern on a playerpiano roll as a music record, and it sounded so ridiculous that a composer hearing it, said: “Ah, that must be a Debussy piece!” But, you see this was twenty-five years ago!
No matter how revolutionary his piano pieces may have sounded, today they have become almost classics! The combination of poetic imagination, romanticism and impressionism are seen in the titles: Reflets dans l’eau (Reflections in the Water), L’Isle joyeuse (Happy Island), La Cathédrale engloutie (The Engulfed Cathedral), Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain).
For his daughter Claude, who died the year after her father, Debussy wrote six little piano pieces called the Children’s Corner. At the time he was writing them, little Claude used to drag the manuscripts around like a ragdoll, telling anyone she met, “These are my pieces, my father is writing them for me.” They were: Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum, Jimbo’s Lullaby, The Doll’s Serenade, The Snow Falls, The Little Shepherd and Golliwogg’s Cakewalk.
Among his later works are: Three symphonic sketches, La Mer (The Sea); the mystery play on a book by d’Annunzio, Le Martyre de St. Sebastien (The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian); a work for two pianos, Noir et Blanc (Black and White); a Sonata for Violoncello and Piano and twelve Studies for Piano.
In his Minstrels, Children’s Corner and General Lavine we find humor, a characteristic of 20th century music.
His music was vague and dreamy, and many composers were weakened rather than strengthened by trying to imitate him, for they had neither his genius nor his poetry. What he gave us was genuine, what others tried to copy was affected. His inventions such as the whole-tone scale and the pastel shades of music were so much a part of him that to use them today shows a lack of originality. But to those coming after him, who did not imitate him but worked out their own ways, he was a path-breaker of great value.
Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel (1875) has lived in or near Paris most of his life, although he was born in Ciboure, Basses-Pyrénées. He was a student at the Conservatory under Gabriel Fauré and André Gédalge. He did not receive the Prix de Rome, perhaps because in his early works he already showed tendencies, which must have seemed revolutionary to musicians who had not yet grown accustomed to the innovations of Debussy. Ravel developed his ideas at the same time and under the same influences as Debussy. You will often hear that Ravel imitated Debussy, but it is less an imitation than a development along the same lines. Ravel, too, is an impressionist, a poet, a lover of veiled mystic effects, suggesting images rather than reproducing them. He has a keen rhythmic sense, perhaps a heritage of his birthplace, so close to the Spanish border.