Debussy vs. Ravel

[Mirror Image]

Let's continue with the absurdity: Debussy vs. Ravel!!! Who do you prefer?

[Sid]

Well if push comes to shove, I like Debussy better. He was more unconventional in things like his orchestration - just hear pieces like Jeux. I have heard a good deal of both Debussy's and Ravel's works, except for the latter's piano works. But I'm going to a few recitals in September where both of their piano works will be played, so that will change. I also like the wittiness, parody & humour in some of Debussy's music - just listen to his Preludes, the titles themselves are (sometimes) not completely serious. But I did hear a chamber work by Ravel (a friend's cd) that completely changed my stereotype of him as a writer of the stereotypical "Impressionist" music (really hate that term, I think they were more early Modernists). Anyway, that Ravel piece is (I think) rarely heard - the Sonata for Violin & Viola. It had the astringency and dissonance of Bartok or Stravinsky but I don't know when it was written. Anyhow, no prizes for guessing that I like Ravel's chamber music better than his orchestral, but with Debussy, I pretty much like all of his music. There seems to be more substance, more meat to chew on, with the latter IMO...

[Philoctetes]

Debussy makes sweet sounds.

Plus Ravel composed Bolero, and that shit just pisses me off.

[Mirror Image]

EDIT: Why did I vote for Ravel?!?!?!? I should have added a banana option. Oh wait I can edit the poll! Yayyyyyyyyyy.......

[Sid]

I think Debussy was much more forward looking, especially in works like Jeux. In that piece, he hardly looks back, themes are developed in blocks or cells, ideas come and go, like a stream of consciousness. But I disagree that Debussy's music was just a "wash of colour" or some-such. One critic said of Le Martyr de Saint-Sebastien (another late masterpiece, although fragmentary) that beneath all of that lusciousness there was a structure "as hard as iron." That's what attracts me more to Debussy's music than Ravel's, it's this kind of dichotomy (I'm getting arty-farty here!) between those lush sounds and the way his ideas are structured, which is rock-solid to the core...

& yes, I think that Bolero & Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun are still masterpieces, no matter how much they have been hackneyed by soap ads etc. etc...

[Mirror Image]

I think Debussy was much more forward looking, especially in works like Jeux. In that piece, he hardly looks back, themes are developed in blocks or cells, ideas come and go, like a stream of consciousness. But I disagree that Debussy's music was just a "wash of colour" or some-such. One critic said of Le Martyr de Saint-Sebastien (another late masterpiece, although fragmentary) that beneath all of that lusciousness there was a structure "as hard as iron." That's what attracts me more to Debussy's music than Ravel's, it's this kind of dichotomy (I'm getting arty-farty here!) between those lush sounds and the way his ideas are structured, which is rock-solid to the core...

& yes, I think that Bolero & Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun are still masterpieces, no matter how much they have been hackneyed by soap ads etc. etc...

Well opinions on the two composers will always differ. I prefer Ravel for the afore mentioned reasons. Daphnis et Chloe alone is one reason why I prefer Ravel more. Such precision, emotion, sensuousness, and exoticism.

[Teresa]

I protest, it is totally unfair to make us choose between Debussy and Ravel, however in the end I chose Ravel as he orchestrated my favorite orchestral work "Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition"

My Debussy collection:
  Berceuse heroïque for Orchestra, L 132 (1914)
  La Mer, L 109 (1905)
  Nocturnes, L 99 (1901)
  Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, L 86 (1894)
    Järvi, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra - Telarc
  La Cathédrale Engloutie (1910)
    Kunzel, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra - Telarc 
  Children's Corner, L 113 (1908, Caplet)
  Clair de lune, L 75 (1890)
  Danse, L 69 (1890, Ravel)
  Epigraphes antiques (6), L.131 (1914)
  Petite Suite, L 65 (1889)
  La Soirée dans Grenade, L 100 (1903)
    Talmi, Orchestre de Québec - Atma
  Images for Orchestra: Ibéria, L 122 (1908)
    López-Cobos, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra - Telarc

My Ravel collection:
  Alborada Del Gracioso (1918)
  Rapsodie Espagnole (1907)
  Le Tombeau De Couperin (1917)
    Paray, Detroit Symphony Orchestra - Mercury Living Presence
  Boléro (1928)
    Kunzel, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra - Telarc
  Daphnis et Chloé: Ballet (1912)
    Levine, Boston Symphony and Chorus - BSO
  Five O'Clock Foxtrot (1925)
    Oue, Minnesota Orchestra - Reference Recordings
  Mother Goose: Five Nursery Songs (1911)
  Pavane for a Dead Princess (1910)
  La Valse (1920)
    Järvi, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra - Telarc
  Piano Concerto in D Major for the Left Hand (1930)
  Piano Concerto in G Major (1931)
    Nagai, Hirokami, Malmö Symphony Orchestra - BIS

And I do love Ravel's Bolero, the secret is to listen to it in the dark with no distractions whatsoever, doing that one enters into a almost zen-like state, as the piece slowly builds up to it's giant climax.  Ravel didn't consider the Bolero as conventional music but a giant crescendo. 

However I dearly love every single orchestral work I have heard by both Debussy and Ravel, they are both in my top ten of classical composers.  So once again having to choose is totally unfair!

[mc ukrneal]

Faure! 

I cannot help but think of the three together. They do mostly overlap, though Faure starts earlier and Ravel ends later, but there is a good deal of overlap. Would be interesting to see the three together as a poll.

But with Faure out of the picture ( ), I am hard-pressed. They are pretty even in my eyes. If one CD could tip the scale though, this would be it (one of the best buys I have ever made):

[Sid]

I must stess that I really like Ravel's chamber music, like the string quartet, the piano trio, and the above-mentioned sonata for violin & viola (quite "aggressive" for Ravel!). I just heard Ravel's posthumous (early) Violin Sonata and Debussy's Violin Sonata in G yesterday at a recital. It's unfair to compare these (as to which I like?), because they come from opposite ends of each composer's career, one early, the other late. The Ravel had strong marks of his teacher Faure (mentioned above), and was pretty Romantic, the Debussy basically an early example of the then emerging neo-classical style. But I'm really looking forward to a couple of recitals I will attend in September of both of their solo piano works...

[karlhenning]

My response won't surprise anyone: I cannot choose between these two excellent composers.

[abidoful]

Debussy definately---difference of genious and talent i guess

[Josquin des Prez]

Debussy for me as well.

[ongakublue]

well my profile pic is ravel so i say debussy  no...

actually the thing i love about ravel is his piano music and chamber music - there is a clean, beautifully shaped quality to much of it... maybe the prescision as someone else said. ravel has this wonderful mix of neo-classical, 'jazz', spanish folk music and eastern modality all of which I love. Ravel sounds like he is brimming with passion under a surface that is often so sweetly melancholy and restrained. Some of his works then spill over into the almost violent like La Valse.
Debussy for me defines a kind of music that has been unequalled by anyone else who made a hand of it. His piano music in particular has some kind of aura to it that defies words. For me it is a view of the universe that puts the utmost mystery and beauty in every little detail of the world that surrounds us.

I am not choosing btw

[karlhenning]

. . . I am not choosing btw

A man after my own heart! ; )

[Franco]

My response won't surprise anyone: I cannot choose between these two excellent composers.

A man after my own heart.

[mc ukrneal]

A man after my own heart.

That makes four of us then. 

[Sergeant Rock]

Images for Orchestra, Jeux, Nocturnes...La Mer! Pelléas et Mélisande! For me, an easy choice. And too, I can't help but love a composer who wrote a work that could be performed by Catherine Deneuve 






Sarge

[abidoful]

And too, I can't help but love a composer who wrote a work that could be performed by Catherine Deneuve 
Sarge

Whaatt?!?

[Mirror Image]

Debussy definately---difference of genious and talent i guess

They both were geniuses, abidoful. Let's see hear one of your compositions that tops Daphnis et Chloe. I doubt you could even begin to understand how ingenius that ballet actually is.

[not edward]

This is another one where I could never choose. I probably listen to more Debussy than Ravel, but both have so much to offer.