Debussy's Corner

[Mahlerian]

Latest on Forbes:


Review: Debussy vs. Debussy -
Complete Works By Warner Classics And Deutsche Grammophon Compared


https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenslaurson/2018/03/25/review-debussy-vs-debussy-complete-works-by-warner-and-deutsche-grammophon-compared/#60a1cdcd5e60

Every click helps to convince Forbes that classical music coverage of some sort is worth the bother.

Thanks for the write-up!

[Mirror Image]

If you can catch them at the newsstands, both the Gramophone and BBC Music magazines have our centenary boy gracing their front covers:

[Spineur]

Listening to a special Debussy concert with Le Martyrs de Saint Sebastien and the orchestrated version of La boite a joujoux by André Caplet, which I had never heard before.  I only knew of the piano reduction written by Debussy, not this orchestrated version which was created posthumously in 1919.

[vandermolen]

If you can catch them at the newsstands, both the Gramophone and BBC Music magazines have our centenary boy gracing their front covers:

Gramophone is rather good this month. Apparently Debussy hated being described as an 'Impressionist' in music.

[Mirror Image]

Listening to a special Debussy concert with Le Martyrs de Saint Sebastien and the orchestrated version of La boite a joujoux by André Caplet, which I had never heard before.  I only knew of the piano reduction written by Debussy, not this orchestrated version which was created posthumously in 1919.

Yes, but Debussy gave Caplet the head nod to do the orchestration for La boîte à joujoux:

"...Debussy wrote the piano score from July to October 1913, but the war put off preparations for performance, and ultimately Debussy left the orchestration to André Caplet, who retained a prominent (but not concertante) piano part in his instrumentation." - All Music Guide article on La boîte à joujoux

I'm also rather curious where you got the year 1919 from as I've been reading that the orchestration was done in 1913.

Special edit: Debussy completed most of the orchestration but what he didn't finish he left to Caplet who completed it in 1917. The premiere of La boîte à joujoux took place in 1919, so, obviously, posthumously. [According to the liner notes in the new(ish) recording of Debussy's later ballets with Lan Shui and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra]

[Mirror Image]

Gramophone is rather good this month. Apparently Debussy hated being described as an 'Impressionist' in music.

Yes and so did Ravel, but the way the term is used nowadays is actually complimentary and I wouldn't imagine Debussy or Ravel having any objection.

From Wikipedia:

"The most prominent feature in musical impressionism is the use of "color", or in musical terms, timbre, which can be achieved through orchestration, harmonic usage, texture, etc. Other elements of music impressionism also involve new chord combinations, ambiguous tonality, extended harmonies, use of modes and exotic scales, parallel motions, extra-musicality, and evocative titles such as Reflets dans l'eau (Reflections on the water, 1905), Brouillards (Mists, 1913) etc.

[Madiel]

The Warner set has too many vocalists that I simply don't like with the exceptions of Véronique Gens and Gérard Souzay.

Now streaming the early part of the songs section of the Warner set. After half a dozen singers I think I'm rapidly agreeing with you. First entry from Véronique Gens was quite appealing, Natalie Dessay is reasonable, the other women so far are either sort of "okay" or rather unappealing (no men yet). I'm sure some of these voices are considered to have character, but some of them have rather too much of it.

EDIT: I've realised that a lot of recordings of early songs are taken from Jean-Louis Hagenauer's set (he's the accompanist). There are 5 singers on that set. I've heard 4 so far, and really only liked 1 of them.

[ritter]

Latest on Forbes:


Review: Debussy vs. Debussy -
Complete Works By Warner Classics And Deutsche Grammophon Compared

Excellent, Jens! Very thorough and enlightening comparison of both sets.

Since I had the "old" DG, I went for the Warner. From what I've read from your review, I'm fine with that combination...

[Jo498]

impressionist used to be derogatory for the painters as well!
As for Debussy I never understood it as derogatory but according to my impression it only fits for a few works. La Mer or the Faune-Prelude and some of the piano music might fit the description but the chamber music does not and neither does all of the piano music. Similarly with Ravel (it seems even less true for him, I think).
Generally I do not dislike labels but I tend to be very skeptical if labels that fit well in painting are used for music and "impressionism" is maybe the most prominent such case.

[San Antone]

Debussy was more involved with/influenced by the French Symbolist poets, e.g. Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine and including also Maurice Maeterlinck, than the so-called Impressionist painters.  So maybe he would prefer to be called a Symbolist composer instead of an Impressionist.

[Madiel]

Generally I do not dislike labels but I tend to be very skeptical if labels that fit well in painting are used for music and "impressionism" is maybe the most prominent such case.

The funny thing is, an awful lot of our labels for music come from other arts. Baroque. Classical. Romantic. None of these terms are actually specifically musical!

[Jo498]

Right, they are not specifically musical. But not all of them were  so clearly first established wrt to painting (or visual arts) as "impressionism" was. Impressionism referred to a handful of painters in a highly specific way, unlike Baroque or Romanticism (which first appeared in literature, not visual arts) that are more general.
They have other problems, partly because they are so unspecific. In German musicology people have been using "age of figured bass", "Generalbasszeitalter" as a better term for ca. 1600-1750 than Baroque for some time.

In the actual case, while I would not deny that some of Debussy's music does have impressionist features, there are such clear counterexamples among his works that do not and even the "impressionist" ones benefit from clarity and not from association with "cloudiness" (Actually when I first heard La mer or the Faun as a teenager I did have the impression of a could of sound, but I also had this with Wagner, only there some singer also tried to make him or herself heard over that soundcloud by screaming as loud as possible...)

[North Star]

The funny thing is, an awful lot of our labels for music come from other arts. Baroque. Classical. Romantic. None of these terms are actually specifically musical!

And it's hardly the only name for an artistic movement/style that was originally an insult (Fauves ("wild beasts") and Gothicism ("barbarians who destroyed Rome/civilization") spring to mind)

Debussy was more involved with/influenced by the French Symbolist poets, e.g. Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine and including also Maurice Maeterlinck, than the so-called Impressionist painters.  So maybe he would prefer to be called a Symbolist composer instead of an Impressionist.

He was certainly influenced by both movements "You do me a great honour by calling me a pupil of Claude Monet," Debussy wrote to the critic Emile Vuillermoz in 1916. About the orchestral Images, to Durand, his publisher: "I'm trying to write something new - realities, in a manner of speaking - what imbeciles call impressionism". Note that "what the imbeciles call impressionism is exactly what the Impressionist painters would say of their works too. Debussy was not irritated by the association of him with the Impressionist artists, but with the term and a general lack of understanding or respect for the movement's scientific basis and principles in depicting reality, instead seen as casual and undisciplined. The Impressionists' goal of capturing a scene as it's first seen, before our brains have fully processed the information is also not too far removed from the Symbolist poets' artistic goals. Debussy was neither a painter or a poet, but his music encapsulates Impressionism's depiction of nature and reality, as well as the psychological depth, fantasy and depiction of the subconscious of Symbolism.

[Karl Henning]

Latest on Forbes:

Review: Debussy vs. Debussy -
Complete Works By Warner Classics And Deutsche Grammophon Compared


https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenslaurson/2018/03/25/review-debussy-vs-debussy-complete-works-by-warner-and-deutsche-grammophon-compared/#60a1cdcd5e60

Every click helps to convince Forbes that classical music coverage of some sort is worth the bother.

Very enjoyable, as ever, Jens.

[Maestro267]

Musicians themselves hate labels, but they are necessary for us consumers of music. They make something that can't easily be described in words a bit easier to do so.

[Mirror Image]

Now streaming the early part of the songs section of the Warner set. After half a dozen singers I think I'm rapidly agreeing with you. First entry from Véronique Gens was quite appealing, Natalie Dessay is reasonable, the other women so far are either sort of "okay" or rather unappealing (no men yet). I'm sure some of these voices are considered to have character, but some of them have rather too much of it.

EDIT: I've realised that a lot of recordings of early songs are taken from Jean-Louis Hagenauer's set (he's the accompanist). There are 5 singers on that set. I've heard 4 so far, and really only liked 1 of them.

I think the whole idea of 'character' in mélodies/lieder/songs depends on what you, the listener, feel and respond to. Personally, I don't like overdramatic, operatic-style vocals in these kinds of works. They aren't operas and they're not cantatas or oratorios. For me, they're supposed to be intimate, subtle, and finely nuanced. The whole atmosphere becomes cringeworthy when the piece simply becomes a showcase for the vocalist instead of looking at the music from the inside out and letting the music speak for itself. That's my viewpoint on this genre and everyone, of course, has different preferences, but this is what I listen for.

[Mirror Image]

Debussy was more involved with/influenced by the French Symbolist poets, e.g. Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine and including also Maurice Maeterlinck, than the so-called Impressionist painters.  So maybe he would prefer to be called a Symbolist composer instead of an Impressionist.

I think there's a bit of both Symbolist and Impressionist in his style, but, as Jo498 pointed out, there are many works that fit neither description, especially in works like the Études, Jeux, Pour le piano, the late sonatas, etc. that really can't be labeled or confined to some box.

[Mahlerian]

And it's hardly the only name for an artistic movement/style that was originally an insult (Fauves ("wild beasts") and Gothicism ("barbarians who destroyed Rome/civilization") spring to mind)

Don't forget Baroque, which was applied to music by Rousseau specifically to imply that the work of Rameau et al was misshapen, confused, and ugly.

[North Star]

Don't forget Baroque, which was applied to music by Rousseau specifically to imply that the work of Rameau et al was misshapen, confused, and ugly.

Indeed! Or rather first by an anonymous satirical reviewer on Rameau, then Rousseau as a description of music he disliked for a set of reasons (did Rousseau specify Rameau? Did Debussy paying homage to Rameau have anything to do with this? ), then in 1855 as a means to attack the artistic period for not being the Renaissance, by 1878 it had lost its negative connotations, and in 1888 there appeared the first serious study of Baroque (painting, sculpture and architecture).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque#Origin_of_word

[Mahlerian]

Indeed! Or rather first by an anonymous satirical reviewer on Rameau, then Rousseau as a description of music he disliked for a set of reasons (did Rousseau specify Rameau? Did Debussy paying homage to Rameau have anything to do with this? ), then in 1855 as a means to attack the artistic period for not being the Renaissance, by 1878 it had lost its negative connotations, and in 1888 there appeared the first serious study of Baroque (painting, sculpture and architecture).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque#Origin_of_word

Ah, you're probably right that I was conflating a few things there.  At any rate, Baroque has long since lost any negative connotations in the English speaking world, though it is strange to lump together everything from Monteverdi through Bach into a single period, as there are two quite distinct eras within that time frame (much as there was also a second practice in later 19th century Romanticism).