(debussy) portrait of debussy 11, debussy in perspective

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Portrait of Debussy. 11: Debussy in Perspective

Edward Lockspeiser

The Musical Times, Vol. 109, No. 1508. (Oct., 1968), pp. 904-906.

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1

ebussy in Perspective

Portrait of Debussy-1

Edw ard L ockspeiser

This is the 1 th and last article in our Portrait of

Debussy series in which we have attemp ted to build

a composite portrait of Debussy the musician through

examination of the impressioiz he left on other com-

posers. Previous articles were:

Debussy and Stravinsky (Jeremy Noble), Jan 1967, pp.22-5

Debussy an d Bartok (Anthony Cross), Feb 1967, pp.125-31

Debussy a nd Schoenberg ( Robert Henderson), March 1967,

pp.222-6

Debussy and Puccini (Mosco Carner), June 1967, pp.502-5

Debussy and English Music (Peter J Pirie), July 1967,

pp.599-601

Debussy and French Music (Rollo Myers). Oct 1967,

pp.899-901

Debussy and Koechlin miall O'Loughlin), Nov 1967,

pp.993-6

Debussy and Messiaen (Roger Smalley), Feb 1968, pp.

179 21

~e b; us and Italian Music (John

C

G.

Waterhouse),

May 1968, pp.414-8

Debussy and Boulez (G. W. Hopkins), Aug 1968, pp.710-4

Debussy died 50 years ago, and his changing impact

on th e musical mind du ring this period c an very well

be assessed under three interrelated headings. So

much one gathers from earlier studies in this series

where, of course, these successive phases of

Debussy's influence appe ar quite naturally to merge

int o each other. Nevertheless, it is easy to discern in

certain of these essays (particularly those showing

the connections with Schoenberg and with the

Italian musicians) the original profile that emerged

of Debussy in the European scene, that is to say a

nationalist figure, a Frenchman recovering the

native qualities in music of order, distinction,

elegance, and accuracy of perception.

Immediately, in this national conception, one is

thrown back to the cross currents of a 'Musical

United States' , as Romain Rolland saw the Euro-

pea n musical world of his time, to that characteristic

approa ch of the 1920s when Edward Dent took upon

himself the delicate role of offsetting the Latin and

the Teutonic elements in the new spirit that was

breaking through. 'Across everyone's musical

territory there flows a River Rhine', declared

Busoni. H ow remote are these national distinctions

in our age of the mechanical diffusion of music

I t

is almost as if one were supp orting a rival claim for

the supremacy of the French or the Italian styles in

the 18th century, or taking sides in the conflicts of

the

Guerre des Boufons.

Yet i t was as a com-

poser reacting against the Wagnerian domination

that Debussy was presented in England by his early

crit ics, Edwin Evans and Jean-Aubry.

To day this view has long been transcended. When

the history of the nationalist movements in music up

to th e close of World W ar I comes to be written, we

shall be able to assess quite dispassionately Debussy's

statu re in the freedom-loving Europ e of his time. In

the meantime, referring to Debussy's reputation

in

Italy, Mr Waterhouse draws attention to the fierce

xenophobic prejudices of Italian musicians, persist-

ing until the 1930s. M r Hend erson, similarly,

quotes an extraordinary statement of Schoenberg:

'Much of the harmony used by [Debussy] was dis-

covered independently in Germany'. Perhap s it was,

but the limitations of a restricted nationalist outlook

made it impossible to perceive the significance of

Debussy's innovations. Hence also the amazing

view of Schnabel that Debussy was merely a sophis-

ticated Chaminade.

One cannot of course expect

critics to concur on value judgm ents; they would

no t be critics if they did. In all assessm ents of this

kind, however, the publications of the

Cahiers

Romain Rolland, consisting chiefly of Rolland's

correspondence, will be invaluable. Covering the

whole field of European music from Saint-Saens to

Strauss, Debussy, Mahler, and Stravinsky, these

publications a lso branch ou t into adjacent social and

psychological spheres. M ateria l is thus offered for

a study of the vast hinterland of Debussy's w0rk.l

Equally important is the manner in which an

artist's unconscious mind determines the elements of

his style and his technique. This brings us to ou r

second consideration, the functions and methods of

musical analysis. Quotation s in earlier studies in this

series fro m Debussy's work reveal his technical con -

nections with Puccini, Ba rtok and others. On the

other hand , attemp ts, in other publications, to dis-

close the secrets of Debussy's art by means of

analysis based on conventional notions of harmony

are no t always successful; they are likely to be con -

fined to problem s of nomenclature. Are the funda-

mentals of a cho rd in French m usic of the period of

Debussy transferred to one of the middle voices in

order to allow greater harmo nic freedom, as Jacques

Chailley suggests,' o r are they simple chord inver-

sions? Th e first view is poetically m ore appealing ;

the second is nearer the truth.

Is the dissonant

major 2nd in certain chords from Pellias 'a bee in the

flower', as Messiaen

suggest^,^

or is the dissonance

caused merely by an upper pedal point?

Ambiguities and speculations of this kind ab oun d

in analyses of Debussy's musical language, and they

are likely t o persist until we com e to terms, possibly

by the use of a scientific method, with Debussy's

essentially physical notio ns of harm ony . Cezan ne

said of Monet, whose art had been reduced to an

accurate rendering of optical sensations, that 'he is

nothing bu t an eye'. Of Debussy it may be said, in

the same superior sense, that he is nothing but an

ear. This comes near to a purely realistic app roac h.

Indeed we have evidence of Debussy's awareness of

'Debussy is frequently mentioned in Rolland's correspondence,

particularly in the volume, translated into English in 1968,

devoted to Richard Strauss. Another important source 1s the

Journal de . AnnPes rle guerre (Paris 1952) giving details of the

activities of Debussy and ~travlnsk;. Rolland's correspondence

with Debussy still awaits publication. The latest issue of the

Cahiers, vol 17, includes Rolland's correspondence with Saint-

SaEns and also with Freud.

2'Berlioz'. special number of La Revue musicale (1956), ccxxxiii,

1956

8Technique de mon langcrge n?usical(1944) , i, 40-1 the passage i n

question is ex 4 in 'Debussy and Messlaen' (Smalley), Feb p.128


3/4

this approach in his statement: 'Music has hitherto

been established o n a false principle. Th ere has been

too much concern with writing; music has been

written for th e paper when in fact it is conceived fo r

the ears.'

Ult imately i t was the new approach to the ar t of

hearing th at is likely to give us the key t o Debussy's

musical sensibility.Wusicians and scientists were in

some stra nge way conscious of the fact, in the 1890s,

that we cannot trust our ears. As Sir James Jeans

says in

Science and Music,

'All the art, all the man-

nerisms [in the performance of a symphony] are

embodied in one single curve'. And he add s: 'The

curve is the symphony', that is to say the symphony

is not the score, nor even the performance, but the

sound curve as it is received by the ear . This is

entirely pertinent to the Impressionist musical

aesthetic. Recent research, based on the theories of

the physicists Helmholtz and Charles Henry,j who

investigated the sensations of to ne and light and who

exerted a wide influence on theorists of music and

painting, show th at the ear. like the eye, is an incom-

plete receptive instrume nt. Th e artists, like the

scientists, were however explorers in sound and

light: they wanted to discover afresh the distinctions

between consonance and dissonance, or the relative

values of colour. This brings the whole Impressionist

movement into a sharper focus. Earlier ideas of

Impressionism as a veiled or an obscure art, dream-

like in character, are now, in view of our concern

with the phenomenon of sound in contemporary

music, replaced by a more scientific conception.

'Impressionism', says the ar t historian Rent. Huy ghe

of Monet 's

Sunrise,

'perceiving light instead of

forms , sees reality a s a flow of energy, thus an ticipat-

in g m od er n ~ c i e n c e . ~n the musical sphere Impres-

sionism similarly perceives sound instead of forms.

Ultimately, therefore, we have illustrations of this

principle by means of electronic music and other

purely soun d-prod ucing devices.

Pleas are frequently made in Debussy's writings

for an understanding of his music according to a

scheme of sensations. His notices for La Revue

blanche, later reproduced in

M

Croche, are them-

selves 'impressions', as he emphasizes, and his use of

this term in his weekly articles demonstrates his

affinities with the aesthetic and the scientific writers

of his time , includingthechallengingfigureof Charles

He nry .' Debussy, moreover, is merciless in his con-

demnation of any kind of functional approach to

musical analysis. 'People forget that as children they

given here of the theories of Helmholtz and Riem ann, and of a

pioneer in musical psychology, Carl Stumpf.

Th ar le s Henry (1859-1926) was an Alsatian scientist who was a

researcher in mathematics and physics and also in the theory

and aesthetics of music and

painting.

In 1894-5 he wrote a

series of articles. 'L'Esthetique des forrnes' for

L a R e ~ i ~ elanche

to which Debussy later contribute d as a critic. Henry's musical

studies. including commentaries on the technique of Debussy

together with papers on musical aesthetics and on the new

sonorities of the orchestra, are ciiscussed in L 'O e u1 ,r e p s ~ c h o -

biophjsiq ire de Charley Henry by F . Warrain (Paris. 1931). The

connecuons between the theoretical works of Henry and the

Ideas of Debussy may be traced in

Srurar and thr Science

o

Paint ing by H. I. Homer (Cambridge. Mass, 1964).

eAr t and thr Spir i t o f Ma n

(London. 1962).

'see A.

B Jackson.

La Revue b lnn( .hr: Orig ine, I t i fi i len


4/4

n est pas la NeurasthCnie, ce n est pas non plus

1 Hypocondrie. C est le dklicieux ma1 de I idke i

choisir entre toutes .12 Translating this into present-

day terms we should say: This is not a neurosis nor

a depression; it is the delightful sense of unease

which possesses one in facing an infinitude of possi-

bilities . This notion did not remain peculiar to

Debussy. Stravinsky in his Poetics of MusicT3

similarly defined this attitude.

As for myself, I experience a sort of terror when,

at the moment of setting to work and finding

myself before the infinitude of possibilities that

present themselves I have the feeling that every-

thing is permissible to me, the best and the

worst; if nothing offers me any resistance, then

any effort is inconceivable, and I cannot use

anything as a basis, and consequently every

undertaking becomes futile.

The nearest Debussy came to this chancy, aleatory

view of music is surely in a passage in

Ibtria

in

which a random violin solo, unexpectedly extin-

guished by the woodwinds, suddenly finds itself

jumbled up with a tambourine; this then leads, as if

the conductor had thought it up on the spur of the

moment, to some violent strumming on the strings

relieved by an oboe tune which seems to be brought

in from nowhere.14

These two symposia, the Paris conference of 1962

and the present series of studies, will no doubt be

seen to close a stage in the investigation of Debussy s

influence. For the next stage more basic material is

required. We need above all a large-scale

catalogue

raisonnk

of Debussy s works showing the where-

abouts of MSS the relevance of sketches, notational

differences in editions, and the s tate of the unfinished

works, together with an historic account of the

inception and production of each work. The methods

of Kochel need to be applied; but more than this we

wish to study the changing phases of Debussy s

work. The original draft of

L aprds-midi d un jaune,

now suppressed, needs to be re-edited with an

adequate commentary demonstrating the manner in

which Debussy worked. Early unpublished works

illustrating the development of Debussy s style

include the

comtdie hkroique, Diane au bois

and the

opera

Rodrigue et Chimdne.

We should also like to

see a reconstruction of extracts of La Saulaie, the

companion piece to La damoiselle tlue (that is to say

the available sketches and the libretto). Preparatory

2Let tres n4di tes

a

Andre Caplet

(Monaco, 1957)

I3French version, 1942; Eng l~sh ranslation, 1947

l4fig 61 of the score

or unfinished works such as these are likely to offer

penetrating glimpses into the workings of a com-

poser s mind. The early study on

Pellias et Mkli-

sande

by Maurice Emmanuel was valuable in its

time, but it needs to be replaced by a different kind

of study showing the evolution of Debussy s musical

ideas in the various drafts and scores of the opera.

Leon Vallas has drawn attention15 to Debussy s

setting of a section of Villiers de I Isle Adam s

Axel

which, though it remains unknown, nevertheless

indicates his attraction at a n early date to the world

of

Pellkas.

We need also a critical edition of Debussy s pub-

lished articles, not merely the arbitrary selection

assembled for the posthumously published

M

Croche. Other unpublished literary works, including

the play Frdres en art, should throw light on

Debussy s ideas on the relationship of the arts. In

all this we are interested in what the French call

des

pidces (authentic unpublished material for research

material). Various letters of Stravinsky to Debussy,

and of Bartok, giving his opinions of Debussy, have

appeared in auction

catalogue^ ^^

They are of great

value in assessing the relationships with Debussy of

these composers but, as research-workers so often

discover, they are likely to be kept hidden away by

their jealous possessors. Finally, to satisfy scholars

who still believe in the dictum of Buffon,

le style est

I homme mCme and

indeed how else can style be

defined?-we need an annotated critical edition of

Debussy s letters. These should include not only

those already published, many of which appear in

truncated form, but the vast number of unpublished

letters. Obviously, this is an undertaking that cannot

be attempted before a considerable lapse of time.

But a complete correspondence of this kind is

bound eventually, like the correspondence of

Wagner and Mozart, to throw up so many psycho-

logical problems relating to the artist and his work

that we must be prepared, in contemplation of this

task a t a remote date, to tackle the whole subject of

Debussy s evaluation afresh.

SCla ude Debussy et son tenrps

(2nd edn, 1958, p.140)

"Stravinsky's recollections of statements made to him by

Debussy are not always reliable. On the controversial question

of the influence of Mussorgsky Stravinsky writes:' (Debussy)

said he had discovered M~ sSor gskywhen he found some of the

music lying untouched on Mme von Meck's piano ( i e 1880-2)'

(Expos i t ions and Developments , 1959, p.138). This is hardly

substantiated by Debussy's letter of June 23, 1908: . Mous-

sorgsky, don't j'ai pu constater dans un voyage que je fis en

Russie, il y a une vingtaine d'annkes, que personne ne prononce

le nom. Ce n'est qu'en France que j'ai commence a le connaitre'

(M. Dietschy,

La Pass ion dr Claud? Drbussy,

1962, p.197).

APPOINTMENTS, AWARDS

Francis Cameron has been appointed Assistant Director of the

New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, Australia

Sergiu Comissiona has been appointed conductor and artistic

director of the Baltimore SO for the next three years.

George won

the 1968 Pulitzer

Prize

in

music for his

Echoes of rime and the river.

Desmond .Hunter has won the first prize for organ a t the

Antwerp Conservatoire: he was also awarded the Firmin

Swinnen and the Callaerts prizes.

Martin Jones has won the first Myra Hess Award.

Christopher Seaman for the last four years timpanist of the

LPO, has heen apbointed assistant conductor of the BBC

Scottish.

Ruth Hamilton Smith has won the Maggie Teyte biennial prize.

Associated Board Medallists, JuneIJuly 1968: Grade 8, Andrew

Leavett (gold), Stephen Hamill (silver); Grade

7,

Jennifer

Moody (gold), Sarah Wayman, Trevor Hughes, Sheila Wilson

(silver); Grade 6, Alison Bury, Robert Steed, Lorraine Wood

(gold), Paul Barritt, Richard S~mpsonsliver).

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(debussy) portrait of debussy 11, debussy in perspective

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