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Category: Debussy
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what struck me most about Schubert’s Piano
than its emotional impact, its technical
wizardry, from the start Schubert dazzles with
his prestidigitation, his manual dexterity, the
notes fly
working against the beat, apart from the fourth
movement, the rondo, Schubert is being
unequivocally Beethoven
the fourth movement is, incidentally, utter
Mozart, you can tell from the preponderance
of trills
texture, meanwhile, overcoming melody,
in, most notably, the third movement, is
right out of Chopin, his “ Winter Winds “
for instance, an inspired combination
of both melody and texture, where is
the supremacy of either, listen , you tell
me, do the “Winds “ conquer the groans,
the tribulations, of the underlying melody,
the left hand, the low notes, the chthonic,
the earth, or does the dexterousness of
the right hand, the ephemeral, the
transitory, win the day
texture will overcome melody eventually,
as the century moves along, Impressionism
will prioritize perspective over emotion, the
head over the heart, Debussy, among
others, Renoir, Monet, Pissaro, will
dominate, see above , but that’s another
story
meanwhile Schubert
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a sonata can be written for any instrument,
some just more prevalent than others,
here’s one for clarinet, Brahms’ Opus 120,
after the distortions of later composers
you might remember from these pages,
it’s nearly quaint to return to the
traditional templates for the sonata,
more than one movement, no more
than two instruments, and attention
to the Classical imperatives of tempo,
tonality, and repetition
Brahms doesn’t put a foot wrong, all
of the requirements are observed
punctiliously, you could even sing
or dance to this music, something
you couldn’t later do, unless with
choreography, see, for instance,
Nijinsky
talking about Nijinsky, the clarinetist
here is as feral as the faun Nijinsky
version , in his homage to Debussy’s
The Afternoon of a Faun, 1912, he
even seems, the clarinetist, the very
god Pan, come down from Olympus
to frequent the backwoods of Ionia,
to beguile those who would be
beguiled, with his flute, see above
his accompanist is equally hot
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_____
if I object to sonatas consisting of only
one movement, I can also object to
sonatas consisting of more than two
instruments, but here’s Debussy’s
which should more accurately have
been called a trio, a trio is a sonata
with three instruments
note also in the Debussy the breakdown
of all the Classical imperatives, tempo,
tonality, and repetition, another blow to
established authority
but the test is, does it work, at which
point, if it does, terminology becomes
moot, and meaning changes
today, I pondered the word love, its
myriad meanings, and how we still
call that infinite variety of emotions
the same thing, the word sonata
doesn’t hold a candle to the word
love for disinformation
I thought, okay, just make it work,
I’ll define it for myself later, each
one of us being the final arbiter
of our own aesthetic sensibility
the question
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at the end of the Nineteenth Century, a
a seismic shift occurred in our Western
culture’s sensitivity to art
much as visual representation during
the Renaissance and up until the late
Baroque Period had dominated, to
be replaced by music during the
Classical Age as the sensory
temperature of the times, visual
representation once again took over
as arbiter of Western sensibility
during Impressionism
you’ll remember the artists of the
Renaissance, but not many of the
composers, you’ll be able to name
the composers of the Classical Age
and the Romantic, but not many, if
any, of the painters, you’ll then
immediately toss off a list of artists
of the Impressionist Era, but not
many of its composers
this lasts till, I’d say, Andy Warhol,
when the visual arts still held sway,
but the present is, it seems, up for
grabs
here’s meanwhile, an Impressionist,
an obvious Impressionist statement,
to be compared, incidentally, with
its Romantic counterpart, Beethoven’s
enjoy
R ! chard
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though you probably still wouldn’t be able
to tell a prelude from a hole in the wall,
nor, admittedly, can I, unless indicated,
if you’ve listened to the pieces I’ve
recently presented, you’ve noted, even
merely sensed, really, that the preludes
of one composer don’t sound at all like
those of the others, Bach doesn’t sound
like Chopin, who doesn’t sound at all
like Debussy, the first step in telling
your Beethoven from your Bach, as
promised in my title
you might not even be able to tell which
is which as you’re listening, but you can
tell they’re different, you do the same
thing telling your Monet from your
Rachmaninov also wrote, like Chopin,
and Debussy, 24 preludes, and, like
Chopin, in every key, major and minor
but spread out through three publications,
only one prelude, but a scorcher, The
Bells of Moscow , listen
a second set, Opus 23 , consists of ten,
mostly iconic, pieces, you’ve heard
them somewhere before, therefore
iconic
the final set comes out in 1910,
Opus 32 , with thirteen preludes,
for a total of 24
enjoy
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what’s a prelude
as the word suggests – pre, from the
Latin, means before, lūdus, again
from the Latin, means game, play,
spectacle – it is a piece of music that
precedes another more elaborate
segment in a compositional whole
a prelude is therefore likely to be short,
otherwise completely improvisatory,
no technical demands, just something
that comes from the heart
there probably existed preludes before
Bach, but he’s the one who put them
on the map, with, specifically, his
monumental Preludes and Fugues,
though that’s another story, more
about which later, but he did write
some stand-alone preludes, for
a little over a hundred years later,
in 1834, Chopin picked up the
mantle and wrote his own iconic
Opus 28 , 24 stand-alone preludes,
one for every major and minor key,
and established thereby the prelude
as a viable musical form
nearly a hundred years later still,
Debussy set up his own homage
to Chopin, in two bursts of inspired
composition, the twelve preludes of
his Book 1 in 1909 to 1910, followed
by his Book 2 , again of twelve preludes,
written in 1912 to 1913
these works are now generally played
in complete sets, though they often
pop up individually as short and sweet
encores here and there at the end of
successful recitals
enjoy
R ! chard
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just as I was about to relegate the trill
to Mozart and the Classical Period, I
inadvertently came upon something
Spanish composer, 1901 – 1999, a
the trill had been decorative, meant to
appeal to aristocrats frequenting
salons
then the French Revolution happened,
and the growth of the Middle Class,
and consequently popular avenues
of entertainment for the liberated,
concert halls, for instance, looked
for a more emotionally powerful
experience, arpeggios took care of
that
the trill died
but in 1939, nearly two centuries
homage to an elder, trills abound
it should be stated that a guitar can
play only one note at a time, it might
be that trills lend themselves better
to such an instrument than an
arpeggio would
then again, I’ve found that Spanish
music, the tango, the tarantella, for
instance, see above , has held more
rigidly to the imperatives of Western
music I’ve spoken of here before,
tempo, tonality, repetition, it is not
Debussy, Ravel, it is not even
Chopin, it is peripheral, maybe, to
the cultural establishment, but
potent, steeped in blood and
tradition
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where do you start with Chopin, he is
in our Western cultural bloodstream,
as identifiable in music as, say, van
Gogh is in painting, you don’t need
to be interested in any kind of art to
have not been given even only a
whiff of these iconic artists
nearly anything I might present here
of Chopin you’ve probably already
heard somewhere before, if only in
bits
of van Gogh, well, he goes back in
the public imagination to at least
doesn’t know about him, when I
heard it playing in Amsterdam at
the museum, with the first piece I
the first wall, insisting on van Gogh’s
vision, his prophecy, his profound
compassion, I cried, I understood
Chopin exerts a different kind of,
however equally potent, magic
Mozart might sound like Haydn,
Beethoven might sound like
Schubert, all of the Impressionists
sound like all of the Impressionists,
be they Ravel, Debussy, Satie, or
Saint-Saëns, to the untrained ear
but no one sounds like Chopin,
he’s, culturally, a North Star
in English, a study, a finger exercise,
an iconic, here , prestidigitation
to get your categories going
consider its construction, having
some information already about
fantasias, a work of the imagination ,
open to any experimentation within
the confines of one movement, with
an impromptu, something purported
to have been created on the spot,
also in one movement
the answer requires you to sharpen
your aesthetic pencil, always a
delight – an impromptu, a
spontaneous invention, a fantaisie,
a work of the imagination, how do
they differ, which part is a fantaisie,
which an impromptu, how do they
nevertheless coalesce
this exercise is the first step in
listening
enjoy
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________
to take a break, for a moment, from the
travails of Io , a heifer still, though her
father, Inachus , is aware of the situation,
and Hermes , messenger of the gods, is
to save her, and, at the same time,
inspired by the music Hermes tells Argus ,
her many-eyed keeper, Pan , god of the
wilds, has been playing, with reeds he’s
been left with of Syrinx , the nymph he
would’ve loved had she not been
transformed into rushes, as imagined by
Debussy in his evocative Syrinx for solo
I could not not remember Debussy ‘s
other similarly mythological, and intimately
Nijinsky , legendary dancer and
choreographer, into an event that verily
shook the early 20th Century
performance captures everything one
would gather from Ovid’s myths of its
primitive, primal, sensibilities
the faun, needless to say, is representative
of Pan , god of the wild, woodlands, a satyr,
part instinct, part man, see above
celebrated successor, take on the role
Nijinsky made famous, without any
alterations made to the original 1912
production, however improbably,
though entirely successfully, we’re in
Paris, May 29, though transposed,
faithfully and superbly, to New York,
Broadway, 1979
proceed, however, at your own discretion,
about what happens when a young buck’s
fancies, implacable and irrepressible, turn
to love, not for the scrupulous, where does
love begin, it asks, and lust retire, or is it
the other way around, where does yin, in
other words, meet, become, yang
these are questions that more and more
begin to come up, you’ll find, in Greek
and Roman, and most other ancient,
for that matter, mythologies, something
that isn’t at all touched upon in the
Judaism, monotheistic, though they’re
at least as old, where nature, the place
of animals, vegetation, land, water, our
intimate interconnection with them,
don’t much, for better or for worse,
come up
I miss the wonder of the more
pantheistic, the pagan, perspective
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Then Hermes thus:
Hermes , messenger of the gods,
addresses Argus , keeper of Io ,
who’s been transformed by Jove ,
god of gods, into a heifer, though
she remains daughter, ever, of
Inachus , river god, to tell the
story of his rare, beguiling reeds
A nymph of late there was
Whose heav’nly form her fellows did surpass.
here we go again with nymphs,
beautiful, irresistible, however
ever innocent, prey, due, indeed,
to their very beauty, their very
innocence, to lustful, inordinate
desires, in these instances,
markedly divine
deities, I point out again, make
up their own rules
The pride and joy of fair Arcadia’s plains,
Arcadia , apart from being an
actual area of Greece, is also
the ideal , in our historical
much as is the lost island of
Belov’d by deities, ador’d by swains:
Syrinx her name, by Sylvans oft pursu’d,
Sylvans, could only be, though
I’ve been unable to find actual
confirmation of my opinion,
wood spirits, forest entities,
satyrs, goat men, and such
As oft she did the lustful Gods delude:
Syrinx could often, or oft, delude,
or fool, ward off, the lustful Gods
The rural, and the woodland Pow’rs disdain’d;
satyr yourself, Syrinx would’ve
impudently taunted
With Cynthia hunted, and her rites maintain’d:
Like Phoebe clad, even Phoebe’s self she seems,
as Diana , goddess of the Hunt, you’ll
connection to Daphne , who earlier
here was transformed into a laurel
Syrinx sounds an awful lot, incidentally,
like another version of Daphne
So tall, so streight, such well-proportion’d limbs:
The nicest eye did no distinction know,
But that the goddess bore a golden bow:
the only difference between Syrinx
that Syrinx didn’t have, bear, a
golden bow
Distinguish’d thus, the sight she cheated too.
had she borne a golden bow, Syrinx ,
[d]istinguish’d thus, would’ve cheated
the sight, looked identical, to the
beautiful, it is inferred, goddess
Descending from Lycaeus, Pan admires
The matchless nymph, and burns with new desires.
Pan , god of the wild, woodlands
is a mountain in Arcadia
A crown of pine upon his head he wore;
And thus began her pity to implore.
But e’er he thus began, she took her flight
So swift, she was already out of sight.
Nor stay’d to hear the courtship of the God;
But bent her course to Ladon’s gentle flood:
flood, rushing, though gentl[y],
water, rhymes in the preceding
verse, you’ll note, with God
There by the river stopt, and tir’d before;
Relief from water nymphs her pray’rs implore.
Syrinx , once by the river stopt, seeks
the help of, assistance, [r]elief from,
the nearby water nymphs, her
consorts
Now while the lustful God, with speedy pace,
Just thought to strain her in a strict embrace,
is, as well, and characteristically,
a lustful God
He fill’d his arms with reeds, new rising on the place.
And while he sighs, his ill success to find,
his ill success, his thwarted,
ineffective, enterprise
The tender canes were shaken by the wind;
And breath’d a mournful air, unheard before;
the reeds that Pan gathered in his arms,
shaken by the wind, create a mournful
air, a melancholy music
That much surprizing Pan, yet pleas’d him more.
though Pan might’ve been much
surpriz[ed] by the sorrowful sounds
he heard, he was more pleas’d by
them than startled
Admiring this new musick, Thou, he said,
Who canst not be the partner of my bed,
At least shall be the confort of my mind:
And often, often to my lips be joyn’d.
in a kiss of consolation
He form’d the reeds, proportion’d as they are,
Unequal in their length, and wax’d with care,
They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair.
the instrument Pan devised from
the tender canes he fashioned
from the unaccommodating reeds,
what we now name the Pan flute ,
was called in Ancient Greece a
syrinx, in honour of the
recalcitrant nymph
however, which is to say, on a
long ago abandoned at a
professional level the original pipe,
though it remains, apparently, as a
folk instrument in more agrarian,
communities around the world, for
shepherds, one would imagine, to
while away the hours while tending
to their, however wayward, sheep
R ! chard