Program Notes

Claude Debussy (1862-1919)

Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun” (1892-94)

Scored for 3 flutes, 3 oboes and English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 2 harps, percussion and strings

 

"[The Afternoon of a Faun] has a pretty sound, but there is not the least truly musical idea in it; it is no more a piece of music than the palette on which a painter has been working is a picture."

In his harsh criticism of Claude Debussy's most famous composition, Camille Saint-Saens put his finger on exactly what made it so unique. Debussy set out to free music from what he considered the rigid strictures of traditional harmony. He colored his music by the use of exotic-sounding scales like the whole-tone and pentatonic modes in conjunction with the traditional major and minor ones. He often fragmented his melodies and avoided strict use of repetition. He sidestepped the traditional musical forms and made effortless use of changing meters and shifting beats. And with his sparing use of climaxes, we are left with the impression of an unbroken flow of sound, blurring the conventional expectations of melody, harmony and structure.

Perhaps, though, it was Debussy’s discovery of the symbolist poets that had the greatest impact on his style. He was greatly inspired by Paul Verlaine who very aptly defined the symbolist philosophy when he said, "Always choose your words (or notes) fastidiously, for nothing is more precious than that half-light in which the undefined and the precise meet. What we want is nuance, not colour - the nuance that weds dream to dream and flute to horn."

But it was Stephane Mallarme’s poem The Afternoon of a Faun that gave birth to Debussy’s first large-scale symphonic work. The poem is a word painting, difficult to translate into English effectively, which describes a faun free-associating on his encounters with various nymphs.

Mallarme’ held that the poet should express the ideas of a transcendental world, that poetry should evoke thoughts through suggestion rather than description, and that it should approach the abstraction of music. Debussy must have been in heaven. Here was the perfect vehicle by which to combine every element of his musical philosophy.

It is interesting to note that when Mallarme was told that Debussy was setting The Afternoon of a Faun to music, the poet remarked, “I thought I had done that already.” However, he told Debussy, “your music extends the emotional range of my poem, defining the décor more passionately than the color.” One writer described it by saying, “The encounter between the great god Pan and the beautiful wood nymph Syrinx is an allegorical description of how music, and perhaps all art, is born from the fervent pursuit of beauty.”