"Nocturnes. Debussy
Debussy. "Nocturnes"
"Clouds"
Orchestra composition: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, timpani, harp, strings.
"Celebrations"
Orchestra composition: 3 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, 2 harps, timpani, snare drum (distant), cymbals, strings.
"Sirens"
Orchestra composition: 3 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 harps, strings; female choir (8 sopranos and 8 mezzo-sopranos).
History of creation
Not yet finished his first mature symphonic work " Afternoon of a Faun”, Debussy in 1894 conceived “Nocturnes”. On September 22, he wrote in a letter: “I am working on three Nocturnes for solo violin and orchestra; the orchestra of the first is represented by strings, the second - by flutes, four horns, three pipes and two harps; the orchestra of the third combines both. In general, this is a search for various combinations that the same color can give, as, for example, in painting a study in gray tones. This letter is addressed to Eugène Ysaye, the famous Belgian violinist, founder of the string quartet, who was the first to play the Debussy Quartet the previous year. In 1896, the composer claimed that the "Nocturnes" were created specifically for Izaya - "the person whom I love and admire ... Only he can perform them. If Apollo himself asked me for them, I would refuse him! However, already in next year the idea changes, and for three years Debussy has been working on three "Nocturnes" for symphony orchestra.
He reports about their completion in a letter dated January 5, 1900, and writes in the same place: “Mademoiselle Lily Texier changed her dissonant name to the much more harmonious Lily Debussy ... She is incredibly blond, beautiful, as in legends, and adds to these gifts that that she is by no means in the “modern style”. She loves music... only according to her imagination, her favorite song is round dance, where we are talking about a little grenadier with a ruddy face and a hat on one side. The composer's wife was a fashion model, the daughter of a minor employee from the provinces, for whom he inflamed a passion in 1898 that almost drove him to suicide the following year, when Rosalie decided to part with him.
The premiere of "Nocturnes", which took place in Paris at the Lamoureux Concerts on December 9, 1900, was not complete: then, under the baton of Camille Chevillard, only "Clouds" and "Festivities" sounded, and "Sirens" joined them a year later, on December 27, 1901 . This practice of separate performance was preserved a century later - the last "Nocturne" (with a choir) sounds much less often.
The Nocturnes program is known from Debussy himself:
The title "Nocturnes" has a more general meaning, and especially a more decorative one. Here the point is not in the usual form of the nocturne, but in everything that this word contains from the impression and sensation of light.
"Clouds" is a motionless image of the sky with gray clouds slowly and melancholy floating and melting; receding, they go out, gently tinted with white light.
"Celebrations" is a movement, a dancing rhythm of the atmosphere with explosions of sudden light, it is also an episode of a procession (dazzling and chimerical vision) passing through the holiday and merging with it; but the background remains all the time - this is a holiday, this is a mixture of music with luminous dust, which is part of the overall rhythm.
“Sirens” is the sea and its infinitely varied rhythm; among the waves silvered by the moon arises, crumbles with laughter and the mysterious singing of the sirens is removed.
At the same time, other author's explanations have been preserved. Regarding Clouds, Debussy told his friends that it was “a look from a bridge at clouds driven by a thunderstorm; the movement of a steamboat along the Seine, the whistle of which is recreated by a short chromatic theme of an English horn. "Celebrations" resurrect "the memory of the former amusements of the people in the Bois de Boulogne, illuminated and flooded with a crowd; the trio of trumpets is the music of the republican guard playing the dawn." According to another version, the impressions of the meeting of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II in 1896 by Parisians are reflected here.
Many parallels arise with the paintings of French Impressionist artists who loved to paint flowing air, the brilliance of sea waves, and the variegation of the festive crowd. The title "Nocturnes" itself originated from the name of the landscapes of the English Pre-Raphaelite artist James Whistler, which the composer became interested in in his younger years, when, after graduating from the conservatory with the Rome Prize, he lived in Italy, at the Villa Medici (1885-1886). This passion continued until the end of his life. The walls of his room were decorated with color reproductions of Whistler's paintings. On the other side, French critics wrote that the three "Nocturnes" by Debussy are a sound recording of three elements: air, fire and water, or an expression of three states - contemplation, action and rapture.
Music
« Clouds” are painted with thin impressionistic colors of a small orchestra (only horns are used from copper). The unsteady gloomy background is created by the measured swaying of the woodwinds, forming fancy sliding harmonies. The peculiar timbre of the English horn enhances the modal unusualness of the short main motive. The color brightens in the middle section, where the harp enters for the first time. Together with the flute, she leads a pentatonic theme into the octave, as if saturated with air; it is repeated by solo violin, viola, cello. Then the gloomy melody of the English horn returns, echoes of other motives arise - and everything seems to float away into the distance, like melting clouds.
« Festivities» form a sharp contrast - the music is impetuous, full of light and movement. The flying sound of stringed and wooden instruments is interrupted by sonorous exclamations of brass, tremolo timpani and spectacular glissandos of harps. A new picture: on the same dancing background of the stringed oboe leads a fervent theme, picked up by other wind instruments in an octave. Suddenly everything breaks. A procession is approaching from afar (three trumpets with mutes). The hitherto silent snare drum (in the distance) and low brass ones enter, building up to a deafening climax of the tutti. Then light passages of the first theme return, and other motifs flicker, until the sounds of the festival fade away.
IN " Sirens"again, as in "Clouds", dominates slow pace, but the mood here is not twilight, but illuminated by light. The surf is quietly splashing, waves are running in, and in this splash one can distinguish the alluring voices of sirens; repeated chords without small group words female choir complement the sound of the orchestra with another bizarre color. The smallest motifs of two notes vary, grow, intertwine polyphonically. They echo the themes of the previous Nocturnes. In the middle section, the sirens' voices become more insistent, their melody more extended. The variant at the trumpets unexpectedly approaches the theme of the English horn from Clouds, and the similarity is even stronger in the roll call of these instruments. At the end, the singing of the sirens fades, as the clouds melt and the sounds of the festival disappear in the distance.
A. Koenigsberg
MKOU "Novousmanskaya secondary school No. 4"
Music lesson
in the 7th grade
Symphonic painting "Celebrations" by C. Debussy.
Instrumental concert.
MKOU "Novousmanskaya secondary school No. 4"
Makukhina Marina Nikolaevna
With. New Usman
year 2014
Topic of the lesson: Symphonic picture "Celebrations" by C. Debussy.
SLIDE 1
Purpose of this lesson:
Enrichment of cultural and spiritual world children, through the musical, literary and artistic heritage of the peoples of the world.
Tasks:
By using information technologies reveal the diversity and richness of the culture of peoples.
Development of versatile interests in various fields of arts, education of love and respect for musical, literary and artistic heritage other peoples, to lay the foundations for the aesthetic perception of the surrounding life.
Enrichment of the spiritual world of children. Education of their musical, artistic and aesthetic taste.
SLIDE 2
Lesson plan:
No. p / p
Stages of the lesson
Time, min.
Preparation for the active and conscious assimilation of new material.
Formation of knowledge. Presentation of new material, both musical and literary
Practical work
Consolidation of new knowledge
Song "Orange Summer"
Summarizing
SLIDE 3
Teacher: Guys, what do you see on the screen?
Pupils: Frame
Teacher: What is the purpose of this frame?
Pupils: This is a picture frame.
Teacher: How can you call the pictures differently?
Pupils: Painting
Teacher: What can you call painting and music?
Pupils: Art.
Teacher: Please give a definition: what is art?
Pupils: Art is the process and the result of a meaningful expression of feelings in an image.
Art is one of the forms of social consciousness, an integral part of...
Music can be seen and art can be heard. Painting will express what cannot be said in words, will reveal the most subtle shades of the human soul. Teacher: So, our lesson can be called, not just music?
SLIDE 4
Pupils: "Picturesque music"
SLIDE 5
Goals and objectives; create an atmosphere of engagement and interest in the classroom. Develop the skills of holistic musical analysis. Invite the children to express their mood from the music they listened to. Highlight intonations to reveal the image of the work. Awaken creativity.
To form in students an emotionally conscious perception of the musical image.
Teacher: Music has different directions. What MUSIC STYLES do you know?
Students:
2 Sacred music
3 Indian classical music
4 Arabic classical music
5 European classical music
6 Latin American music
7 Blues
8 R&B
9 Jazz
10 Country
13 Rock
14 Pop
15 Rap (Hip-hop)
16. Folklore
17. Classical, etc.
SLIDE 6
Listening to the music "Celebrations" - Claude Debussy
SLIDE 7
Teacher: Who knows this work and the author7
Pupils: "Celebrations" by Claude Debussy
Teacher: Achille-Claude Debussy - French composer, music critic.
In 1872, at the age of ten, Claude entered the Paris Conservatoire. In the piano class, he studied with famous pianist and teacher Albert Marmontel, in the elementary solfeggio class - with the eminent traditionalist Albert Lavignac, and Cesar Franck himself taught him the organ. Debussy studied quite successfully at the conservatory, although as a student he did not shine with anything special. Only in 1877 did the professors appreciate Debussy's piano talent, awarding him a second prize for the performance of Schumann's sonata.
Debussy began to systematically study composition only in December 1880 with a professor, a member of the Academy of Fine Arts, Ernest Guiraud. Six months before entering Guiro's class, Debussy traveled to Switzerland and Italy as a home pianist and music teacher in the family of a wealthy Russian philanthropist Nadezhda von Meck. Debussy spent the summers of 1881 and 1882 near Moscow, on her estate Pleshcheyevo. Communication with the von Meck family and stay in Russia had a beneficial effect on the development of the young musician. In her house, Debussy got acquainted with the new Russian music of Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Balakirev and composers close to them.
SLIDE 8
Debussy's composition "Moonlight" shines with love. Claude Debussy generally loved the light of the silvery satellite of the Earth. He wrote better on moonlit nights.
Composer N. Ya. Moskovsky wrote about Debussy's work: "... In the moments when he (Debussy) undertakes to capture his perception of nature, something incomprehensible happens: a person disappears, as if dissolved or turns into an elusive speck of dust, and reigns over everything like the eternal, changeless, unchanging, pure and quiet, all-consuming nature itself, all these silent, sliding "clouds", soft overflows and ups of "playing waves", rustles and rustles of "spring round dances", gentle whispers and languid sighs of the wind talking to the sea - Isn't this the true breath of nature! And isn't the artist who recreates nature in sounds a great artist, an exceptional poet?
His music is based on visual images, filled with the play of chiaroscuro, transparent, as if weightless colors that create the feeling of sound spots.
The influence of painting on composers was so great that he gave many of his compositions names associated with fine arts: "Prints", "Sketches", etc. Understanding how an orchestra can draw picturesque pictures came to C. Debussy largely from the Russian composer N. Rimsky-Korsakov.
Debussy was not only one of the most significant French composers, but also one of the most significant figures in music at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries; his music represents a transitional form from late romantic music to modernism in the music of the 20th century.
Teacher: Guys, what other composers do you know:
Pupils: Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Glinka, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Shostakovich, Schnittke, and others.
Teacher? What do you know musical works?
Pupils: "Swan Lake", "The Nutcracker", the Leningrad Symphony - "the invasion of the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War”, “Moonlight”, “Seasons”. "Waltz" and others.
Teacher: Can you define music?
Pupils: Music is rhythm, sound, tempo…… Music is needed for the soul.
SLIDE 9
Listening to the music "Moonlight" by Claude Debussy
SLIDE 10 - 16
Teacher: When you listened to music, did you imagine something? Maybe you saw colors, paints or something else?
The answers are varied. From warm tones to the coldest, from white to black.
Teacher: Guys, can everything that we have heard just now be portrayed?
Students: Yes.
Teacher: NOW WE WILL DO A LITTLE PRACTICAL WORK. Depict what you have now HEARD. Let's split into three groups. Some work with gouache. Others work with ink and thread. Still others work with colored paper, cardboard and glue. Let's get to work.
Work protection.
SLIDE 17
Melodeclamation of poems to the music of C. Debussy
"In the Moonlight"
In moments of sadness in the hour of the night
Tired of adversity
Not in the vanity of worldly joys,
In peace you seek happiness.
Forget, merging with silence,
Throwing away everything earthly
Alone with sadness alone
Talk to Luna.
Luna, that's why I love you
What's only in the moonlight
I forget about winter
And I think about Lethe.
Executioner of my mind
Severe, but beautiful - the Moon!
I, looking at her,
I'm losing my mind.
The moon disturbs and attracts,
And, melting in the moonlight,
I rest from worries
Forgetting about the past.
The night luminary amuses the gaze
I'm drunk on dreams
And in the fabric of dreams moonlight
It pours in, intertwining -
Weaving into a thin veil
From weightless lace...
Noise. Doors creak.
I got stuck again, not finding myself.
"Moonlight"
Vladimir Vodnev
Give me a moonstone
Give me moonlight!
Slightly noticeable strokes
I draw moonlight
What pours on the ground for centuries
The one that is closest to all the planets.
Let it be already sung more than once,
But still beckoning
And captivates all the poets
The pale color of her cheeks.
Only if we are alone
(Already checked more than once!) -
The mood will lift
The light of her cold eyes.
And driven by insomnia
Both artist and poet
Draw for your beloved
Silver moonlight.
There is no better gift
In the night of a short spring
Starry sky under the arch -
The gaze of the bewitching moon...
"NIGHT MOON"
And again the evening replaces the night,
Darkness surrounds the world
And the path of heaven begins
Night Wanderer Moon.
From year to year, echoing the same road,
She dimly illuminates the darkness,
And her light is understood only by a few,
Who could comprehend the beauty of nature.
The light of the moon is dim, but we are not worth it
To blame her innocent for that sin,
Dark earthly night, but still,
In it, without the moon, you can’t see anything at all.
We got so used to it that we stopped
Her celestial campaign to notice
Only the elect, calling with them in the distance,
She never ceased to amaze.
And there is something in the moonlight,
That I couldn't understand
No wonder lovers love so much
To appoint dates in the moonlight.
SLIDE 18 - 19
Teacher:
And at ten, and at seven, and at five
All children love to draw.
And everyone boldly draws
Everything that interests him.
Everything is interesting:
Far space, near forest,
Flowers, cars, fairy tales, dances...
Let's draw everything!
There would be colors
Yes, a piece of paper on the table
Yes, peace in the family and on Earth.
SLIDE 20 - 21
Teacher: Let's have a quiz. Let's find out the correct answer.
Teacher: Guys, now I would really like to know: what new did you learn today in the lesson?
Student responses.
Teacher: Can you see the song?
Students: Yes.
Teacher: What is penny?
SLIDE 22
Pupils: A song is a bridge between poetry and music.
SLIDE 23 - 31
Teacher: Let's do a little warm-up with you. And we will end our lesson with a wonderful song. "Orange Planet"
Summarizing.
SLIDE 32
Teacher: Thanks for the lesson.
Claude Achille Debussy was born on August 22, 1862 in Saint-Germain, Paris. His parents - petty bourgeois - loved music, but were far from real professional art. Random musical impressions of early childhood contributed little artistic development future composer. The most striking of these were rare visits to the opera. Only at the age of nine did Debussy begin to learn to play the piano. At the insistence of a pianist close to their family, who recognized Claude's extraordinary abilities, his parents sent him in 1873 to the Paris Conservatory.
The diligent studies of the first years brought Debussy annual solfeggio awards. In the solfeggio and accompaniment classes, he showed his interest in new harmonic turns, varied and complex rhythms.
Debussy's talent developed extremely rapidly. Already in his student years, his playing was distinguished by its inner content, emotionality, rare variety and richness of the sound palette. But the originality of his performing style, devoid of fashionable external virtuosity and brilliance, did not find due recognition either from the conservatory teachers or from his peers. For the first time, his talent was awarded a prize only in 1877 for the performance of Schumann's sonata.
The first serious clashes with the existing methods of conservatory teaching occurred with Debussy in the harmony class. Only the composer E. Guiraud, for whom Debussy studied composition, truly imbued with the aspirations of his student and discovered their similarity in artistic and aesthetic views and musical tastes.
Nocturnes
"Clouds"
Orchestra composition: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, timpani, harp, strings.
"Celebrations"
Orchestra composition: 3 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, 2 harps, timpani, snare drum (distant), cymbals, strings.
"Sirens"
Orchestra composition: 3 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 harps, strings; female choir (8 sopranos and 8 mezzo-sopranos).
History of creation
Having not yet completed his first mature symphonic work, The Afternoon of a Faun, Debussy conceived Nocturnes in 1894. On September 22, he wrote in a letter: “I am working on three Nocturnes for solo violin and orchestra; the orchestra of the first is represented by strings, the second - by flutes, four horns, three pipes and two harps; the orchestra of the third combines both. In general, this is a search for various combinations that the same color can give, as, for example, in painting a study in gray tones. This letter is addressed to Eugène Ysaye, the famous Belgian violinist, founder of the string quartet, who was the first to play the Debussy Quartet the previous year. In 1896, the composer claimed that the "Nocturnes" were created specifically for Izaya - "the person whom I love and admire ... Only he can perform them. If Apollo himself asked me for them, I would refuse him! However, the next year the idea changes, and for three years Debussy has been working on three "Nocturnes" for a symphony orchestra.
He reports about their completion in a letter dated January 5, 1900, and writes in the same place: “Mademoiselle Lily Texier changed her dissonant name to the much more harmonious Lily Debussy ... She is incredibly blond, beautiful, as in legends, and adds to these gifts that that she is by no means in the “modern style”. She loves music ... only according to her imagination, her favorite song is a round dance, which talks about a little grenadier with a ruddy face and a hat on one side. The composer's wife was a fashion model, the daughter of a minor employee from the provinces, for whom he inflamed a passion in 1898 that almost drove him to suicide the following year, when Rosalie decided to part with him.
The premiere of "Nocturnes", which took place in Paris at the Lamoureux Concerts on December 9, 1900, was not complete: then, under the baton of Camille Chevillard, only "Clouds" and "Festivities" sounded, and "Sirens" joined them a year later, on December 27, 1901 . This practice of separate performance was preserved a century later - the last "Nocturne" (with a choir) sounds much less often.
The Nocturnes program is known from Debussy himself:
The title "Nocturnes" has a more general meaning, and especially a more decorative one. Here the point is not in the usual form of the nocturne, but in everything that this word contains from the impression and sensation of light.
"Clouds" is a motionless image of the sky with gray clouds slowly and melancholy floating and melting; receding, they go out, gently tinted with white light.
"Celebrations" is a movement, a dancing rhythm of the atmosphere with explosions of sudden light, it is also an episode of a procession (dazzling and chimerical vision) passing through the holiday and merging with it; but the background remains all the time - this is a holiday, this is a mixture of music with luminous dust, which is part of the overall rhythm.
“Sirens” is the sea and its infinitely varied rhythm; among the waves silvered by the moon arises, crumbles with laughter and the mysterious singing of the sirens is removed.
At the same time, other author's explanations have been preserved. Regarding Clouds, Debussy told his friends that it was “a look from a bridge at clouds driven by a thunderstorm; the movement of a steamboat along the Seine, the whistle of which is recreated by a short chromatic theme of an English horn. "Celebrations" resurrect "the memory of the former amusements of the people in the Bois de Boulogne, illuminated and flooded with a crowd; the trio of trumpets is the music of the republican guard playing the dawn." According to another version, the impressions of the meeting of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II in 1896 by Parisians are reflected here.
Many parallels arise with the paintings of French Impressionist artists who loved to paint flowing air, the brilliance of sea waves, and the variegation of the festive crowd. The title "Nocturnes" itself originated from the name of the landscapes of the English Pre-Raphaelite artist James Whistler, which the composer became interested in in his younger years, when, after graduating from the conservatory with the Rome Prize, he lived in Italy, at the Villa Medici (1885-1886). This passion continued until the end of his life. The walls of his room were decorated with color reproductions of Whistler's paintings. On the other hand, French critics wrote that the three "Nocturnes" by Debussy are a sound recording of three elements: air, fire and water, or an expression of three states - contemplation, action and rapture.
Music
« Clouds” are painted with thin impressionistic colors of a small orchestra (only horns are used from copper). The unsteady gloomy background is created by the measured swaying of the woodwinds, forming fancy sliding harmonies. The peculiar timbre of the English horn enhances the modal unusualness of the short main motive. The color brightens in the middle section, where the harp enters for the first time. Together with the flute, she leads a pentatonic theme into the octave, as if saturated with air; it is repeated by solo violin, viola, cello. Then the gloomy melody of the English horn returns, echoes of other motives arise - and everything seems to float away into the distance, like melting clouds.
« Festivities» form a sharp contrast - the music is impetuous, full of light and movement. Flight sound of strings and wooden tools interrupted by sonorous exclamations of brass, tremolo timpani and spectacular glissandos of harps. A new picture: on the same dancing background of the stringed oboe leads a fervent theme, picked up by other wind instruments in an octave. Suddenly everything breaks. A procession is approaching from afar (three trumpets with mutes). The hitherto silent snare drum (in the distance) and low brass ones enter, building up to a deafening climax of the tutti. Then light passages of the first theme return, and other motifs flicker, until the sounds of the festival fade away.
IN " Sirens"Again, as in the Clouds, a slow pace prevails, but the mood here is not twilight, but illuminated by light. The surf is quietly splashing, waves are running in, and in this splash one can distinguish the alluring voices of sirens; repeated chords without words of a small group of women's choir complement the sound of the orchestra with another whimsical color. The smallest motifs of two notes vary, grow, intertwine polyphonically. They echo the themes of the previous Nocturnes. In the middle section, the sirens' voices become more insistent, their melody more extended. The variant at the trumpets unexpectedly approaches the theme of the English horn from Clouds, and the similarity is even stronger in the roll call of these instruments. At the end, the singing of the sirens fades, as the clouds melt and the sounds of the festival disappear in the distance.
A. Koenigsberg
Prélude à l "après-midi d" un faune
Orchestra composition: 3 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, antique cymbals, 2 harps, strings.
History of creation
The Afternoon of a Faun is Debussy's first symphonic work, in which his individual impressionist style is perfectly expressed; it is inspired by the eclogue of the same name by Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898). The French poet, the head of the Symbolist school, who united young poets and impressionist artists around him, wrote this long poem on an ancient mythological plot back in 1865-1866 (it was published 10 years later), possibly inspired by a painting by the French artist of the 18th century Boucher from London National Gallery. Mallarme's poetic style - deliberately complex, incomprehensible, allegorical - is distinguished at the same time by the sensual brightness of the images, the elegance of taste, the refined and joyful perception of life. Mallarme himself compared his poetry with music: he strove for his phrases, arranged in a certain way, to poetically affect the reader, like the sounds of music on the listener.
The eclogue "Afternoon of a Faun" was intended for the famous French actor Coquelin Sr. - for recitation, illustrated by dances. Debussy, who got acquainted with the eclogue in 1886, decided to supplement the reading with a three-part composition: prelude, interlude and finale (paraphrase). However, the meaning of the poem was completely exhausted already in the prelude, without requiring continuation. Hearing it for the first time in the author's performance on the piano, Mallarme was delighted: “I did not expect anything like this! This music continues the mood of my poem and complements it more vividly than colors.
The surviving program is probably Debussy's: "The music of this Prelude is a very free illustration of Mallarme's beautiful poem. It by no means claims to be a synthesis of the poem. Rather, these are landscapes following one after another, among which the desires and dreams of a Faun hover in the afternoon heat. Then, exhausted by the pursuit of timidly fleeing nymphs, he gives himself up to a delightful sleep, full of finally realized dreams of the fullness of possession in an all-encompassing nature.
And in a letter written a year after the completion of The Afternoon of a Faun (1894), Debussy explained the principle of his programming in a joking tone: “This is the general impression of the poem, since if you tried to more accurately follow it, the music would choke like a cab horse competing with a purebred for the Grand Prize."
The premiere took place on December 22, 1894 in Paris, in a concert National Society directed by Gustave Doré. As the conductor later recalled, already during the performance he suddenly felt that the listeners were completely captivated by this music, and immediately after the end it was played again. This was Debussy's first real success.
In 1912, to the music of "Afternoon of a Faun" in Parisian theater Chatelet was staged a one-act ballet. The choreographer and performer of the role of the Faun was the famous Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, who did not like the composer at all, who called Nijinsky a young savage and vicious genius.
Music
The flute solo immediately introduces both to the distant world of bright pastoral antiquity and to the world of Debussy's music, it is so typical for the composer. Chromatized sensual melody unfolds in a free improvisational manner in the reed timbres of high woodwind instruments. The glissando of the harps and the roll call of the French horns, the only brass ones used in the prelude, give a special flavor to the music. In the central section, a broader, melodious theme appears, as if illuminated by the sun, in the rich sound of tutti. When she pauses at the solo violin, the flute melody of the flute returns again against the background of the overflowing harp. His exposition is interrupted by brief teasing motifs. The music acquires, according to the author's definition, the character of "even greater languor", the brilliance is enhanced by the inclusion of antique plates. Their pianissimo against the background of harp harmonics and pizzicato of low strings completes the work - as if a beautiful vision has dissolved in a light midday haze.
Already in the first vocal compositions of Debussy, dating back to the late 1870s and early 1880s (“Wonderful Evening” to the words of Paul Bourget and especially “Mandolin” to the words of Paul Verlaine), the originality of his talent was manifested.
Even before graduating from the conservatory, Debussy undertook his first foreign trip to Western Europe at the invitation of the Russian philanthropist N.F. von Meck, who was for many years a close friend of P.I. Tchaikovsky. In 1881 Debussy came to Russia as a pianist to participate in von Meck's home concerts. This first trip to Russia (then he went there two more times - in 1882 and 1913) aroused the composer's great interest in Russian music, which did not weaken until the end of his life.
After three summer seasons, his student Sonya (fifteen years old) turned his head. He asked permission to marry her from her mother - Nadezhda Filaretovna Frolovskaya von Meck ... And he was immediately, very friendly, asked to leave Vienna, where they were at that moment.
When he returned to Paris, it turned out that his heart and his talent were ripe for feelings for Madame Vanier, who defined the type of "the woman of his life": she was older than him, a musician and reigned in an unusually attractive house.
He met her and began to accompany her in the singing courses of Madame Moreau-Sainty, in which Gounod was the chairman.
Since 1883, Debussy began to participate as a composer in competitions for the Grand Prize of Rome. The following year he was awarded her for the cantata " Prodigal son". This essay, written under the influence of the French lyric opera, stands out for the real drama of individual scenes. Debussy's stay in Italy (1885-1887) turned out to be fruitful for him: he got acquainted with the ancient choral Italian music of the 16th century and at the same time with the work of Wagner.
At the same time, the period of Debussy's stay in Italy was marked by a sharp clash with the official artistic circles of France. The reports of the laureates before the academy were presented in the form of works that were considered in Paris by a special jury. Reviews of the composer's works - the symphonic ode "Zuleima", the symphonic suite "Spring" and the cantata "The Chosen One" - this time discovered an insurmountable gap between Debussy's innovative aspirations and the inertia that reigned in the largest artistic institution France. Debussy clearly expressed his desire for innovation in a letter to a friend in Paris: “I can’t close my music in too correct frames ... I want to work to create an original work, and not fall all the time on the same paths .. .” Upon his return from Italy to Paris, Debussy finally breaks with the academy. By that time, feelings for Madame Vanier had cooled considerably.
The desire to get closer to new trends in art, the desire to expand their connections and acquaintances in the art world led Debussy back in the late 1880s to the salon of a major French poet of the late 19th century and the ideological leader of the Symbolists - Stefan Mallarmé. Here Debussy met writers and poets, whose works formed the basis of many of his vocal compositions, created in the 1880s and 1890s. Among them stand out: "Mandolin", "Arietta", "Belgian landscapes", "Watercolors", "Moonlight" to the words of Paul Verlaine, "Songs of Bilitis" to the words of Pierre Louis, "Five Poems" to the words of the greatest French poet 1850- 1860s by Charles Baudelaire (especially Balcony, Evening Harmonies, At the Fountain) and others.
The clear preference given vocal music in the first period of creativity, is largely due to the composer's passion for symbolist poetry. However, in most of the works of these years, Debussy tries to avoid both symbolist uncertainty and understatement in expressing his thoughts.
The 1890s - the first period of Debussy's creative flourishing in the field of not only vocal, but also piano ("Bergamas Suite", "Little Suite" for piano four hands), chamber-instrumental (string quartet) and especially symphonic music. At this time, two of the most significant symphonic works- Prelude "Afternoon of a Faun" and "Nocturnes".
The prelude "Afternoon of a Faun" was written on the basis of a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé in 1892. Mallarme's work attracted the composer primarily by the bright picturesqueness of a mythological creature dreaming on a hot day about beautiful nymphs.
In the prelude, as in Mallarmé's poem, there is no developed plot, no dynamic development of the action. At the heart of the composition lies, in essence, one melodic image of "languor", built on "creeping" chromatic intonations. Debussy uses for his orchestral incarnation almost all the time the same specific instrumental timbre - a flute in a low register.
The entire symphonic development of the prelude comes down to varying the texture of the presentation of the theme and its orchestration. The static development is justified by the nature of the image itself.
The features of Debussy's mature style appeared in this work primarily in the orchestration. The extreme differentiation of orchestral groups and parts of individual instruments within groups makes it possible to combine orchestral colors and create the finest nuances. Many of the achievements of orchestral writing in this work later became typical of most of Debussy's symphonic works.
Only after the performance of "Faun" in 1894 did Debussy the composer speak in wide musical circles in Paris. But the isolation and certain limitations of the artistic environment to which Debussy belonged, as well as the original style of his compositions, prevented the composer's music from appearing on the concert stage.
Even such an outstanding symphonic work by Debussy as the Nocturnes cycle, created in 1897-1899, was received with restraint. In "Nocturnes" Debussy's desire for life-real artistic images was manifested. For the first time in Debussy's symphonic work, a lively genre painting (the second part of the Nocturnes - "Celebrations") and images of nature rich in colors (the first part - "Clouds") received a vivid musical embodiment.
During the 1890s, Debussy worked on his only completed opera, Pelléas et Mélisande. The composer was looking for a plot close to him for a long time and finally settled on the drama of the Belgian symbolist writer Maurice Maeterlinck "Pelléas et Mélisande". The plot of this work attracted Debussy, in his words, by the fact that in it "the characters do not argue, but endure life and fate." The abundance of subtext made it possible for the composer to fulfill his motto: "Music begins where the word is powerless."
Debussy preserved in the opera one of the main features of many of Maeterlinck's dramas - the fatal doom of the characters before the inevitable fatal denouement, a person's disbelief in his own happiness. Debussy, to a certain extent, managed to soften the hopelessly pessimistic tone of the drama with subtle and restrained lyricism, sincerity and truthfulness in the musical embodiment of the real tragedy of love and jealousy.
The novelty of the style of the opera is largely due to the fact that it is written in prose text. The vocal parts of Debussy's opera embody the subtle nuances of colloquial French speech. The melodic development of the opera is an expressive melodious-declamatory line. There is no significant emotional upsurge in the melodic line even in the dramatic climactic episodes of the opera. There are a number of scenes in the opera in which Debussy managed to convey a complex and rich range of human experiences: the scene with the ring by the fountain in the second act, the scene with Mélisande's hair in the third, the scene at the fountain in the fourth and the scene of Mélisande's death in the fifth act.
The premiere of the opera took place on April 30, 1902 at the theater " Comic Opera". Despite the magnificent performance, the opera did not have real success with a wide audience. Criticism was generally unfriendly and allowed itself sharp and rude attacks after the first performances. Only a few major musicians have appreciated the merits of this work.
By the time Pelléas was staged, significant events were taking place in Debussy's life. On October 19, 1899, he marries Lily Texier. Their union will last only five years. And in 1901, he began his career as a professional music critic. This contributed to the formation of Debussy's aesthetic views, his artistic criteria. His aesthetic principles and views are extremely clearly expressed in Debussy's articles and book. He sees the source of music in nature: "Music is closest to nature ..." "Only musicians have the privilege of embracing the poetry of night and day, earth and sky - recreating the atmosphere and rhythm of the majestic trembling of nature."
Debussy's style was strongly influenced by the work of major Russian composers - Borodin, Balakirev, and especially Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. Debussy was most impressed by the brilliance and picturesqueness of Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestral writing.
But Debussy perceived only certain aspects of the style and method of the greatest Russian artists. He was alien to the democratic and social accusatory tendencies in Mussorgsky's work. Debussy was far from the deeply humane and philosophically significant plots of Rimsky-Korsakov's operas, from the constant and inseparable connection between the work of these composers and folk origins.
In 1905 Debussy married a second time. She was the same age as Claude Achille, married to Sigismund Bardak, a Parisian banker. “Madame Bardak had the seductiveness of some secular women at the beginning of the century,” wrote one of her friends about her.
Debussy studied composition with her son and soon accompanied Madame Bardac, who performed his romances. “This is a languid ecstasy”... and at the same time it is a lightning strike with all its consequences. Soon they have a lovely girl, Claude - Emme.
The beginning of the century is the highest stage in the creative activity of the composer. The works created by Debussy during this period speak of new trends in creativity and, first of all, Debussy's departure from the aesthetics of symbolism. More and more the composer is attracted by genre scenes, musical portraits and pictures of nature. Along with new themes and plots, features of a new style appear in his work. Evidence of this are piano works, as "An Evening in Grenada" (1902), "Gardens in the Rain" (1902), "Isle of Joy" (1904). In these works, Debussy finds a strong connection with the national origins of music.
Among the symphonic compositions created by Debussy during these years, the "Sea" (1903-1905) and "Images" (1909) stand out, which includes the famous "Iberia".
The timbre orchestral palette, modal originality and other features of "Iberia" delighted many composers. “Debussy, who did not really know Spain, spontaneously, I would say, unconsciously created Spanish music that could arouse the envy of so many others, who know the country good enough..." - wrote the famous Spanish composer Falla. He believed that if Claude Debussy "used Spain as a basis for revealing one of the most beautiful facets of his work, then he paid for it so generously that now Spain is in his debt."
“If, among all the works of Debussy,” said the composer Honegger, “I had to choose one score so that someone who was completely unfamiliar with it before could get an idea of \u200b\u200bhis music using its examples, I would take the triptych“ Sea ”for this purpose. . This, in my opinion, is the most typical work, in it the individuality of the author is imprinted with the greatest completeness. Whether the music itself is good or bad is the whole point of the question. And Debussy is brilliant. Everything in his "Sea" is inspired: everything down to the smallest orchestration strokes - any note, any timbre - everything is thought out, felt and contributes to the emotional animation that this sound fabric is full of. "Sea" is a true miracle of impressionist art... "
The last decade in Debussy's life is distinguished by unceasing creative and performing activity until the outbreak of the First World War. Concert trips as a conductor to Austria-Hungary brought the composer fame abroad. It was especially warmly received in Russia in 1913. Concerts in St. Petersburg and Moscow were a great success. Debussy's personal contact with many Russian musicians further strengthened his attachment to Russian musical culture.
Especially great are the artistic achievements of Debussy in the last decade of his life in piano work: "Children's Corner" (1906-1908), "Toy Box" (1910), twenty-four preludes (1910 and 1913), "Six Antique Epigraphs" in four hands (1914), twelve studies (1915).
The piano suite "Children's Corner" is dedicated to Debussy's daughter. The desire to reveal in music the world through the eyes of a child in the images familiar to him - strict teacher, puppets, a little shepherd, a toy elephant - makes Debussy widely use both everyday dance and song genres, and professional music genres in a grotesque, caricatured form.
Debussy's twelve études are connected with his lengthy experiments in the field of piano style, the search for new types of technique and means of expression. But even in these works, he strives to solve not only purely virtuoso, but also sound problems.
Two notebooks of his preludes for piano should be considered a worthy conclusion to the whole creative path of Debussy. Here, as it were, the most characteristic and typical aspects of the artistic worldview are concentrated, creative method and composer's style. The cycle essentially completed the development of this genre in Western European music, the most significant phenomena of which have so far been the preludes of Bach and Chopin.
In Debussy this genre sums up his creative way and is a kind of encyclopedia of all the most characteristic and typical in the field of musical content, the circle of poetic images and the style of the composer.
The beginning of the war caused Debussy to rise in patriotic feelings. In printed statements, he emphatically calls himself: "Claude Debussy - French musician." Whole line works of these years inspired by patriotism. His main task .. he considered the chanting of beauty as opposed to the terrible acts of war, crippling the bodies and souls of people, destroying the values of culture. Debussy was deeply depressed by the war. Since 1915, the composer was seriously ill, which also affected his work. Until the last days of his life - he died on March 26, 1918 during the bombing of Paris by the Germans - despite a serious illness, Debussy did not stop his creative search.
Musical Impressionism has as its forerunner, above all, Impressionism in french painting. They have not only common roots, but also cause-and-effect relationships. And the main impressionist in music, Claude Debussy, and especially Eric Satie, his friend and predecessor on this path, and Maurice Ravel, who took over from Debussy, looked for and found not only analogies, but also means of expression in the works of Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Puvis de Chavannes and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
The term “impressionism” itself in relation to music is emphatically conditional and speculative (in particular, Claude Debussy himself repeatedly objected to it, however, without offering anything definite in return). It is clear that the means of painting, associated with vision and the means of musical art, based mostly on hearing, can be connected with each other only with the help of special, subtle associative parallels that exist only in the mind. Simply put, the vague image of Paris "in the autumn rain" and the same sounds, "muffled by the noise of falling drops" in themselves have the property of an artistic image, but not a real mechanism. Direct analogies between the means of painting and music are possible only through composer's personality who experienced the personal influence of artists or their paintings. If an artist or composer denies or does not recognize such connections, then it becomes at least difficult to talk about them. However, we have confessions as an important artifact and, (which is the most important) the works of the main characters of musical impressionism themselves. It was Erik Satie who expressed this idea more clearly than the rest, constantly focusing on how much he owes to artists in his work. He attracted Debussy to himself with the originality of his thinking, independent, rude character and caustic wit, which did not spare any authorities at all. Also, Satie interested Debussy with his innovative piano and vocal compositions, written in a bold, though not entirely professional hand. Here, below are the words with which in 1891 Satie addressed his newly found friend, Debussy, prompting him to move on to the formation of a new style:
Puvis de Chavannes (1879) "Girls on the Seashore" (favorite picture of Sati in his youth)
When I met Debussy, he was full of Mussorgsky and persistently looked for ways that are not so easy to find. In this regard, I have long outdone him. I was not burdened by either the Roman Prize or any others, for I was like Adam (from Paradise), who never received any prizes - definitely lazy!…
At that time I was writing The Son of the Stars to a libretto by Péladan and explaining to Debussy the need for the Frenchman to free himself from the influence of Wagnerian principles, which do not correspond to our natural aspirations. I also said that although I am by no means an anti-Wagnerist, I still think that we should have our own music and, if possible, without "German sour cabbage". But why not use the same visual means for these purposes that we see in Claude Monet, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and others? Why not transfer these funds to music? There is nothing easier. Isn't that what real expressiveness is?
- (Erik Satie, "Claude Debussy", Paris, 1923).
But if Satie derived his transparent and stingy impressionism from the symbolic painting of Puvis de Chavannes, then Debussy (through the same Satie) experienced the creative influence of the more radical impressionists, Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro.
It is enough just to list the names of the most striking works of Debussy or Ravel to get a complete picture of the impact on their work of both visual images and landscapes of impressionist artists. So, in the first ten years Debussy wrote "Clouds", "Prints" (the most figurative of which, a watercolor sound sketch - "Gardens in the rain"), "Images" (the first of which, one of the masterpieces of piano impressionism, "Reflections on the water ", evokes direct associations with the famous painting by Claude Monet "Impression: Sunrise")… By famous expression Mallarme, impressionist composers studied "hear the light", convey in sounds the movement of water, the fluctuation of foliage, the breath of the wind and the refraction of the sun's rays in the evening air. The symphonic suite "The Sea from Dawn to Noon" adequately sums up Debussy's landscape sketches.
Despite his often advertised personal rejection of the term "impressionism", Claude Debussy has repeatedly spoken out as a true impressionist artist. So, speaking of the earliest of his famous orchestral works, Nocturnes, Debussy admitted that the idea of the first of them (Clouds) came to his mind on one of the cloudy days when he looked at the Seine from the Pont de la Concorde ... Well As for the procession in the second part (“Celebrations”), this idea was born by Debussy: “... while contemplating the equestrian detachment of soldiers of the Republican Guard passing in the distance, whose helmets sparkled under the rays of the setting sun ... in clouds of golden dust” . Similarly, the works of Maurice Ravel can serve as a kind of material evidence of direct links from painting to music that existed within the Impressionist movement. The famous sound-visual "Play of water", the cycle of pieces "Reflections", the piano collection "Rustle of the Night" - this list is far from complete and can be continued. Sati stands somewhat apart, as always, one of the works that can be called in this regard is, perhaps, “The Heroic Prelude to the Gates of Heaven”.
The surrounding world in the music of impressionism is revealed through a magnifying glass of subtle psychological reflections, subtle sensations born from the contemplation of minor changes taking place around. These features make Impressionism related to another artistic movement that existed in parallel - literary symbolism. Eric Satie was the first to turn to the works of Josephine Péladan. A little later, the work of Verlaine, Mallarme, Louis and especially Maeterlinck found direct implementation in the music of Debussy, Ravel and some of their followers.
Ramon Casas (1891) "Money Mill" (Impressionist painting with the figure of Satie)
Despite the obvious novelty of the musical language, impressionism often recreates some expressive techniques characteristic of the art of the previous time, in particular, the music of French harpsichordists of the 18th century, the Rococo era. One need only recall such famous pictorial plays by Couperin and Rameau as "Little Windmills" or "The Hen".
In the 1880s, before meeting Eric Satie and his work, Debussy was fascinated by the work of Richard Wagner and was completely in the wake of his musical aesthetics. After meeting Satie and from the moment of creating his first impressionistic opuses, Debussy moved with surprising sharpness to the positions of militant anti-Wagnerism. This transition was so sudden and abrupt that one of Debussy's close friends (and biographer), the famous musicologist Émile Vuyermeaux, directly expressed his bewilderment:
Debussy's anti-Wagnerism is devoid of grandeur and nobility. It is impossible to understand how a young musician, whose whole youth is intoxicated with the intoxication of Tristan, and who, in the formation of his language, in the discovery of an endless melody, undoubtedly owes so much to this innovative score, contemptuously ridicules the genius who gave him so much!
- (Emile Vuillermoz, “Claude Debussy”, Geneve, 1957.)
At the same time, Vuyermeaux, internally connected by relations of personal hostility and enmity with Eric Satie, did not specifically mention him and released him as the missing link in the creation complete picture. Indeed, French art at the end of the 19th century, crushed by Wagnerian musical dramas, asserted itself through impressionism. For a long time, it was precisely this circumstance (and the nationalism that grew between the three wars with Germany) that made it difficult to talk about the direct influence of Richard's style and aesthetics.
The second "nocturne" - "Celebrations" - stands out among other works of Debussy with a bright genre flavor. In an effort to bring the music of "Celebrations" closer to a live scene from folk life the composer turned to everyday musical genres. It is on the contrasting opposition of the two main musical images - dance and march - that the three-part composition "Celebrations" is built (unlike "Clouds").
The gradual and dynamic deployment of these images gives the composition a more specific programmatic meaning. The composer writes in the preface: “Celebrations” is a movement, a dancing rhythm of the atmosphere with explosions of sudden light, it is also an episode of a procession (a dazzling and chimerical vision) passing through the holiday and merging with it; but the background remains all the time - this is a holiday; it is a mixture of music with luminous dust, which is part of the overall rhythm.
From the very first measures, a feeling of festivity is created by a springy energetic rhythm: (which is a kind of rhythmic skeleton of the entire second part of the Nocturnes), the characteristic quarto-fifth consonances of the violins on ff in a high register, which give a bright sunny color to the beginning of the movement.
Against this colorful background, the main theme of the first part of "Celebrations" appears, reminiscent of a tarantella. Its melody is built on stepwise movement with numerous reference sounds, but the triplet rhythm typical of the tarantella and fast tempo give lightness and swiftness to the movement of the theme:
In its disclosure, Debussy does not use the techniques of melodic development (the rhythm and outlines of the theme almost do not change throughout the movement), but instead resorts to a kind of variation, in which each subsequent implementation of the theme is entrusted to new instruments, accompanied by a different harmonic coloring.
The composer's predilection for "pure" timbres this time gives way to subtly mixed orchestral colors (the sound of the theme at the English horn with clarinet is replaced by its strumming at flutes with oboes, then at cellos with bassoons). In harmonic accompaniment, major triads of distant tonalities and chains of non-chords appear (resembling a densely superimposed brushstroke on a painting canvas). In one of the performances of the theme, its melodic pattern is based on the whole-tone scale, which gives it a new modal shade (augmented mode), often used by Debussy in combination with major and minor.
Throughout the first part of "Celebrations" episodic musical images(for example, for an oboe on two sounds - la And before). But one of them, intonationally related to the tarantella and at the same time contrasting figuratively and rhythmically with it, by the end of the movement gradually begins to occupy an increasingly dominant position. The clear punctuated rhythm of the new theme gives the entire final section of the first part of "Celebrations" a dynamic and strong-willed character:
Debussy entrusts almost all the implementation of this theme to woodwind instruments, but at the end of the first part, the string group of the orchestra enters, which until now has mainly performed the role of accompaniment. Her introduction gives the new image a significant expression and prepares the culminating episode of the entire first part.
Rare for Debussy, a long increase in dynamics at the end of the first part of the "Celebrations", achieved by the gradual connection of all new instruments (except brass and percussion), an increasing whirlwind movement, creates the impression of a spontaneously emerging mass dance.
It is interesting to note that at the moment of climax, the triplet rhythm and the intonational core of the first theme, the tarantella, again dominate. But this top episode of the whole musical picture the first movement ends somewhat impressionistically. The feeling of a clearly expressed completion of the part is not created. It flows directly, without caesuras, into the middle section of the Feasts.
The greatest, almost theatrical contrast (extremely rare in Debussy) lies in the Nocturnes precisely in the abrupt transition to the second part of the Festivities - the march. The impetuous movement of the tarantella is replaced by a measured and slowly moving ostinato fifth bass in a marching rhythm. The main theme of the march sounds for the first time at three trumpets with mutes (as if behind the scenes):
The effect of a gradually approaching "procession" is created by an increase in sonority and a change in orchestral
presentation and harmony. The orchestration of this part of the "Nocturnes" involves new instruments - trumpets, trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, cymbals - and a much more consistent and strict logic of orchestral development prevails than in "Clouds" (the theme is performed first by trumpets with mutes, then by the entire a group of woodwinds and, at the culmination, trumpets with trombones).
This whole part of the "Celebrations" is distinguished by a harmonic development surprising for Debussy in tension and integrity (centered around the keys of D-flat major and A major). It is created by the long-term accumulation of modal instability with the help of numerous elliptical revolutions, sustained over a long period of the organ point and the long absence of the tonic of the main key.
In the harmonic coverage of the theme of the march, Debussy uses rich colors: chains of seventh chords and their appeals in various keys, which include the ostinato bass A-flat or sol-sharp.
At the moment of the culminating development of the middle part of the “Celebrations”, when the theme of the march is grandiose and solemn. trumpets and trombones are accompanied by timpani, military drums and cymbals; string instruments have a tarantella in the form of a kind of polyphonic undertone. The procession gradually takes on the character of a festive celebration, sparkling fun, and suddenly, just as unexpectedly as it was during the transition to the middle part, the development abruptly stops, and again one tarantella theme, soft in its outlines and sonority of two flutes, sounds.
From the moment of its appearance, intensive preparation of the reprise begins, during which the theme of the tarantella gradually replaces the march. Its sonority grows, the harmonic accompaniment becomes richer and more diverse (including nonchords of different keys). Even the theme of the march, having appeared at the trumpets at the moment of the second climax of the middle movement, acquires a ramming (rapid) rhythm. Now all the prerequisites have been created for the beginning of the third, reprise part of "Celebrations".
This section of the form, just like in "The Clouds", contains almost all the melodic images of the part of the cycle and is extremely compressed. The reprise, together with the coda, creates the composer's favorite effect of "deleting" the procession. Almost all the themes of "Celebrations" pass here, but only as echoes. The main themes of "Celebrations" - the tarantella and the march - undergo especially great changes at the end of the movement. The first of them, towards the end of the coda, reminds of itself only with individual intonations and the triplet accompaniment rhythm of cellos with double basses, and the second with the march rhythm beaten out by a military drum on pp and short tertsovy trumpets with mutes, sounding like a distant signal.
Sirens
The third "nocturne" - " Sirens”- is close in poetic design to “Clouds”. In the literary explanation to it, only picturesque landscape motifs and the element introduced into them are revealed. fairy tale fiction(this combination vaguely resembles the "Sunken Cathedral"): "Sirens" is the sea and its infinitely diverse rhythm; among the waves silvered by the moon arises, crumbles with laughter and the mysterious singing of the sirens is removed.
All the composer's creative imagination in this picture is directed not at creating a bright melodic image that would form the basis of the entire movement or its section, but at an attempt to convey by means of music the richest lighting effects and combinations of color combinations that arise at sea under various lighting conditions.
The third "nocturne" is just as static in its presentation and development as "Clouds". The lack of bright and contrasting melodic images in it is partly made up for by the coloristic instrumentation, in which the female choir (eight sopranos and eight mezzo-sopranos) participates, singing with their mouths closed. This peculiar and amazingly beautiful timbre is used by the composer throughout the entire movement, not so much as a melodic function, but as a harmonic and orchestral "background" (similar to the use string group in the clouds"). But this new, unusual orchestral color plays the main expressive role here in creating an illusory, fantastic image of the sirens, whose singing comes as if from the depths of a calm sea shimmering with infinitely varied shades.
Impressionism in music
At the end of the 19th century, a new trend appeared in France, called "impressionism". This word, translated from French, means "impression". Impressionism arose among artists.
In the 70s, various Parisian exhibitions appeared original paintings C. Monet, C. Pissarro, E. Degas, O. Renoir, A. Sisley. Their art differed sharply from the smooth and faceless works of academic painters.
The Impressionists came out of their workshops into the free air, learned to reproduce the play of the living colors of nature, the sparkle of the sun's rays, the multi-colored glare on the water surface, the diversity of the festive crowd. They used a special technique of spots-strokes, which seemed chaotic up close, and at a distance gave rise to a real feeling of a lively play of colors. The freshness of an instant impression in their canvases was combined with the subtlety of psychological moods.
Later, in the 80s and 90s, the ideas of impressionism found expression in French music. Two composers - C. Debussy and M. Ravel - most clearly represent impressionism in music. In their piano and orchestral sketch pieces, the sensations caused by the contemplation of nature are expressed with particular novelty. The sound of the sea surf, the splashing of the stream, the rustle of the forest, the morning chirping of birds merge in their works with the personal experiences of the musician-poet, in love with the beauty of the surrounding world.
Achille-Claude Debussy is considered the founder of musical impressionism, who enriched all aspects of composing skills - harmony, melody, orchestration, form. At the same time, he embraced the ideas of the new French painting and poetry.
Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy is one of the most significant French composers who influenced the development of the music of the 20th century, both classical and jazz.
Debussy lived and worked in Paris, when this city was the Mecca of the intellectual and artistic world. The composer's captivating and colorful music greatly contributed to the development of French art.
Biography
Achille-Claude Debussy was born in 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a little west of Paris. His father Manuel was a peaceful shop owner, but, having moved to a big city, he plunged into the dramatic events of 1870-1871, when, as a result of Franco-Prussian War there was an uprising against the government. Manuel joined the rebels and was imprisoned. In the meantime, the young Claude began taking lessons from Madame Mote de Fleurville and secured a position at the Paris Conservatoire.
New trend in music
Having gone through such a bitter experience, Debussy proved himself to be one of the most talented students of the Paris Conservatory. Debussy was also a so-called "revolutionary", often shocking teachers with his new ideas about harmony and form. For the same reasons, he was a great admirer of the work of the great Russian composer Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky - a hater of routine, for whom there were no authorities in music, and he paid little attention to the rules of musical grammar and was looking for his new musical style.
During the years of study at the Paris Conservatory, Debussy met Nadezhda von Meck, a famous Russian millionaire and philanthropist, a close friend of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, at whose invitation in 1879 he made his first trip abroad in Western Europe. Together with von Meck they visited Florence, Venice, Rome and Vienna. After traveling through Europe, Debussy made his first trip to Russia, where he performed at "home concerts" by von Meck. Here he first learned the work of such great composers as Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky. Returning to Paris, Debussy continued his studies at the conservatory.
Soon he received the long-awaited Prix de Rome for the cantata The Prodigal Son and studied in the capital of Italy for two years. There he met Liszt and heard Wagner's opera for the first time. At the 1889 World's Fair in Paris, the sounds of the Javanese gamelan piqued his interest in exotic music. This music was insanely far from the Western tradition. The Eastern pentatonic scale, or scale of five steps, which differs from the scale adopted in Western music, all attracted Debussy. From this unusual source, he drew a lot, creating his amazing and wonderful new musical language.
These and other experiences shaped Debussy's own style. Two key works: The Afternoon of a Faun, written in 1894, and the opera Pelléas et Melisande (1902), were proof of his full maturity as a composer and opened a new trend in music.
constellation of talents
Paris in the early years of the 20th century was a haven for cubist artists and symbolist poets, and the Diaghilev Ballets Russes attracted a whole constellation of brilliant composers, costume designers, decorators, dancers and choreographers. This is the dancer-choreographer Vatslav Nijinsky, the famous Russian bass Fyodor Chaliapin, the composer Igor Stravinsky.
In this world, there was a place for Debussy. His amazing symphonic sketches "The Sea", his most wonderful notebooks of preludes and notebooks "Images" for piano, his songs and romances - all this speaks of the extraordinary originality that distinguishes his work from other composers.
After stormy youth and first marriage, in 1904 he married the singer Emma Bardak and became the father of a daughter, Claude-Emma (Shusha), whom he adored.
twist of fate
The infinitely gentle and refined musical style of Debussy was formed for a long time. He was already in his thirties when he completed his first significant work, the prelude The Afternoon of a Faun, inspired by a poem by his friend, the Symbolist writer Stéphane Mallarmé. The work was first performed in Paris in 1894. During rehearsals, Debussy constantly made changes to the score, and after the first performance, he probably had a lot of work to do.
Gaining fame
Despite all the difficulties and the fact that the prelude was performed at the end of a long and tedious program, the audience felt that they were hearing something amazingly new in terms of form, harmony and instrumental color, and immediately called for an encore of the piece. From that moment on, the name of the composer Debussy became known to everyone.
Obscene satyr
In 1912, the great Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev decided to show a ballet to the music of The Afternoon of a Faun, choreographed and performed by the famous Vaslav Nijinsky. The erotic depiction of the image of a faun, or satire, caused some scandal in society. Debussy, by nature a closed and modest person, was angry and embarrassed by what had happened. But all this only added glory to the work, which put it at the forefront of composers. contemporary music, and ballet won a firm place in the world classical repertoire.
With the start of the war
The intellectual life of Paris was shaken by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. By that time, Debussy was already seriously ill with cancer. But he was still creating a new outstanding music such as piano etudes. The beginning of the war caused an upsurge of patriotic feelings in Debussy, in the press he emphatically called himself a "French musician". He died in Paris in 1918 during the bombardment of the city by the Germans, just a few months before the final Allied victory.
Sounds of music
Nocturne (nocturne), translated from French - night.
In the XVIII century. - a cycle of small pieces (a kind of suite) for an ensemble of wind instruments or in combination with strings. They were performed in the evening, at night in the open air (like a serenade). Such are the nocturnes of W. Mozart, Michael Haydn.
From the nineteenth century - a musical piece of a melodious, mostly lyrical, dreamy nature, as if inspired by the silence of the night, night images. The nocturne is written at a slow or moderate tempo. The middle section sometimes contrasts with its more lively tempo and agitated character. The genre of nocturne as a piano piece was created by Field (his first nocturnes were published in 1814). This genre was widely developed by F. Chopin. Nocturne is also written for other instruments, as well as for an ensemble, an orchestra. The nocturne is also found in vocal music.
"Nocturnes"
Debussy completed three symphonic works, collectively called Nocturnes, at the very beginning of the 20th century. He borrowed the name from the artist James McNeill Whistler, of whom he was a fan. Some engravings and paintings by the artist were just called "nocturnes".
In this music, the composer acted as a true impressionist, who was looking for special sound means, methods of development, orchestration to convey the immediate sensations caused by the contemplation of nature, the emotional states of people.
The composer himself, in an explanation to the Nocturnes suite, wrote that this name has a purely “decorative” meaning: “We are not talking about the usual form of a nocturne, but about everything that this word contains, from impressions to special light sensations.” Debussy once admitted that the natural impetus for the creation of the Nocturnes was his own impressions of contemporary Paris.
The suite has three parts - "Clouds", "Celebrations", "Sirens". Each part of the suite has its own program written by the composer.
"Clouds"
The triptych "Nocturnes" opens with the orchestral piece "Clouds". The idea to name the composer's work in this way was inspired not only by the real clouds that he observed while standing on one of the Parisian bridges, but also by Turner's album, consisting of seventy-nine cloud studies. In them, the artist conveyed the most diverse shades of the cloudy sky. The sketches sounded like music, shimmering with the most unexpected, subtle combinations of colors. All this came to life in the music of Claude Debussy.
“Clouds,” the composer explained, “is a picture of a motionless sky with slowly and melancholy passing clouds, floating away in gray agony, gently tinted with white light.”
Listening to "Clouds" by Debussy, we seem to find ourselves elevated above the river and look at the monotonously dull overcast sky. But in this monotony there is a mass of colors, shades, overflows, instant changes.
Debussy wanted to reflect in the music "the slow and solemn march of the clouds across the sky". The winding theme on the woodwinds paints a beautiful but melancholy picture of the sky. Viola, flute, harp and cor anglais - a deeper and darker relative of the oboe in timbre - all instruments add their own timbre coloring to the overall picture. Music in dynamics only slightly exceeds the piano and, in the end, completely dissolves, as if clouds disappear in the sky.
"Celebrations"
The calm sounds of the first part are replaced by a feast of colors of the next play "Celebrations".
The play is built by the composer as a scene in which two musical genre- dance and march. In the preface to it, the composer writes: “Celebrations” is a movement, a dancing rhythm of the atmosphere with explosions of sudden light, it is also an episode of a procession ... passing through a holiday and merging with it, but the background remains all the time - this is a holiday ... this is a mixture music with luminous dust, which is part of the overall rhythm. The connection between painting and music was obvious.
The bright picturesqueness of the literary program is reflected in the picturesque music of "Celebrations". Listeners are immersed in a world full of sound contrasts, intricate harmonies, and the playing of instrumental timbres of the orchestra. The mastery of the composer is manifested in his amazing gift of symphonic development.
Festivities” are filled with dazzling orchestral colors. The bright rhythmic introduction of the strings paints a lively picture of the holiday. In the middle part, the approach of the parade is heard, accompanied by brass and woodwinds, then the sound of the entire orchestra gradually grows and pours into a culmination. But now this moment disappears, the excitement passes, and we hear only a slight whisper of the last sounds of the melody.
In "Celebrations" he depicted pictures of folk amusements in the Bois de Boulogne.
"Sirens"
The third piece of the triptych "Nocturnes" - "Sirens", for orchestra with women's choir.
“This is the sea and its countless rhythms,” the composer himself revealed the program, “then, in the midst of the waves, silvered by the moon, the mysterious singing of the Sirens arises, crumbles with laughter and subsides.”
Many poetic lines are devoted to these mythical creatures - birds with the heads of beautiful girls. Even Homer described them in his immortal Odyssey.
With bewitching voices, sirens lured travelers to the island, and their ships perished on coastal reefs, and now we can hear their singing. The female choir sings - sings with closed mouths. There are no words - only sounds, as if born by the play of waves, floating in the air, disappearing as soon as they arise, and reborn again. Not even melodies, but only a hint of them, like strokes on the canvases of impressionist artists. And as a result, these sound spangles merge into a colorful harmony, where there is nothing superfluous, accidental.
