Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
This seminal composition was inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem L’après-midi d’un faune, the word Prélude being added to the title by Debussy because he intended that the piece should become the first movement of a three-part suite. The other two parts were never written but the title remained. Debussy’s own description cannot be bettered:
The music of this prelude is a very free illustration of Mallarmé's beautiful poem. By no means does it claim to be a synthesis of it. Rather there is a succession of scenes through which pass the desires and dreams of the faun in the heat of the afternoon. Then, tired of pursuing the timorous flight of nymphs and naiads, he succumbs to intoxicating sleep, in which he can finally realise his dreams of possession in universal Nature.
But Paul Valéry reported:
(Mallarmé) believed that his own music (i.e. poetry) was sufficient, and that even with the best intentions in the world, it was a veritable crime as far as poetry was concerned to juxtapose poetry and music, even if it were the finest music there is.
Mallarmé clearly changed his mind. After hearing the Prélude, he wrote to Debussy:
I have just come out of the concert, deeply moved. The marvel! Your illustration of the Afternoon of a Faun, which presents a dissonance with my text only by going much further, really, into nostalgia and into light, with finesse, with sensuality, with richness. I press your hand admiringly, Debussy. Yours, Mallarmé.
For any sensitive and perceptive listener, the music is beautifully evocative and finely painted. The almost pointillist detail is a source of delight and wonder. However, this Prélude is more than that. It has been described as the turning point between romantic and modern music. Many compositional devices are used artlessly and with total conviction. The non-specialist may be uncertain as to what a ‘whole-tone’ scale is, where ‘atonality’ begins or ends, how ‘polytonality’ works, or what one might do with a ‘tritone’. These features of the music place it in a new world where the prevailing certainties of key and metre are thrown into doubt. And yet it presents no barrier to understanding or delight. Alex Ross, is his gripping book on 20th century music, The Rest is Noise, draws attention to the sheer sensuousness, indeed sexuality, of this music. In the ballet version, danced by Vaslav Nijinsky in 1912, an unmistakable depiction of its eroticism caused deep offence and outrage among Parisian audiences.
The influence that this single short piece exerted over nearly all musical innovation in the first half of the 20th century is incalculable, and even extends to a long bar of total silence, soon after the opening. Could this be the inspiration for John Cage’s 4’33"?
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
This seminal composition was inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem L’après-midi d’un faune, the word Prélude being added to the title by Debussy because he intended that the piece should become the first movement of a three-part suite. The other two parts were never written but the title remained. Debussy’s own description cannot be bettered:
The music of this prelude is a very free illustration of Mallarmé's beautiful poem. By no means does it claim to be a synthesis of it. Rather there is a succession of scenes through which pass the desires and dreams of the faun in the heat of the afternoon. Then, tired of pursuing the timorous flight of nymphs and naiads, he succumbs to intoxicating sleep, in which he can finally realise his dreams of possession in universal Nature.
But Paul Valéry reported:
(Mallarmé) believed that his own music (i.e. poetry) was sufficient, and that even with the best intentions in the world, it was a veritable crime as far as poetry was concerned to juxtapose poetry and music, even if it were the finest music there is.
Mallarmé clearly changed his mind. After hearing the Prélude, he wrote to Debussy:
I have just come out of the concert, deeply moved. The marvel! Your illustration of the Afternoon of a Faun, which presents a dissonance with my text only by going much further, really, into nostalgia and into light, with finesse, with sensuality, with richness. I press your hand admiringly, Debussy. Yours, Mallarmé.
For any sensitive and perceptive listener, the music is beautifully evocative and finely painted. The almost pointillist detail is a source of delight and wonder. However, this Prélude is more than that. It has been described as the turning point between romantic and modern music. Many compositional devices are used artlessly and with total conviction. The non-specialist may be uncertain as to what a ‘whole-tone’ scale is, where ‘atonality’ begins or ends, how ‘polytonality’ works, or what one might do with a ‘tritone’. These features of the music place it in a new world where the prevailing certainties of key and metre are thrown into doubt. And yet it presents no barrier to understanding or delight. Alex Ross, is his gripping book on 20th century music, The Rest is Noise, draws attention to the sheer sensuousness, indeed sexuality, of this music. In the ballet version, danced by Vaslav Nijinsky in 1912, an unmistakable depiction of its eroticism caused deep offence and outrage among Parisian audiences.
The influence that this single short piece exerted over nearly all musical innovation in the first half of the 20th century is incalculable, and even extends to a long bar of total silence, soon after the opening. Could this be the inspiration for John Cage’s 4’33"?