Claude Debussy pioneered the world of sound in western classical music, and I revere him as the head of the sound-as-such movement that includes Varèse, Ligeti, and many, many recent composers. In this post, I’ll explore a single piece of Debussy’s, focussing narrowly on one aspect of the piece to demonstrate how he created music using very simple means.
The starting place is the liberation of the chord from the strictures of traditional harmonic progression. Debussy famously replied to his teacher, when asked where a very tradition-bound chord should go, “it can go wherever it wants”. Likewise famous is Debussy’s statement that he could achieve in his music using simple materials much of what then-modern music achieved through complex harmony. In this context, let’s explore Debussy’s prelude for piano, Voiles.
One of the simplest things about music is register: we think of notes as being higher or lower than one another, and that reality is essential to the concept of melody. And then, where is the melody? Is it a high part, a low part? And then, how does it change from high to low or low to high? Very slowly? Quickly? All at once? A little at a time? These factors will bring a certain energy to melody. Debussy obviously recognized this, and it is implicitly part of his conviction regarding his use of materials I referred to already.
Several of Debussy’s preludes for piano make direct, stark use of this truth, none more so than Voiles. I will take us through an account of register in that piece, and suggest energy interpretations as well as formal outcomes that derive from its operation.
There are three melodic threads in the opening of the piece, one in a high register, one in the middle, one low. Listen to the excerpt below that carries the first melody.
Top line.*
Here* we have a high melody (expressed in major thirds) that purely and rapidly descends after an initial sustained note. After staying briefly on the bottom note, the melody leaps back up to complete its descent higher than it began, a quirky little energy in itself that completes a statement of a basic idea.
Now listen to the next thing that happens in the prelude, the entry of the second melody. This one is simply a low note (Bb) that never changes throughout the prelude! Some might not call it a melody; I’d call it a melody with no contour (no up-down).
Bass line.*
A third melody begins right away in the example that follows.
Middle line.*
This melody is in the very middle of the piano, rising relatively ponderously up at first, giving it an upward-rising identity that does yield at its top and smoothly drifts back down, but not before the go-nowhere melody in the low register sounds again.
So we have three “proto-melodies” (many among us would call them motives), each in a specific register and with a specific direction of motion. The action of those components is quite interesting and meaningful, but I’ll keep the account focussed and not go to deeply into details. The most important thing to point out in the example below is how it comes to an end. Listen first to the entire opening section and then I’ll comment:
Opening section complete.*
Notice that Debussy brings this first section to a close by breaking the primary pattern he had underway: rather than descend, as it always has so far, the topmost melody now climbs slowly up to attain its starting point. (Clearly audible at about 1:25.)
The second large section of the piece is an agent of change. While the lowest line remains unmoved, steadily repeating the Bb, the top line is marked by a rapid meandering, having lost its clearly downward direction, rising slightly and then returning to the downward drift, while the middle voice simply rocks back and forth. I’m supplying four examples here, the first three produced using MIDI to allow everyone to hear these elements clearly for a measure or two; the final one is an excerpt from a recorded performance.
Top line meanders. (Midi)
Middle line rocks back and forth. (Midi)
Bass stays steady. (Midi)
Everything together in that little passage.*
Later in the same section, the lines are changing more: the top line is now going up bit-by-bit, almost as if it is struggling to do so (that’s an energy!), while the middle line rises steadily. Once again, four examples, three separated and then one combined:
Top line climbs bit-by-bit. (Midi)
Middle line rising steadily. (Midi)
Bass stays steady. (Midi)
Everything together in that little passage.*
The final part of this section finds the directionality of lines rather lofting (like a sail, or voile). Still, there are three clear lines, with the bottom steady, the high voice noodling back and forth between two pitches, and the middle voice bringing its original melody back in full, creating a gentle arc amidst the other registrally-static components.
Top line lofts. (Midi)
Middle line has its original melody, creates gentle arc. (Midi)
Bass stays steady. (Midi)
Everything together in that little passage.*
In the last few measures leading to a significant change of section, the top voice returns to its bit-by-bit climb, while the middle voice now peels off repeatedly, headed down.
Top line climbs again.(Midi)
Middle line peels off, repeatedly heading down. (Midi)
Bass stays steady. (Midi)
Everything together in that little passage.*
Now comes the big moment! A huge registral sweep from low to very high provides an incredibly dramatic energy. This event seems to assert what Debussy set out to accomplish: the stark yet lingering downward motion of the very first idea has now turned around completely to become a dramatically rising figure.
Everything together.*
From this point to the end of the piece, Debussy never relinquishes the upward sweep, though it is cast in the middle register only, is at a much lower volume, and is expressed using a different set of pitches. I think of the energy as an afterglow, a slipstream, some kind of lingering phenomenon that colors the recall of all earlier materials. I could take us through a few more details in that section, but will leave it for now simply to be heard:
Remainder of the piece.*
And here is the complete prelude. (One can find many excellent performances of this piece on YouTube and elsewhere.)
Whole prelude.*
Debussy has made an incredibly interesting and beautiful piece using the inherent energies of rising and falling, something we have all experienced in our daily lives in a number of ways. Much attention has been given recently to the concept of musical embodiment, how our physical experience of life and music contributes to our reactions to music as we hear it. In that light, I would sum up the energy properties of Voiles in this manner: We start with repeated fast slides down, struggle to turn around and rise, and eventually achieve a lengthy, rapid sweep up that, once made, never leaves but remains as an afterglow of its initial, dramatic rise.
Other musical parameters play important roles in creating that energy, yes, but we can understand the form of the piece based simply on direction of line. Understood as described above, we would have a piece in two parts: before the upward sweep (A), after/with the sweep (B). Traditional musical analysis would yield a three-part form based on pitch materials: whole tone (A), pentatonic (B), whole tone (A’). One of the most important outcomes of studying music in the parameter-by-parameter way is that it points to the reality of multiple forms coexisting in a single musical expression. The concept of the Sound-Energy Aggregate seeks to account for the subtle ways those parameters, creating multiple shapes and forms, interact to produce the nuanced musical flow of shifting energy over time.
* All examples are excerpts from a recording made by Lumineux, used by CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). The final example is the complete recording.