5 ms·

The Velvet Revolution of Claude Debussy

48 points by tintinnabula 8y ago

nwatson 8y ago
Art of Noise put out an okay album "The Seduction of Claude Debussy" exploring this revolution a bit ... https://youtu.be/8hLLL6gyUvg https://youtu.be/8hLLL6gyUvg . Kind of like Daft Punk's disco homage album, doesn't capture the essence of the original.
- puzzle 8y ago
  I think it's great. The soprano I could do without, but getting John Hurt to narrate was just brilliant. It's no coincidence that the best tracks are Il Pleure and The Holy Egoism of Genius. They're are not as great when Paul Morley performed on the live "Reconstructed". He's annoying, even if probably he wrote most of those words. As for sound, I think the modern inspiration was The Prodigy, whose Firestarter had made AoN quite a bit of money. :-)
Severian 8y ago
Isao Tomita's debut analog synthesizer renditions of Debussy, Snowflakes are Dancing, is one of my all time favorite recordings. Debussy translates very well into electronic forms.
- Synaesthesia 8y ago
  Yeah he interpreted it quite tastefully.
- uglycoyote 8y ago
  As a child in the 1980's my uncle would bring me out to his garage, put a welding mask on my head and have me sit on his tractor in the dark, while he played a tape with Tomita's rendition of Snowflakes are Dancing, and pretended that we were travelling to a far off planet, which was called Oxena. This has sparked a life long fascination with Debussy's music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWlSenLsXCI&list=PLGltXnm_5ITYjEwdJ_lWgQBr0kwWcpYbW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWlSenLsXCI&list=PLGltXnm_5I...
andybak 8y ago
I've read in several places that Debussy owed Satie more than he acknowledged in assisting him on his path to radicalization. Satie himself always felt inferior to Ravel and Debussy as he lacked a formal musical education (which may itself have been a major contributing fact to his uniqueness)
goto11 8y ago
Off topic, but this is hilarious: > Physical recordings are no longer a fashionable way of listening to music, but you will probably get closer to Debussy if you shut down the Internet and give yourself wholly to his world. So now listening to a CD is the real and authentic way to listen to classical music.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Well, at least real-er and more authentic than listening to it from Spotify while web surfing and skipping tracks every few minutes. The emphasis wasn't on "physical recordings", but on "shutting down the Internet and giving yourself wholly to his world". One could even achieve that with a YouTube video recording -- just less easily and with distraction closer at hand.
- saturdaysaint 8y ago
  This is how people talk about reading physical media vs e-books these days - there's a measurable difference in comprehension between reading text with hyperlinks and reading a physical book - so this doesn't strike me as crazy, if a bit precious.
  - klank 8y ago
    > there's a measurable difference in comprehension between reading text with hyperlinks and reading a physical book Have any links to studies?
- xae342 8y ago
  I feel like services like Primephonic and Idago feel more like I’m offline in a classical music library, no flashy graphics and random pop songs with similar names don’t get returned in search results.
coldtea 8y ago
>Claude Debussy died a century ago, but his music has not grown old Well, for some measures of "not grown old". It's not like the Top-10 has much Debussy, or that the number of well-off patrons of concert halls that play the likes of Debussy are the same in number as in Debussy's times...
- Rooster61 8y ago
  Sure, but his music seems to invoke fewer images of stuffy orchestral halls stuffed with powdered wigs and Victorian sensibilities. At least for me. It's pretty timeless.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Well, consider Bach then...
    - Rooster61 8y ago
      Well, Bach to me DOES represent that setting in time, but does it impeccably well. Much more rigid in keeping to form and harmony, more indicative of his era. Not a bad thing. His music is equally brilliant, but much of it screams "I'm Baroque!"
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
Rooster61 8y ago
I know it's usually frowned upon in such froo-froo articles to examine an artist's most popular works in the current day, but I really do wish the author had examined what Debussy is most known for nowadays, Clair de Lune. It's painfully beautiful, and the piece that made me fall in love with his work as a whole. Still, I enjoyed the article. I feel they portrayed him in the correct light. The only thing I think they may have left out, and the main reason I think Debussy's music is so good, is just the amount of room for expression of the individual pianist there is in his music. The space between his notes and chords can be wielded with cold rigidity, or suggested with a warm, soft touch, something I think is lost in more classically structured piano music.
- jinfiesto 8y ago
  Speaking as someone who studied music academically for a while, I imagine they left it out because it's pretty unremarkable despite it's popularity. Debussy was actually reticent to publish Suite Bergamasque (which contains Clair de Lune) as it was from is "immature period" (his words not mine.) The suite was published 15 years after its initial composition. In terms of its importance to the literature as a whole, despite being beautiful music (I'm really not trying to discount that the music is beautiful) Suite Bergamasque still represents an extension of the Romantic style. It's not nearly as groundbreaking as the Preludes/Images/Estampes which are a serious departure from all of the music that came before. Art was never the same after Picasso tore down the establishment. Ditto music and Debussy.
  - Rooster61 8y ago
    Thank you for your more informed analysis, and fair point. Admittedly, the rest of the suite doesn't tickle my fancy like that one movement does. I suppose I'm a sucker for his earlier, more contemporarily popular (but less profound) works, as my other favorite piece from him is Deux Arabesques No. 1.
  - pohl 8y ago
    This piece is to Debussy what Liebestraume No. 3 is to Franz Liszt: it's simultaneously the cloying, overplayed hit that distracts from the rest of the oeuvre, while also being the masterpiece that serious music people love to pooh-pooh. I agree with the "painfully beautiful" characterization. I must avert my ears. I'd rather listen to any other Debussy piece – I never tire of Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum for some reason – but only because I can't bear its perfection.
jancsika 8y ago
> “There is no theory. You merely have to listen. Pleasure is the law.” Except Debussy had a musical education that included theory from the best teachers in France and clearly understood the material. Plus first hand experience sight reading Wagner's operas and probably anything else he could get his hands on. Someone with that level of education and pianism can claim to forget about theory. Then they will go on write Reflets dans l'eau. Meanwhile, someone who has never studied music theory at all and learns to play the electric guitar will go on to write something like Purple Haze. They both start with a prominent tritone. But Hendrix didn't have enough schooling to take it in the harmonic direction that Debussy did. And Debussy had too much education to forgo sophisticated harmonic juxtapositions and constrain himself to timbre/melody. Edit: Actually I'm thinking of Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune where the flute line moves up and down within a tritone. Either way, sophisticated harmony and form that has obvious connections with much of the music Debussy analyzed in theory classes.
becga 8y ago
Debussy won the Prix de Rome but became restless with the musical theory and composition training he received.

48 points by tintinnabula 8y ago

Art of Noise put out an okay album "The Seduction of Claude Debussy" exploring this revolution a bit ... https://youtu.be/8hLLL6gyUvg https://youtu.be/8hLLL6gyUvg . Kind of like Daft Punk's disco homage album, doesn't capture the essence of the original.

puzzle 8y ago
I think it's great. The soprano I could do without, but getting John Hurt to narrate was just brilliant. It's no coincidence that the best tracks are Il Pleure and The Holy Egoism of Genius. They're are not as great when Paul Morley performed on the live "Reconstructed". He's annoying, even if probably he wrote most of those words. As for sound, I think the modern inspiration was The Prodigy, whose Firestarter had made AoN quite a bit of money. :-)

Severian 8y ago

Isao Tomita's debut analog synthesizer renditions of Debussy, Snowflakes are Dancing, is one of my all time favorite recordings. Debussy translates very well into electronic forms.

Synaesthesia 8y ago
Yeah he interpreted it quite tastefully.
uglycoyote 8y ago
As a child in the 1980's my uncle would bring me out to his garage, put a welding mask on my head and have me sit on his tractor in the dark, while he played a tape with Tomita's rendition of Snowflakes are Dancing, and pretended that we were travelling to a far off planet, which was called Oxena. This has sparked a life long fascination with Debussy's music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWlSenLsXCI&list=PLGltXnm_5ITYjEwdJ_lWgQBr0kwWcpYbW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWlSenLsXCI&list=PLGltXnm_5I...

andybak 8y ago

I've read in several places that Debussy owed Satie more than he acknowledged in assisting him on his path to radicalization. Satie himself always felt inferior to Ravel and Debussy as he lacked a formal musical education (which may itself have been a major contributing fact to his uniqueness)

goto11 8y ago

Off topic, but this is hilarious: > Physical recordings are no longer a fashionable way of listening to music, but you will probably get closer to Debussy if you shut down the Internet and give yourself wholly to his world. So now listening to a CD is the real and authentic way to listen to classical music.

coldtea 8y ago
Well, at least real-er and more authentic than listening to it from Spotify while web surfing and skipping tracks every few minutes. The emphasis wasn't on "physical recordings", but on "shutting down the Internet and giving yourself wholly to his world". One could even achieve that with a YouTube video recording -- just less easily and with distraction closer at hand.
saturdaysaint 8y ago
This is how people talk about reading physical media vs e-books these days - there's a measurable difference in comprehension between reading text with hyperlinks and reading a physical book - so this doesn't strike me as crazy, if a bit precious.
- klank 8y ago
  > there's a measurable difference in comprehension between reading text with hyperlinks and reading a physical book Have any links to studies?
xae342 8y ago
I feel like services like Primephonic and Idago feel more like I’m offline in a classical music library, no flashy graphics and random pop songs with similar names don’t get returned in search results.

coldtea 8y ago

>Claude Debussy died a century ago, but his music has not grown old Well, for some measures of "not grown old". It's not like the Top-10 has much Debussy, or that the number of well-off patrons of concert halls that play the likes of Debussy are the same in number as in Debussy's times...

Rooster61 8y ago
Sure, but his music seems to invoke fewer images of stuffy orchestral halls stuffed with powdered wigs and Victorian sensibilities. At least for me. It's pretty timeless.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Well, consider Bach then...
  - Rooster61 8y ago
    Well, Bach to me DOES represent that setting in time, but does it impeccably well. Much more rigid in keeping to form and harmony, more indicative of his era. Not a bad thing. His music is equally brilliant, but much of it screams "I'm Baroque!"
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

Rooster61 8y ago

I know it's usually frowned upon in such froo-froo articles to examine an artist's most popular works in the current day, but I really do wish the author had examined what Debussy is most known for nowadays, Clair de Lune. It's painfully beautiful, and the piece that made me fall in love with his work as a whole. Still, I enjoyed the article. I feel they portrayed him in the correct light. The only thing I think they may have left out, and the main reason I think Debussy's music is so good, is just the amount of room for expression of the individual pianist there is in his music. The space between his notes and chords can be wielded with cold rigidity, or suggested with a warm, soft touch, something I think is lost in more classically structured piano music.

jinfiesto 8y ago
Speaking as someone who studied music academically for a while, I imagine they left it out because it's pretty unremarkable despite it's popularity. Debussy was actually reticent to publish Suite Bergamasque (which contains Clair de Lune) as it was from is "immature period" (his words not mine.) The suite was published 15 years after its initial composition. In terms of its importance to the literature as a whole, despite being beautiful music (I'm really not trying to discount that the music is beautiful) Suite Bergamasque still represents an extension of the Romantic style. It's not nearly as groundbreaking as the Preludes/Images/Estampes which are a serious departure from all of the music that came before. Art was never the same after Picasso tore down the establishment. Ditto music and Debussy.
- Rooster61 8y ago
  Thank you for your more informed analysis, and fair point. Admittedly, the rest of the suite doesn't tickle my fancy like that one movement does. I suppose I'm a sucker for his earlier, more contemporarily popular (but less profound) works, as my other favorite piece from him is Deux Arabesques No. 1.
- pohl 8y ago
  This piece is to Debussy what Liebestraume No. 3 is to Franz Liszt: it's simultaneously the cloying, overplayed hit that distracts from the rest of the oeuvre, while also being the masterpiece that serious music people love to pooh-pooh. I agree with the "painfully beautiful" characterization. I must avert my ears. I'd rather listen to any other Debussy piece – I never tire of Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum for some reason – but only because I can't bear its perfection.

jancsika 8y ago

> “There is no theory. You merely have to listen. Pleasure is the law.” Except Debussy had a musical education that included theory from the best teachers in France and clearly understood the material. Plus first hand experience sight reading Wagner's operas and probably anything else he could get his hands on. Someone with that level of education and pianism can claim to forget about theory. Then they will go on write Reflets dans l'eau. Meanwhile, someone who has never studied music theory at all and learns to play the electric guitar will go on to write something like Purple Haze. They both start with a prominent tritone. But Hendrix didn't have enough schooling to take it in the harmonic direction that Debussy did. And Debussy had too much education to forgo sophisticated harmonic juxtapositions and constrain himself to timbre/melody. Edit: Actually I'm thinking of Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune where the flute line moves up and down within a tritone. Either way, sophisticated harmony and form that has obvious connections with much of the music Debussy analyzed in theory classes.

becga 8y ago

Debussy won the Prix de Rome but became restless with the musical theory and composition training he received.