Claude-Achille Debussy

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LIVING MASTERS OF MUSIC
EDITED BY ROSA NEWMARCH

CLAUDE-ACHILLE DEBUSSY

CLAUDE DEBUSSY
From a painting by Jaqucs Blanche

CLAUDE-ACHILLE

DEBUSSY

BY MRS. FRANZ LIEBICH

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMVIII

&8S3fc

Printed by Ballantyne &1 Co. Limited
Tavistock Street, Londoq

AUTHOR'S NOTE

My best thanks are due to Mr. Granville Bantock
for his kind loan of the piano score of Pclleas ct
Melisande, and to MM. A. Durand et Fils for
the chronological list of M. Debussy's works at
the end of this volume. My husband has all my
gratitude for his unfailing help with the reading of
difficult scores and for the long tete-a-tetes over the
piano, during which we renewed acquaintance with
some, and became intimate with all the compositions
of this interesting and original composer. If this
slight impressionist sketch of his life and work will
serve to make M. Debussy's beautiful art-product in
any way better known in England, the pleasure
gained in writing it will be increased tenfold.

LOUISE LIEBICH

London, 1907.

~\

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. "HAND AND SOUL " . . . . I

II, MODUS OPERANDI 1 4

III. CHORAL, ORCHESTRAL AND INSTRUMENTAL

WORKS 31

IV. SONGS AND PIANO PIECES . . . 54
V. " PELLEAS ET MELISANDE " . . 64

VI. AS WRITER AND CRITIC . . . 8 1

ILLUSTRATIONS

M. CLAUDE DEBUSSY .... Frontispiece

From a painting by M. Jacques Blanche

MISS MARY GARDEN AS MELISANDE . To face page 66

M. JEAN PERIER AS PELLEAS . . „ 76

Music of the mystery, that embraces

A 11 forest-depths and footless, far-off places.

Lionel Johnson.

CLAUDE-ACHILLE DEBUSSY

CHAPTER I
"HAND AND SOUL"

" L'ame d'autrui est une foret obscure ou il fau
marcher avec precaution." * — Claude Debussy.

The keynote of the personality of Claude Debussy
is struck at the outset of a sketch of his life and
work by recording his intrinsic love of liberty and
freedom. The logical outcome of this characteristic
independent spirit is his consequent insistent claim
to reticence and even silence regarding the intimate
details of his career and existence. He has elected
to shelter himself from publicity and advertisement,
and already, on that account, a certain legendary
atmosphere has wrapped itself around his name and
fame. He is sometimes supposed to have enclosed
himself within a self-constructed mental tower of
ivory whence the visible world is no longer per-
ceptible, and where the passions and emotions of
ordinary men reach him only as echoes or shadowy
dreams. Such statements, though they exaggerate
his exceptional personality, are not without founda-
tion. The power of inner sight, the perception of the

* Each individual soul is a dark forest where one should walk
with cautious steps.

A

2 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

essence of things, are gifts rarely bestowed upon an
individual without an accompanying love of solitude
and seclusion. To the seer of visions a certain
loneliness is inevitable. And above all to such a
one the methods of those who only skim the surface
of things must be naturally repugnant. But
Debussy is not merely a dreamer of beautiful dreams;
he is also a subtle psychologist who has penetrated
into the deepest mysteries of the human heart, a
magician with a keen knowledge of Nature's cryptic
secrets, and he is pre-eminently a motive power in
the life of many musicians of to-day. He has some
disciples who are keenly appreciative and at the
same time strongly individual, and he numbers not
a few would-be imitators. But his original, unique
style is inimitable.

It is possible to get a discriminating grasp of his
characteristic qualities, but the task of placing him
under the scalpel of analysis he has fortunately ren-
dered impossible. And even were it feasible to play
the part of " moral detective," should we be greatly
the wiser ? When all the little details of everyday
life have been tabulated, and a classified list of
foibles and virtues, of likes and dislikes, drawn up
and annotated, are we any nearer the inner arcanum
within the sanctuary of the soul ? Supposing we
had succeeded in nearing the threshold, should we
not feel, in this case, on the point of committing
what Debussy has so aptly styled tin crime de lese-
mystere ? The work of an artist is his best eluci-
dation : it is the surest itinerary, the safest guide

"HAND AND SOUL" 3

through the dark forest of his soul. " Every work
of imagination/' writes M. Bourget, " is in its own de-
gree an autobiography, lacking perhaps in substance,
but at any rate intimately related to and deeply signi-
ficative of our inner life." With M. Debussy we have
access not only to his published compositions, but
also to his writings on music and men and things.
And according to his own method of criticism our
investigations can be pursued. When M. Debussy
was appointed musical critic in 1891 of the Revue
Blanche he prefaced his remarks with the following
words : " Having been invited to express my
thoughts on the subject of music in this Review, I
would like first to say a few words as to the pro-
cedure I intend to adopt. ... I shall endeavour to
trace in a musical work the many different emotions
which have helped to give it birth, also to demonstrate
its inner life ; this will surely be accounted of greater
interest than the game which consists in dissecting
it as if it were a curious timepiece. Men in general
forget that as children they were forbidden to dis-
member their puppets (it was even then a crime of
lese-mysterc), but they still persist in poking their
aesthetic noses where they are not wanted. If now-
adays they have ceased to split open their play-things
or toys, they still explain, dissect, and with cool
indifference put an end to all mystery."

To a man of wide outlook, impatient of all restraint,
enamoured of the unconditional and the inexplicable,
the labelling of his moods and the docketing cf his
intentions must at all times seem insufferable.

4 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

Therefore it is well to quote Debussy's words on the
subject of catchwords and coteries. In one of his
many colloquies with an imaginary personage
whom he named M. Croche, which appeared in the
Revue Blanche of 1891, he thus expresses himself:
" I ventured to say to him that men had essayed,
some in poetry, others in painting (with difficulty I
managed to add, and some in music), to shake off the
accumulated dust of tradition, with the result of
finding themselves labelled symbolists and impres-
sionists, both of which terms are convenient to
those who despise their fellow creatures." "They
are journalists and tradesmen who treat others in
this manner," rejoined M. Croche; "they are unim-
portant. A fine idea in process of formation is a
worthy object of ridicule for imbeciles. But rest
assured that there is a greater certainty of finding
a true perception of beauty among those who are
ridiculed than among the class of men resembling
flocks of sheep who walk with docility in the direc-
tion of the slaughter-houses prepared for them by a
clairvoyant fate." There is mordant irony contained
in these sentences, but hardly enough to veil the
shuddering of a sensitive soul ever eager for untram-
melled freedom of action and liberty of thought.
This independence of character is paralleled by an
ardent love for the free, unrestrained life of the
country, and by a strong passion for Nature in her
many varied moods and phases. In another of his
self-revelations effected through the medium of
M. Croche he says : " Music is a sum total of scat-

"HAND AND SOUL" 5

tered forces. It is turned into a commercial specula-
tion ! I prefer to hear a few notes of an Egyptian
shepherd's flute, for he is in accord with his scenery
and hears harmonies unknown to your treatises.
Musicians will only listen to music written by clever
experts : they never turn their attention to that which
is inscribed in Nature. It would benefit them more to
watch a sunrise than to listen to a performance of
the Pastoral Symphony. . . . Continue to be original,
above suspicion. Methinks it spoils an artist to be
greatly in sympathy with his surroundings ; I am
always afraid of his thus becoming merely the
interpreter of his own milieu. One must seek restraint
where freedom reigns, and not in the formulas of a
worn and feeble philosophy. Go not to others for
advice, but take counsel from the passing breezes,
which relate the history of the world to those who
listen."

In the unfolding of leaves in spring, in the waver
ing winds and changing clouds, he finds " splendid
object-lessons of liberty."

The following little pen-picture reveals the un-
affected delight of the composer of the " Nocturnes"
in beauty that is spontaneous and natural. It dis-
plays his keen observation of minute details, his
taste for what is simple and unconventional, and his
dislike of any pose or studied effect. " I lingered late
one autumn evening in the country, irresistibly
fascinated by the magic of old-world forests. From
yellowing leaves fluttering earthwards celebrating
the glorious agony of the trees, from the clamorous

6 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

angelus bidding the fields to slumber, rose a sweet
persuasive voice counselling perfect oblivion. The
sun was setting solitary, and not a single peasant
thought of placing himself in a lithographic attitude
in the foreground. Beasts and men turned peace-
fully homeward, having accomplished their im-
personal tasks, regardless of encouragement or
disapproval : this indifference lending a special
charm to their united efforts and labour."

In another number of the Revue Blanche its com-
poser-critic gives the readers notice that u on the
Sunday when Le Bon Dieu is kind he will not listen
to music " ; and thus one particular fine Sunday in
February he informed them that the weather was so
propitious and the first rays of the sun so irresistible
that he scorned any attempt whatever to induce him
to attend no matter what kind of music. And else-
where he remarks, apropos oHiis dislike to unneces-
sary applause at concerts : " Sachez done bien
qu'une veridique impression de beaute ne pourrait
avoir d'autre effet que le silence. Enfin, voyons !
quand vous assistez a cette feerie quotidienne qu'est
la mort du soleil avez-vous jamais eu la pensee
d'applaudir ? Vous m'avouerez que e'est pourtant
d'un developpement un peu plus imprevu que toutes
vos petites histoires sonores."

If occasionally Debussy displays a caustic wit and
a mordant pen, such qualifications have received
their development from the circumstances of his
later life. His early training was essentially con-
ventional and academic, and seemingly in no way

"HAND AND SOUL" 7

conducive to the independent ideas he has formu-
lated for himself. Born at St. Germain-en-Laye,
August 22, 1862, he began his studies at that most
conservative institution, the Paris Conservatoire. He
obtained his Solfege medals in 1874, 1875, 1876,
under Lavignac ; a second prize for piano playing
from Marmontel in 1877 ; a first prize for accom-
panying in 1880 ; an accessory prize for counterpoint
and fugue in 1882 ; and finally, the Grand Prix de
Rome with his cantata V Enfant Prodiguc in 1884,
as a pupil of Guiraud. Thus it will be seen he not
only assimilated his instruction carefully and com-
pletely, but gained his honours by slow degrees,
step by step. And it is this patient overcoming of
initial obstacles, this early unwearying attention to
the technical difficulties of his art, that has given him
the complete freedom he now enjoys in the unfold-
ing of its evolutionary principles. How he brought
"a flash of the will" to bear on the application of
traditionary laws will be shown in a later chapter.

That he should have incurred suspicion from
pedants, jealousy from mediocrities, and contempt
from reactionary critics is a foregone conclusion.
He has expressed his sentiments on the subject in
the following terse and incisive words: "Je fais
de la musique pour servir celle-ci le mieux qu'il m'est
possible et sans autres preoccupations ; il est logique
qu'elle courre le risque de deplaireaceuxquiaiment
'une musique/ jusqu'alui rester jalousement fideles
malgre ses rides et ses fards."*

* Revue Blanche, 1901.

/

8 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

Debussy's critical writings bear testimony to his
knowledge and respect for the works of his prede-
cessors. He has struck a new path, but only after
having explored the whole length of the way which
led him to it. He has written some delightful pages
on the subject of the old classicists. A propos of J. S.
Bach's violin concerto in G, he notes the " musical
arabesques" contained in it. From these same
arabesques the " ornament " is derived which he
names the basis of all art modes. " The word ' orna-
ment/ " he adds in parenthesis, "has no connection
with the meaning attached to it by the musical
grammars. The primitifs — Palestrina, Vittoria, Or-
lando di Lassus, &c." he continues, " were mindful
of this divine ' arabesque.' They found its origin in
the Gregorian chant, and they supported its slender
convolutions by means of strong resisting counter-
point. When Bach returned to the use of the
1 arabesque ' he endowed it with greater elasticity and
fluidity, and notwithstanding the severe discipline
imposed on beauty by this great master, he gave it
that free fantasy of reproductive movement which
is still the wonder of our age." This paragraph is
significant and helpful, as marking one of the founts
from which Debussy derived some of his evolutionary
principles and ideas.

For Weber and Rameau he has special predilec-
tions. The career of the old eighteenth-century
French master bears some resemblance to that of
his gifted successor. His innovations earned him
the title of " distillatenr d' accords baroques." " I

"HAND AND SOUL" 9

believe," wrote Voltaire to Thiriot in 1735, apropos of
Rameau'smusic, "that in the end the taste for Rameau
will prevail in proportion to the nation's progress in
musical knowledge. The ear improves little by little.
In the course of three or four generations a change
comes to the acoustic organs of a nation." This
statement receives corroboration in the present cen-
tury from M. Camille Mauclair. In a volume pub-
lished three years ago, and entitled Idees Vivanies, this
critic remarks that " recent works have demonstrated
that the education of the eye and the ear has been
gradual and progressive : contemporary music has
developed the auditory faculties to a tenfold degree
compared with those which served the hearers of the
old chorales, and science, since Chevreuil, Helmholtz,
Charles Henry Lippmann, proves to us that we shall
soon perceive colours considered imperceptible up
to the present by the human retina. ... M.
Debussy's music is a sonorous impressionism, and
M. Monet's paintings are fugues of colour."

To Weber, Debussy is invincibly drawn by his
love of the fantastic and by his power of describing
it in music. He recognises that Weber was perhaps
the first to concern himself with the affinity that
exists between the unfathomable soul of Nature and
the human soul. And most especially does he draw
attention to the German composer's use of legend,
"thus prognosticating the happy influence it would
have on music."

In his choice of poets for his songs and for the
different subjects he has suggested in music

io CLAUDE BEBUSSY

M. Debussy has shown a comprehensive taste.
From each he has chosen poems characteristic of
his own predilections for what is delicately sugges-
tive, intuitional, remote, and unsubstantial. He has
been greatly influenced by the diaphanous poetry
of Paul Verlaine, by the symbolism of Stephane
Mallarme and his use of brilliant jewelled words.
Many of Baudelaire's mysterious verses and Pierre
Louys's "Songs of Bilitis" have had an attraction
for him. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's rich imagery
and mystic passion have appealed to him, and he has
wedded his music to some of the work of Charles
d'Orleans, Theodore de Banville, Paul Bourget, and
others. In many of his instrumental and orchestral
works he has been inspired directly by Nature. He
has felt the haunting spell of her wayward beauty,
and has transmuted some of her loveliness into
sound. His quick sensibility enables him to seize
the most delicate effects of light and shade, and he
has rendered his art a plastic medium for recording
fleeting impressions and fugitive glimpses. He sees
the soul, the abstract principle underlying all things,
and has given it embodiment through the medium
of his music. His own art and that of painting are
in some instances almost identical in method, for
his employment of chords and their combinations
resembles the manipulation of colours by a Le
Sidaner, a Whistler, or a Manet.

Moreover, his procedure is entirely personal, and
pre-eminently the expression of his unique individu-
ality and of his manner of envisaging spiritual and

"HAND AND SOUL" n

material things. Neither his psychic nor his visual
imagery will appeal to those who have no affinity
with his mental outlook* It is given to every listener
to re-create, as it were, in his own mind the artist's
conception. Those who are accustomed or ad-
dicted to strong colours and violent contrasts, and
indifferent to delicate subtle suggestion, refinement,
and spirituality, will have no affinity with M. De-
bussy's typical, original harmonies, fluid rhythm, free
chord combinations, and elastic, flowing melodies.
If we are always to accord him full belief, he is not
greedy of contemporary favour, for he is accredited
with the following remark : " Can you imagine any-
thing greater than a man unknown through long
centuries whose secret is accidentally deciphered ?
To have been one of these men — this is the highest
honour Fame can bestow."

To one who has striven hand and soul, work is
its own supreme reward and renown somewhat of a
non-essential detail. " It is not possible to publish
the Suite Bergamesque" wrote Debussy one day to
M. Louis Laloy ; "lam still in need of twelve bars for
the Sarabande." And as none of his previous ideas
had satisfied him, sooner than publish the piece with
the slightest defect he preferred to wait patiently for
the right inspiration. This attention and circum-
spection, this reverential feeling for perfection, are
salient characteristics of the composer's finished
work. And to these special qualities are added
transparent truthfulness, sincerity, and consistency
of thought and opinion. In conformity with his

12 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

dislike to ostentation and publicity is his obdurate
refusal to be photographed. To a pressing request
from the editor of Le Monde Musical for his likeness,
on the morrow of the success of Pelleas et Melisandey
he answered, " Willingly, and you will receive the
only one that has ever been taken. But I tell you
beforehand — when I sat to the photographer I was
two years old, and since then I have changed a
little ! "

The portrait used as frontispiece to this volume is
taken from the picture by M. Jacques Blanche. It
was exhibited at the Societe Nationale des Beaux-
Arts in 1903, and at the International Society at the
New Gallery, London, in 1907.

The eyes are those of the visionary : of a warm
brown ; deep set, kindly ; they have the abstract,
thoughtful, inward look of the seer. The rather
heavy moustache and beard scarcely hide the full,
sensuous lips. In the mouth and eyes, in the firm
set of the head on the strong, broad shoulders, in
the energetic, nervous hand and easy unstudied
attitude one discerns the ingenuous bonhomie of the
independent artistic temperament allied to deep-
seated idealism, acute sensibility and epicurean
fastidiousness.

Unapproachable as he is to strangers, M. Debussy
is popular with his intimates by reason of his
geniality, his humour, his fantastic imagination and
rare gifts. On certain occasions, in his infrequent
excursions into society, he has delighted the as-
sembled guests by his powers of improvisation,

"HAND AND SOUL" 13

and if in the right mood he will treat his hearers to
a wonderful display of tonal impressionism, weaving
iridescent chords and harmonies into a fantastic
web of colour and brilliancy.

Of late years he has absented himself more
frequently than usual from his charmingly situated
Parisian residence in the Avenue du Bois de
Boulogne. Circumstances have enabled him to
gratify his love of travel to its full bent, and he
avails himself of every opportunity to see as much
as possible of his own beautiful France and of other
picturesque countries.

If from his own utterances, by deduction from
some of his expressed convictions and sentiments,
a slight idea of the character of this original com-
poser has been gained, such a glimpse will help in
some degree towards an elucidation of his artistic
method. If we accept the definition that music is
the art of combining sounds for the purpose of ex-
pressing feeling, for eliciting emotion, or recording
impressions, it follows that the form and complexity
of the different combinations and the manner of
using them depends more or less upon the person-
ality of the composer.

In a study of the creations of the most advanced
pioneer in modern musical art his hand will be seen
directed by his soul, and his work will be found to be
the objective realisation of his exceptional mind.

CHAPTER II
MODUS OPERANDI

... a flash of the will that can,
Existent behind all laws . . .

R. Browning.

When as a youth M. Debussy was serving with his
regiment at Evreux, according to his own statement
he took great delight in listening to the overtones
of bugles and bells. The former sounded over the
camp for the various military duties ; the latter be-
longed to a neighbouring convent, and rang out daily
the hours of ritual and divine office. The sonorous
resonances of the bugles and the far-reaching vibra-
tions of the bells, falling upon the sensitive ear of
the young musician in the shape of upper partial
tones or harmonics, were keenly observed by him
and annotated for future use. It is his application
of the laws of harmony to these infinitely compli-
cated intervals and his frequent employment of
them in his compositions, unrelated and unresolved,
that has partly earned him the title of revolutionist
from a section of the public opposed to all artistic
progress and evolution. But as M. de la Laurencie
has aptly expressed it, "A revolution is merely an

MODUS OPERANDI 15

evolution rendered apparent." It is unnoticed as
long as its progress remains obscured and silent ; but
if it eventually forces itself upon those who have re-
mained unobservant of its continuity, its appearance
seems sudden and unwarranted. Guyau has justly
remarked that all art commences with the con-
ventional, the ceremonial, the marvellous, from
which it emancipates itself by degrees : in its ap-
proaches towards perfection it frees itself from
conventional trammels and gains correspondingly
in expression.* Music is governed by the same laws
as nature : it cannot hark back on itself ; and a
musician gifted with a powerful personality needs
must create his own language in which to utter the
manifold feelings, emotions, and ideas surging within
him. To such a man success will come slowly. If
his method is in advance of and at variance with the
established formulas of the day, it will naturally meet
with antagonism from those whose opinions and
notions are deep-rooted in the heavy soil of pre-
judice and custom. It would be invidious to quote
the numerous examples of individuals around whom
the different eddies of theoretical contradiction and
abuse have swirled. It is sufficient to call attention
to the chefs-d 'ceuvre of Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven,
Wagner, all of which have breasted the many tides of
opposition and are now reposing high and dry upon
the mainland of public favour and esteem.

The cleverest psychologists as well as writers on
aesthetics have forcibly developed the theory that a

* Guyau : " L'Irreligion de l'Avenir."

16 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

musical auditor reproduces in his own brain the
work he is listening to. " Whoever/' observes M.
Ribot, " experiences immaturely or acutely any
degree of aesthetic emotion, be he spectator, auditor,
or dilettante, re-creates according to the extent of
his own power the work of the creator. Unless some
slight sympathy exists between the two, the spectator
will remain indifferent ; he must re-live the life of
the creative artist and discover his modus operandi,
so that, though incapable himself of achievement,
he may assimilate readily and competently."* We
have seen in the last chapter how by close and
earnest study M. Debussy has rendered himself a
thorough master of the technique of his art ; we
will now endeavour to study the special conditions
he has imposed upon musical laws, and ascertain
how by a " flash of the will" he has moulded them
and made them subservient to his purposes.

It is well known that every sound or tone is
accompanied by a series of others, more acute,
named harmonics, the sonorous oscillations of
which correspond, from the point of view of number
and frequency, to the fragmentary parts of the
vibrations resulting from the fundamental note.
Music has been defined in its essence as " an ascen-
sion from the abysses of silence towards sounds
which are continually tending to become more inci-
sive and acute." Harmonics or overtones were first
pointed out in the seventeenth century by Mersenne,
explained by the French physicist Sauveur in 1701,
* Ribot : " Psychologie des Sentiments."

MODUS OPERANDI

and made by Rameau the basis of his musical system.
The natural harmonics of a fundamental tone, C for
example, form the following series, which is carried
on to the sixteenth overtone or harmonic :

- q

^ !J Tf LI O

t^ CO OS rH rt

CO rf< o

CO

A

'. 1 5 S-

L : ^-6r^4^~

II

H

—

— -i — 1 — I — :rr

k&-<^— - —

—

.J

<

: • -<s>-

CM CO O t*
— i 1^ "^ o

lO O CO l^

CO

CO

to

(N CO o
CO Ci CO
CO CO Ci

"*

§

*&~

. ri

<

Ui

. rj

cc
Dou

ble

5 CN CO O "*
1 CT> »0 CN CO
1 r-H (N CO CC

Vibrations per

CO

Second.

In Claude Debussy's compositions his system of
harmony and tonality is intimately connected with
these laws of natural harmonics. Up to the present
the seventh harmonic (B flat) is about the limit of
exploited intervals used by most contemporary
composers. The aesthetic value of chords derived
from these intervals and their inversions is found in
the sensation of consonance and dissonance result-
ing from these combinations. This feeling is en-
tirely subjective, and in the course of centuries has
undergone a slowbut certain evolution. For instance,
the following intervals are generally admitted to be
consonances : (f) an octave, (-J) a fifth, and (-*) a
fourth ; while from the ninth century to the present
the major third (£) has been evolved ; also the minor
third (f), the seventh (£), and the ninth (£). As use
is made of the harmonics farthest away from the
ground tone the intervals became more and more

B

jA CLAUDE DEBUSSY

complicated. Thus Debussy, remembering his
youthful observations of resonances produced by
bugles and bells, has employed numberless sonorous
aggregations to be found in the assemblage of
chords constituting what is called natural dis-
sonances : chords entirely composed of harmonics.
Such chords as those of the dominant seventh, the
diminished seventh, the ninth, which on account of
their compound nature are dispensed from "pre-
paration," have hitherto of necessity been resolved,
and in their resolutions a certain amount of licence
has been permitted. Thus they are on the
borderland of consonance and dissonance, and point
the way to a still greater freedom of treatment.
Debussy has used these chords without resolution of
any kind, and has employed them as resonances or
consonances. His compositions swarm with chords
of the seventh and their derivatives ; one finds in
them successions of fifths and ninths mostly de-
rived from natural harmonics of the dominant ; and,
what is especially noticeable, they are employed by
him on each of the seven degrees of the scale. It
follows from this method that the idea of tonality
in its present condition, with its major and minor
modes, is somewhat insufficient to M. Debussy.
As M. Marnold has demonstrated, his music presup-
poses the existence of a third mode, which this
critic has named the "diminished major," and
which is characterised by the alteration of the fifth
(B, D, F) instead of B, D, F g. In an exceedingly in-
teresting essay by the above-mentioned writer on

MODUS OPERANDI 19

M. Debussy's " Nocturnes" he has indicated the
gradual evolution of the auditory faculty by an able
analogy, drawn from different scientific sources,
between the evolutionised functions of the ear and
those of the eye. He says that if musicians have at
first utilised the simplest possible combinations of
sound to arrive by a continual and gradual evolution
to the most complicated, it is because they could not
do otherwise ; for the progress from simplicity to
complexity is a general and constitutional law of our
own nature, the effects of which are nowhere so
tangible and irrefutable as in the relation of our
senses to external phenomena. He quotes at some
length from the works of a learned German, Dr.
Hugo Magnus.* This clever scientist has made a
profound study of the historic evolution of the sense
of colour, and for this purpose he has described the
successive phases in men's minds of that immutable
phenomenon of nature, the rainbow. He has thus
ascertained that at first it was thought to be all of
one colour. Homer distinguishes it as purple.
Later Xenophon defined " what is called Iris, a
purple cloud, red and yellow-green." Two centuries
later Aristotle sees three colours, red, green and
blue, and he adds, " Between the red and the green
sometimes yellow is discerned."

After a lapse of three hundred years Ovid recog-
nises in the rainbow " a thousand dazzling colours
which the eye cannot distinguish separately." Still

* M Die geschichtliche Entwickelung des Farbensinnes," Leipzig,
1877.

20 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

Aristotle's tricolour division persists until the thir-
teenth century, but emendated by the observation of
an infinity of intermediary nuances of which artists
have not succeeded in giving an exact reproduction
(Vitello). M. Marnold points out conclusively that
this evolution of the colour-sense follows closely the
order of colours in the solar spectrum, commencing
with red, the colour engendered by the smallest
number of ethereal vibrations. Parallel with this
progressive perception of colours and hues is the
corresponding increasing classifying of intervals
into dissonances and consonances.* By degrees and
in the order of natural harmonics or partial tones
the following intervals have been adopted : The
octave, f ; the fifth, § ; the fourth, § ; the major and
minor thirds, f and f ; and finally the major and
minor sevenths. In the time of the organum, which
was the earliest attempt at polyphonic music, be-
ginning in the sixth and lasting until the eleventh
century, the octave, the fifth, and the fourth were
adopted as consonances, and are thus the basis of all
our harmonic evolution. It has been remarked by
the Rev. J. A. Zahm, in his work on " Sound and
Music," that the fact of these three intervals having
a physical basis in the partials of compound notes
may probably account for the manner of tuning the
earliest forms of the Greek lyre. According to
Boethius, the lyre was to the time of Orpheus an
instrument of four strings, whose intervals would
be represented by the notes C, F, G, C2. From the

* Counter Musical, May 1, 1902.

MODUS OPERANDI 21

earliest times to the present day the question of
consonances and dissonances has been an agitating
one. The interval that follows logically in the series
of natural harmonics is the third. It made its
appearance during the lifetime of Guido of Arezzo,
in the eleventh century, but was used at first very
sparingly. Not only was it considered a dissonance,
but its employment was looked upon as a symptom
of degeneration. Controversy regarding the cha-
racter of thirds and sixths lasted until the fifteenth
century, and not until the sixteenth century were
these intervals and those of the fourth and fifth
recognised as prescriptive and classic. At present
our ears, sharpened by experience, are able to
appreciate a more and more complex system of
harmony and to discern the effects of more and
more rapid vibrations. As there are rays of the
spectrum as yet unseen, so we may conclude that
coming generations will hear and combine overtones
the sonorous vibrations of which are as yet unheard
by our contemporaries. From these remarks
Debussy's relative standpoint to the past and future
of the art of music is clearly discernible. But if his
chord combinations must be styled of ultra-modern
construction, he is nevertheless equally beholden to
antiquity for a great deal of his original tone colour-
ing. If his scales are repeatedly devoid of leading
note, and if the minor seventh frequently takes the
place of the more usual major seventh (which is
contrary to our diatonic system), it is because these
scales are derived from the old church modes known

22 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

as mixolydian in the major and Dorian in the minor.
This use of ancient scales, of which there are eight
in number, has given an indescribable charm to
Debussy's music, and has endowed it with a quaint,
archaic grace. In the opening bars of La
Demoiselle elite, in parts of Pelleas and Meli-
sande} in the Songs of Bilitis, one comes across
a quiet, restrained beauty of utterance, seeming to
originate from an older source than even Gregorian
chant, carrying one back to early Christian
hymnology, which in its turn was taken either from
the Hebrew temple service or from the Greeks.
Those who look askance at this composer's art on
account of what they choose to call its modernity
are little aware of the half-truth they utter. I will
venture to say that an earnest and prolonged study
of his compositions will convey to an unprejudiced
mind a greater knowledge of ancient music and of
the gradual evolution of harmony and style than
any dry-as-dust theoretical treatise. It is a link
between the old-world past and the present, and in
all likelihood will eventually guide us back to a
purer taste and to a reaction from the realistic,
flamboyant, adventitious methods of certain con-
temporary composers

The time-honoured territory of Gregorian chant
has been retrodden by other modern musicians :
Berlioz, Liszt, Faure, Vincent d'Indy have employed
its language, and it is easy to detach examples from
their works. Debussy alone has, so to speak,
fertilised the soil of his efforts with the rich loam of

&

MODUS OPERANDI 23

its influence. It is therefore so inextricably inter-
woven into his compositions that its detection
requires minute attention. It has given his music
a greater fluidity, a freer rhythm, a refinement, a
richness, and a varietykall its own. This heritage of
old-world music is peculiar to the Latin races. Its
ramification can be traced in ancient Celtic music,
especially in Irish folk-song. Its sober melody has
been heard in Gallic churches since the Middle
Ages. Even in the out-of-the-way Breton villages
the inhabitants will sing the liturgy, in unison, to a
simplified mode of the old Gregorian chant. In
Italy, with the exception of Perosi, Gregorian modes
have not been used by composers. This is accounted
for by the fact that for a considerable time the
operatic style has held almost undisputed sovereignty
all over this country, and even its church music has
been accordingly theatrical and meretricious.

If we can trace impressions of early life in
Debussy's music by his employment of the old
modes, the sounds of which were familiar to him
from boyhood, we can also find many other indica-
tions in his work of the influences and circumstances
of his later surroundings. As a student in Rome
he threw himself ardently into the study of the
music of Russian composers, especially that of
Moussorgsky, and there are marks of the Oriental
colouring derived from these masters in his orches-
tral and instrumental works. Later, a visit to
Russia strengthened his love and knowledge of these
original musicians, On his return to Paris, his mind

24 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

received the imprint of his environment. He made
himself familiar with the chcfs-d'ccuvre of the poets,
artists and litterateurs of the day. He experienced
the vibrating currents of Paris opinions. He be-
came acquainted with its dominating tastes and
seething passions, and he acquired a knowledge of
the prevalent pessimistic attitude of some of his
contemporaries dissatisfied with society and with
themselves. In spite of these conflicting tendencies,
he has maintained his personal independence of
intellect, and from the taint of morbid influences —
from which his music is singularly free — he has
been saved by his inherent love of Nature and of
liberty of mind and thought. He has discerned
what M. Brunetiere called the "correspondances"
existing between Nature and the human soul. And
he has shown how indubitably he has mastered not
only Nature's intimate secrets, but also the fact that
all human passions, feelings and aspirations are
mirrored in one or other phenomenon of her varied
aspects of sky and earth and air.

By inclination and temperament Debussy is in
close sympathy with the school of painters called
impressionists and with the class of poets styled
symbolists. To the former belong, taking a few
names at random, such artists as Monet, Manet,
Fantin Latour, Renoir, Degas, Sisley, Pissarro,
Whistler, Le Sidaner. Their art approaches in-
timately that of music by reason of its research of
colour-harmonies causing their pictures to resemble
a symphony with the most luminous degree of light

MODUS OPERANDI 25

as principal theme. As M. Debussy's work has
been designated musical impressionism, a glance at
the methods of these artists will not be out of place.
It is indisputable that there are points of resem-
blance between their work and his, but at the same
time, like his personality, his individual art is
affranchised from precedent and category, cliques
or coteries.

Taking as basis of their method the fact that in
Nature, colour does not exist independently of itself,
but isj evolved from the action of the solar light,
the art of the impressionist painters is a series of
presentations of the infinite modifications of colour
given to objects at different times and seasons by
the action of light on their surface. According to
the greater or lesser obliquity of the solar rays, the
variations of colour occur. Hence the close study
by these artists of the atmosphere which intervenes
between these several objects and themselves. The
eye is thus made more and more subtle, for as Manet
said, " Le personnage principal d'un tableau c'est la
lumiere"; and Carriere remarked, " Un tableau
est le developpement logique de la lumiere." Colour
thus engenders the picture. " Colour being simply
the irradiation of light, it follows," writes M. Camille
Mauclair, " that every colour is composed of the
very elements of the solar light, that is to say, of the
seven tones of the spectrum. It is well known that
these seven tones appear to us dissimilar on account
of the inequality in the rapidity of the luminous
waves. The hues in Nature, like those of the

26 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

spectrum, differ to us also in appearance for the
same reason. Colours vary according to the inten-
sity of light. An object is not determined by a
specific colour, but by the more or less rapid
vibration of the light on its surface and this rapidity
depends, as demonstrated by optics, on the inclina-
tion of the solar rays, which, according as they are
vertical or oblique, give light and colour in different
degrees." *

It has been often a subject of regret with some
and for abuse by others that the art of the impres-
sionists has been sometimes devoted to commonplace
and even sordid subjects. But it must be remem-
bered that their movement was a reaction against the
artificial petrified methods of the classicists, acade-
mists, and romanticists ; and if the recoil was, at times,
extreme, its causes necessitated energetic action.

Prominent among the supporters of these cour-
ageous artists stand the names of Baudelaire and
Mallarm6. From the former Debussy has borrowed
several poems, and from the latter the subject of
one of his most important works, the eclogue
named by its author, L'apres-midi d'un faune.
Together with Henri de Regnier, Villiers de l'lsle
Adam, Andr6 Theuriet, Armand Silvestre, Verlaine,
and many others, these poets have been named
severally Parnassiens, Symbolists, Decadents, ac-
cording to the different idiosyncrasies of their
respective admirers or detractors. And Debussy

* " L'Impressionisme : les hommes, les id£es et les ceuvres,"

Camille Mauclair.

MODUS OPERANDI 27

has had his share of the appellatives. Though some
sense can be extracted from the two first-named of
these literary missiles, that of decadent, though it
serves its purpose as a linguistic brickbat, has little
or no meaning. It has often been asked where
decadence begins in any history of literature ? It
has been demonstrated that Virgil might be a
decadent with regard to Ennius, Lucan to Virgil,
Claudian or Ausonius to Lucan. According to
such a procedure " Homer," said Villiers de l'lsle
Adam, "would be a decadent poet." The title of
Parnassiens was derived from a fantastic review
founded by M. Catulle Mendes. Later some of
its less precise and more intuitive contributors
were termed symbolists, for the reason that their
art partook of the allusive, evocative nature of sym-
bols. Their aim was to resemble music by appealing
to the emotions and by leaving a wide margin of
suggestion for the imagination to work on and
define. By their use of symbolic meaning the
signification of a poem could not only be understood
in several ways by different readers, but the poet's
ideas were endowed with a plastic, coloured, vibrat-
ing existence capable of being developed in the
reader's mind, and thus equalling in effect the pro-
longed harmonics or overtones of a rich chord or
combination of chords. In Debussy's music these
characteristics of impressionism and symbolism are
prominently marked. He employs sounds as colours
and blends them in varied juxtaposition, forming
them into delicately tinted sonorous aggregations ;

28 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

or he invests certain chords with an existence either
sufficient unto itself or renders it capable of germina-
ting and developing a series of shaded, many-hued
chord sequences. Fluid, flexible, vivid, these beau-
tiful harmonies, seemingly woven of refracted rays
of light, merge into infinite melody of a free, flowing
rhythm. " Tout est melodie dans sa musique," says
M. Vincent d'Indy. It approximates to the art of
the symbolists by its appeal to the imagination, by
its power of suggesting the most subtle soul-states,
and by its gift of evoking the magic atmosphere of
legend and dream. In spite of these affinities,
Debussy is especially averse to becoming merely
" the interpreter of his milieu," for, as he also says,
" it spoils an artist to be greatly in sympathy with his
surroundings." It is indeed impossible, in these
days of rapid communication, to keep aloof from
current thought and opinion ; neither would it be
beneficial for an artist were such an attitude practi-
cable. Debussy has struck the balance between
two extremes. While fully cognisant of the different
influences which are moulding present-day thought
and action, and while allowing his fancy to roam at
will, he has passed each innovation through the
alembic of his brain, and in the process it has
become suffused with his own individual qualities
and ideas. Though he has initiated a new style in
music, he has as yet founded no particular school ;
neither does he seem to have any wish so to do.

One of the cleverest of a brilliant group of con-
temporary French critics has remarked that during

MODUS OPERANDI 29

the period which extends from Cesar Franck to
Claude Debussy almost a complete page of musical
history has inscribed itself in France.* The end of
the nineteenth century has certainly witnessed a
Renaissance in French music. The movement is
racy of the soil ; it is entirely emancipated from the
impress of Germany in general and Wagner in
particular. Its influence is already spreading, and
can be traced in the efforts of the younger school
of American and English musicians. In America,
especially, great attention is being paid to all that
appertains to the art in France : the result has been
beneficial, with no detriment to the original indi-
vidual work which is being produced. In England
a knowledge of French orchestral and chamber
music is on the increase, but the operas and many of
the finer chefs-d'ceuvre of French composers have
not yet been given the opportunity of a hearing.
In one or two instances a somewhat too slavish
imitation of Debussy's method has had the usual
inefficacious result. In others judicious assimilation
joined to strong idiosyncrasy has helped to create a
more personal style, and the paramount Wagnerian
obsession has been banished. However, it is pre-
mature either to talk of emulating or copying
Debussy. As he is still in the prime of life, there is
no knowing to what developments his genius may
lead him. And to speak, as some have already done,
of his successors, and of the ends to which his
theories may ultimately lead others, is both precipi-
* Lionel de la Laurencie : " Le gout musical en France, " 1905.

30 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

tate and unprofitable. We may trace the many
complex windings of the scattered influences which
have tended to modify the technical side of his work,
but his inimitable, original art will still remair
elusive and mysterious ; for, apart from theoretical
ideas and formulas lending themselves willingly to
the scalpel of analysis, there remains to be noted
that " flash of the will that can, existent behind all
laws," which defies all scrutiny. In the following
examination of Debussy's compositions this lambent
flame may be discerned shedding its light over their
workmanship. It can be apprehended by the heart
and by the intuitive faculties, while the mind and
intelligence are intent on the laws upon which it
casts its radiant beams.

CHAPTER III

CHORAL, ORCHESTRAL AND
INSTRUMENTAL WORKS

" The knowledge that will hold good in work-
ing, cleave thou to that ; . . . the rest is yet all a
hypothesis of knowledge, a thing to be argued of
in schools. . . ." — Carlyle.

There is a curious resemblance between the two
introductory bars of U Enfant Prodigue and Pclleas et
Meltsande, but otherwise there is little premonition in
this initial work of the specific qualities of Debussy's
later compositions. In 1884 it gained him the Prix
de Rome at the Paris Conservatoire. He was then
twenty-two years of age. It was in the form of a
cantata for soli and chorus, and the words were
by E. Guiraud. It contains duets, trios, and a
piquantly written cortege and dance. The melodic
speech of Pelleas et Melisande is foreshadowed in
the semi-recitative used in the cantata, in so far as a
great deal of it follows the inflections of the speak-
ing voice. The Prix de Rome served to widen
the young composer's visual and mental horizon by
enabling him to pursue his studies in a foreign
country. Later, alluding to the prize, it is recorded

32 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

that he remarked that the fact of having gained it
resolved itself into the question of ascertaining
whether or not a student had talent ; and admitting
that it facilitated travel in Italy, or even Germany,
he asks why migration should be restricted to these
two countries. However, he determined at all costs
to gratify his own latent, nomadic tastes, and after
the prescribed course of study in Rome he returned
for a while to Paris, and went subsequently to Russia,
employing his time while there in giving lessons to
some wealthy young Russians. It was during this
course of instruction that he found many opportuni-
ties of listening to the string bands of the gipsies.
From these genuine Nature-musicians and their free
improvisations he derived vivid impressions, and
he has stated that he gained great advantages by
studying their simple spontaneous musical utterance.
The influence of the these open-air instrumentalists,
of their wild, strange rhythms, and of their primitive
folk-songs can be traced in parts of his Quatuor, and
in portions of his Nocturnes, in Vapres-midi d'uu
faiuie, and many of his piano pieces.

From Rome Debussy forwarded to the Societe
des Beaux Arts in Paris his first symphonic suite
entitled Printemps. It is an evocation of the
spirit of spring, and its delicately tinted harmonies are
precursors of some of the effective Nature touches
in Pelleas and in certain of the songs. It was
examined and judged by MM. Ambroise Thomas,
Charles Gounod, Leo Delibes, Reyer, Massenet, and
Saint-Saens. A verdict of undue modernity was

WORKS 33

given by these arbiters of taste. They deemed it in-
sufficiently precise in form and design. The follow-
ing year a second composition named La Demoiselle
elney was sent from Italy by the young composer
to his native city. The work was inspired by D. G.
Rossetti's " Blessed Damozel," and entitled a lyrical
poem for female voices and orchestra. Just at that
time the Pre-Raphaelite movement had an appre-
ciable vogue in Paris. Its influence was never
widespread, but many of the younger poets and
artists were fascinated and swayed by the ideas and
opinions of the Brotherhood. A prose translation
was made of the poem by Gabriel Sarrazin. By
many critics it is considered Rossetti's finest and
most characteristic work. In 1881 he gave Mr.
Hall Caine an account of its origin as deriving
from his perusal and admiration of Edgar Poe's
" Raven." " I saw " (this is Mr. Caine's version of
Rossetti's statement) "that Poehad done the utmost
it was possible to do with the grief of the lover on
earth, and I determined to reverse the conditions
and give utterance to the yearning of the loved one
in heaven." *

In its French dress the " Blessed Damozel " has
lost a great deal of its unique charm. Rossetti's
beautiful words, always chosen with infinite care and
selected with due regard to loveliness of sound, by
the very nature of their strong individuality are
unresponsive to any foreign treatment. Composed

* D. G. Rossetti, Letters and Memoir, 2 vols. 1895. W. M.
Rossetti,

C

34

CLAUDE DEBUSSY

when the poet-painter was nineteen years of age, it
is written with spontaneous felicity of expression,
and is simple and direct in manner. But though
some of the quaint, archaic phraseology cannot
adequately be reproduced in another language, the
spirit of the poem has been well conceived by the
translator and still more wonderfully transcribed
in Debussy's music. He has captured the poet's
delicate imagery, and set it with a minute attention
to precise detail worthy of a Pre-Raphaelite painting,
altogether different to the style of his later works.
The composition opens with one of his character-
istic melodic themes. Two curvilinear groups of
common chords evoke, in a manner similar to the
initial theme of Pelleas et Melisande, a feeling of
remoteness and of mystery. A solemn chant

followed by an expressive lyrical melody, pensive
and sweet, forms the introductory orchestral prelude.
A chorus of sopranos then describe in flexible, fluid
cadences the appearance of the Blessed Damozel at
the "gold bar of heaven." The second verse is
sung in recitative to an accompaniment of broken

WORKS 35

arpeggios. A selection of the next nine verses of
the poem are sung by the recitante and chorus
respectively, and then in melodic speech accents the
Damozel's words are sung by a soprano. Especially
beautiful is the moment when

The light thrilled through her, fill'd
With angels in strong level flight.

The orchestration is then of ethereal delicacy.
The appearance of the luminous heavenly cortege
is wonderfully well portrayed, as also when it has
passed and " their path

Was vague in distant spheres,"

This lambent procession may possibly have
suggested to the composer the brilliant cavalcade
which passes through and mingles with the aerial
fetes in the second movement of the Noc-
turnes. At the close of the Demoiselle elite
the pensive introductory melody reappears, and is
especially expressive of the final dejected attitude of
the Blessed Damozel leaning on the golden barrier,
weeping, with her face between her hands. As the
composition is solely for female voices, the lover's
verses are not set to music, and his concluding
comment, " I heard her tears," is therefore omitted,
and only suggested at the end of a short orchestral
epilogue by the combined voices singing an inter-
jectory " Ah ! " on the chord of C major.

The learned critics at the Academie des Beaux-
Arts styled Rossetti's poem obscure, and though
they considered its musical adaptation not devoid

36 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

of poetry and charm, they declared they still recog-
nised in it the composer's systematic tendency
towards vagueness of expression, a form of utter-
ance with which they had previously had occasion
to reproach him. But in the case of the Demoiselle
elite they believed it was justified to a certain
extent by the indefinite character of the subject.
Clearly the examiners did not belong to the section
of the French public whose accomplishments in-
cluded an appreciation of Pre-Raphaelitism and
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poetry. However, though
possibly uncongenial to the examiners, the poem
was well adapted to appeal to Debussy's love of
abstract reverie. He has always manifested a re-
markable consistency in his choice of objective
themes whereon to exercise his art. In the first
number of his Proses lyriques he has essayed to
portray, both in his own words and in music, the
intangible substance of a waking dream. He ends
with these significative words : " My soul is encom-
passed with old-world dreams."

Realising as he does the unlimited power of
suggestion, possessed by the art of music and
understanding in a very subtle degree its capability
of giving a fleeting existence to immaterial,
abstract ideas he has invariably chosen delicate,
intangible subjects and flights of fancy which gain
pre-eminently an added and prolonged eloquence
in music. To those who would attempt to define
the unknowable, and who would limit the arts to -
precise expression or imitation of what they call

WORKS 37

realities, Debussy's choice of poets, his association
of ideas in music, even his Nature studies and
impressions, must seem antagonistic and incom-
prehensible. He is averse to binding music down
to the exact reproduction of set programmes, but
has rather chosen to amplify and expand evanescent,
shadowy thoughts — to distil their essence and then
capture and protract it in sound. His best-known
work in England and America, and one that has
elicited a great deal of conflicting criticism, the Pre-
lude Uapres-midi d'unfaune, is based on the work of
a poet whose temperament and idiosyncrasies are
singularly akin to his own. Stephane Mallarme
struck out an individual line in literature and
followed it in spite of raillery and contempt from
a number of his contemporaries, remaining content
with the homage and respect of a cultured few and
the consciousness of his own sincerity and unfailing
loyalty to a cherished ideal. He endeavoured to
formulate a poetic art which would embody with
perfect harmony a medley of dissimilar emotions and
ideas. He intended each of his verses to convey at
one and the same time a plastic image, an expres-
sion of a thought, the enunciation of a sentiment and
a philosophical symbol ; it was to be subordinate to
the strictest rules of prosody, so as to form a perfect
whole, and thus to depict the complete transfiguration
of a state of the soul.* Mallarme s poems appeal
to the reader's intuition and sensibility quite as much
as to his intelligence. He needs to discern the

* Theodor de Wyzewa : " Nos Maitres."

38 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

vibrations, as it were, of the poet's thought ; to
discover the underlying strata that gave it form, and
to catch some faint echo of the Infinite embodied
in the Finite idea. The research of the ideal, the
artist's vision and conception of beauty and truth,
the analysing of this vision and of these abstract con-
cepts, are the familiar subjects of Mallarme's poems.
He is in accord with Carlyle, and "everywhere
finds himself encompassed with symbols . . . ;
the universe is to him but one vast symbol of
God ; " and in the universe he has searched for the
intimate correlation and interdependence of all
things. As the sun transfigures objects in its golden
light, so the imagination, or poet's vision, the evoca-
tion of old-world dreams, idealises this material age
of utility and ugliness.

L'apres-midi cTunfaune is an encomium in verse
of the imperishable dominion of fancy and dream
and of the artist's power to evolve a world of his own
from his artistic creations. These subjective thoughts
are given an archaic setting and are made objective
in the illusions of a mythological faun. A cursory
glance at this extremely difficult symbolic poem, the
conventional association of ideas connecting a faun
with antcis, Debussy's unusual harmonies and pro-
gressions,and prejudicedcriticisms consigningmusic
and poem to the voi<f and the inane were, of necessity,
in the natural order of events. With a few rough
strokes the poem can thus be outlined. A faun is
lying on the borderland of waking and sleeping in a
grove. The atmosphere is palpitating with the golden

WORKS 39

mid-day heat of an Eastern day. He has seen some
white, slender-limbed, light-footed nymphs flit by :
he would perpetuate the lovely vision. But he asks
himself, Am I in love with a dream ? Fully awake,
he begins to reflect and analyse. He dissects the
sensations and emotions he has experienced;
questions the truth of the dream ; recalls it again
and again. His efforts remain fruitless. The
tawny brilliant sunlight of reality has dispelled all
illusion. His thoughts become exaggerated, dis-
torted ; his senses predominate. Delicate imagery
had erstwhile taken shape in his mind : had he seen
a flight of swans ? A full-blown rose prefigures the
culmination of his dream ; a bunch of amber-coloured
grapes is emblematic of the lost illusion : bereft of
their contents, he would inflate their empty skins
and watch the sun's rays glinting through them.
The current of his ideas become more and more
realistic ; at last he imagines himself under the
shadow of Etna with Venus in his arms. And while
he is anticipating punishment for such desecration
sleep visits his eyelids once more ; he bids adieu to
waking facts and reality and in the shades of oblivion
will he go in rightful quest of the shadowy, vanished
dream. In this slight, pallid sketch of a poem replete
with rich imagery and vivid colour the faun can be
taken as symbolic of the artist ; the dream-nymphs :
inspiration. The creative impulse, the artist's re-
sponse to ideal inspired thought, is represented as
blighted and blurred by analysis in the pitiless waking
light of mid-day reality ; and the artist's realisation

4o CLAUDE DEBUSSY

of beauty is understood to be correspondence with
his own interior vision of truth. This interpretation
is an individual one, and can be controverted or
amplified and modified according to personal pre-
dilections ; for the signification of the poem is wide
and elastic.

Mallarme's method of employing single isolated
words in his text resembles Debussy's use of unre-
lated detached chords. The words, like the chords,
scintillate like jewels ; in the poem they are charged
with symbolic meaning. Debussy has named his
setting of this eclogue a prelude symphonique.
It is therefore hardly to be considered as programme
music, except in the sense of suggesting some of the
main features of the poem. The ascending and
descending introductory bars given out by an
unaccompanied flute convey an idea of pastoral
charm. A characteristic bucolic horn motif follows,
and the first theme is repeated with muted string
accompaniment. The whole scoring of the com-
position is of cobweb delicacy. The orchestra is
composed of three flutes, oboes, clarinets, four
horns, two harps, antique cymbals, and strings.
The principal themes are given by clarinets, oboes,
and harps respectively. A scale of whole tones is
heard on the clarinet ; this leads to another section,
marked pin animato, in which the oboe voices the
principal theme. These subjects are all interwoven
with and linked to other themes. They are heard
sometimes as solos, sometimes concerted. The
rhythm of the whole work is free and varied. The

WORKS 41

strings, muted or otherwise, are often used as a kind
of background to the wind solos, which is most
effective. A veil of palpitating heat seems to be
suffused over the composition, and corresponds to
the glow of Eastern sunlight in the poem and also
to the remote, visionary nature of the poet's imagery
and fancies. The tone poem also recalls the golden
noon of an idyl of Theocritus. All through the
piece the composer preserves this feeling of elusive-
ness, of mirage : he attains it by the use of delicate
unusual harmonies and by the silvery, web-like
tracery of his phrases. The frequent use of the
scale of whole tones and the unresolved dissonances
produce a distinct charm of their own. The chords
are of exceeding richness and present a depth of
glowing colour. The interspersed solos for violin,
oboe, clarinet, cor anglais, resemble dainty broidery,
and portray intimately the ramifications of doubt
and longing in the faun's mind, which he likens
to a multitude of branches with slender pointed
sprays and sprigs.

In his next orchestral work, published in 1890,
M. Debussy has poetised in sound some of Nature's
most ethereal and imponderable phenomena. The
transient appearance of clouds, the intangible
fabric of their aerial architecture, their kaleido-
scopic colouring, and the universal rhythm pre-
valent in the infinitesimal atoms and electrons of
the ambient air have been utilised to exemplify
the mystery of creation and the analogy between
Us phantasmagoria and the human heart and

42 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

soul. There are many, no doubt, who would
call the Nocturnes programme music, and who might
imagine them to be merely descriptive of the out-
ward aspects of Nature. The scanty notes prefixed
by the composer to the programmes on the occasion
of the first performance in Paris of this symphonic
work are not meant to be taken an pied de la lettre.
They outline or sketch an impression of an impres-
sion. They may indicate the association of ideas in
Debussy's mind, but each separate listener is at
liberty to develop the ideas and to discern for him-
self all the imagery and symbolism issuing from
the more obvious analogies. The printed score
has no explanatory analysis. Its sub-titles are :
Nuages, Fetes, Sirenes (16 voix de femmes). The
following slight elucidation was affixed to the initial
prospectus of the work :

" The title of nocturnes is to be interpreted in a
wider sense than that usually given to it, and most
especially is it understood as having a decorative
meaning. Therefore the usual form of nocturne has
not been considered, and the word is to be accepted
as signifying in the amplest manner diversified im-
pressions and special lights.

"Nuages (clouds) : the unchanging aspect of the
sky, and the slow, solemn movement of the clouds
dissolving in grey tints lightly touched with white.

" Fetes (festivities) : the restless dancing rhythm
of the atmosphere interspersed with sudden flashes
of light. There is also an incidental procession (a
dazzling imaginary vision) passing through and

WORKS 43

mingling with the aerial revelry ; but the background
of uninterrupted festival is persistent with its blend-
ing of music, and luminous dust participating in the
universal rhythm of all things.

u Sirenes (sirens) : the sea and its perpetual rhythm,
and then amid waves silvered by moonbeams is
heard the laughter and mysterious song of passing
sirens."

Those words, suggestive rather than expository,
convey a very precise idea of the proximity of
Debussy's mind and soul to the " time-vesture of
God," which is Nature. The great interpretative
painter of rural life, J. F. Millet, expressed the wish
to make others hear " the songs, the silences, the
rustlings of the air." He longed to make them see
all that he saw. Through the medium of sound
Debussy has accomplished a little of what the
French painter aspired to and in a way achieved.
He has made himself one with elemental things, and
from their secret lore he has woven this tone poem,
in which he also has essayed to disclose to others
something of the mystery that underlies the objective
existence of all things. But if the thoughts contained
in the Nocturnes are too sublimated for some
minds, its music can be subjected to strict practical
examination, and the workmanship will reveal itself
all the more perfect from the test. Though not
adhering at all to classic form the Nocturnes belong
to the category of free symphonies evolved from the
modern symphonic poems of Liszt. Thus, though
its structure and subdivisions are not according to

44 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

traditional form, it is based on a principle of strict
thematic unity which admits of a diversity of varia-
tions of the given themes, or, in other words, of an
indefinite evolution of the cyclical method. This last-
named procedure, originating in a tentative manner
with Liszt, was perhaps more fully developed and per-
fected by C£sar Franck than by any other predecessor
of Debussy. It consists in using one or two themes
as generators of a composition. The modifications of
these are the progenitors of numberless others which
in their turn have their development and ramifica-
tions while the parent themes are maintained more
or less integral through the work. This cycle musical
is especially noticeable in Debussy's Quatuor, in La
Mer, Uapres-midi dun jaune, and in the Nocturnes,
and it can also be traced in certain sections of Pelleas,
The first movement of the Nocturnes contains the
embryonic life of the two succeeding movements.
It opens with one of Debussy's graceful character-
istic curviform themes in B minor ; it is played by
clarinets and bassoons and is interrupted by the cor
anglais, which gives out a special short motif com-
pleting and terminating the initial theme. These
two motifs are perfectly dissimilar as regards colour
and expression. They are originally united, but
later they separate and acquire a distinct individu-
ality : the first motif is developed in various ways,
but all through its different modifications and
changes of tonality the cor anglais motif is heard,
either linked or dominating, but unchanging in
structure, and like the second subject in Franck's

WORKS 45

Trio in F# unbroken and indivisible throughout the
movement. Towards the end of the Nudges the
convoluted first motif merges into a tranquil, suave
melody played by a flute and a harp, which forms
the second theme of this movement. Underlying
this the cor anglais motif is once again heard, also
two or three suggestions of the first motif ; and then
with strings pizzicati and muted brass the tone
poem slowly ends. The picture in the mind's eye
of the soft, vaporous, fleecy clouds is conveyed by the

Modere.

PP tres expressif. __^__^

Bassoons $va. lower.

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piic p

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C. Anglais motif.

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first and third subjects, while the cor anglais motif,
steadfast and invariable, can be taken to depictthe un-
changing background of clear sky over which the
cloud-rack solemnly drifts. This obvious pictorial
effect, exquisitely indicated, has its inner significance
to any one who has realised how, even in the play of
aerial forces, in their tranquil as well as in their
stormy moments, the weakness and strength of
earthly hopes and fears, and the clashing of human

//

46 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

wills and passions, can be mirrored and revealed.
The second number, " Festivities/' is one of exceed-
ing joy and brightness. The opening melody is in
triplets, four to the bar. It is first given to the

Anime et trh rythme.

/

cor anglais and clarinets, and later the flutes and
bassoons join in, with syncopating string accompani-
ment. This is again a modification of the initial
theme in Nuages, which with its double motif is
responsible for the greater part of Fetes, though
at the same time this second movement possesses a
distinct symmetrical form and existence of its own.
The rhythm is strongly accentuated, and carries with
it a feeling of powerful, energetic vitality. The move-
ment pulsates throughout with life and buoyancy.
The thought of the univeral vibratory forces was
unmistakenly present in Debussy's mind when he
composed this paean of optimistic joy :

The asteroidal fire that dances
Nightly in the northern blue,
The brightest of the boreal lances
Dances not so light as ... *

this maze of delicate, iridescent harmonies. A

sudden pianissimo falls on the quivering, oscillating

* Seosamh Campbell.

WORKS

47

triplets, and to a moderated but always extremely
rhythmic £ time harp, cymbals, and muted strings
give out a preliminary solemn processional march
accompaniment. Then a distant sound of three
muted trumpets introduces a ceremonious martial
theme derived from the first cor anglais motif ; this
pompous theme is amplified and strengthened, and
resolves itself into a multi-coloured, fantastic, motley
procession, which advances, threading its way
across the ethereal festival of the elements. It

99-

$t£

cm

m

u

increases continually in sonority, and when at its
apogee a glorious revelry of sound is heard. The
preceding movement of " Clouds " and all that has
succeeded it in " Festivities " is consummated in
this climax of polyphonic music. The whole
orchestra takes part in this culminating-point of the
composition, and finally combined flutes, oboes,
clarinets, and trumpets proclaim the reappearance
of the grandiloquent march, and with the exit
of the revellers the quivering, mobile, initial
subject is resumed. At the conclusion the
instruments are muted, and with the lightness of
motes gyrating in a sun-ray this aerial movement
ends.

48 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

Sirens. — A rhythmic undulation is heard on the
muted cellos, altos, and contrabasses, while short
triplicated arpeggios are played by flutes and
clarinets ; then sopranos and contraltos sing in an
undertone a broken, fragmentary melody derived
from the two motifs of the first theme of Nuages.
At the eighth bar an entirely new subject is intro-
duced on the strings. It is also of an oscillating
nature, and its existence was slightly foreshadowed
in Fetes. The scoring of this last, as also that of the
first and second movements, is at first sight a tangle
of germinating motifs. From a few simple themes
Debussy evolves a series of subjects ; in their turn
they engender others, the whole resembling the rami-
fications of spreading bough and leafy sprays. In
some instances he grafts one motif on to another,
and from their combination springs an amplified
third motif which calls into being one even more
individual than itself. The workmanship is of
filigree delicacy and finish : the frequent recurrence
of the ternary arabesque, which is a favourite device
of the composer, gives the printed score a likeness
to the art of the goldsmith. What at first sight
seems complex and redundant resolves itself after
close study into a clear, compendious example of
the cyclical principle by a master of theoretical
art.

Coming after the radiant Fetes, with its allegorical
dramatic procession of life, the third number
(Sirenes) seems by contrast woven of neutral tints
and half-lights. The rocking, wavelike rhythm, the

WORKS 49

reminiscent themes recurring in broken snatches
like gleams on the more uniform structure of the
surging string accompaniment, the sad undertone
of the siren voices, give a pictorial effect to this
movement which approximates it to one of Whistler's
silver and blue toned nocturnes.

In 1904 Debussy published two dances for piano
or chromatic harp, with accompaniment of string
orchestra. No. 1 is named Danse Sacree : No. 2
Danse Profane. The following year an important
orchestral work entitled La Mer : trois esquisses
symphoniques, was published. In this work the
composer places his hearers again face to face with
one of Nature's great elemental forces ; in it he tells,
through the medium of the instruments, a little of
the irresistible attraction exercised upon him by the
sea.

The first number, De I'aube d midi sur la mer,
opens pianissimo f in B minor. The long-sus-
tained note (B) on the double-basses is used
quiveringly on the kettle-drums ; muted violins and
altos, also harps, give out a series of steadfast
ascending chords, and at the sixth bar a short crisp
theme on the oboe reminds one at this juncture
and throughout the movement of the cor anglais
motif in the Nocturnes. From shore to horizon all
is still, expectant, mysterious. Then to the violins
and cellos is given a distinctive diatonic melody (£),
which is reiterated for twelve bars and gives the
impression of glints of light on the peaceful ocean.
After a while the entire orchestra is active and in

D

50 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

movement : a new day is breaking, the whole vast
panorama of sea and sky is suffused with a golden
splendour ; delicate tints of rose-pink, pale saffron,
and tender green vanish one by one. The solo violin
executes a fragment of delicious melody, sixteen
cellos divided into four groups give a modification
of the first theme. There is a continual increasing
of life and animation, and to the cor anglais and
'cello in unison are allotted ten bars of beautiful
melody, to the accompaniment of long-sustained
chords by the rest of the strings and wood. The
movement ends with an emphatic repetition of part
of the diatonic theme already described.

II. Jenx de v agues. Allegro dans un rythme tres
souple. E major. — After several anticipatory intro-
ductory bars the chief theme is given out (f ) by the
first and second violins in octaves, soon followed by
a short second theme given to the horns. The play
and interplay of the various instruments is most
interesting. One seems to see the action of the
tiny waves, their crests crinkled into foam by the
wind and pierced by sunrays ; and here and there
amid its larger brethren a wavelet comes dancing
along. The whole is a perfect picture of ocean life
on a summer's day.

III. Dialogue dn vent et de la mer. Anime et
tumultueux. — This opens with a questioning group
of reiterating triplets played by 'cellos and double-
basses, later by the altos and answered by oboes and
clarinets, giving a variation of the first theme in the
first movement. At bar 31 of score a new subject is

WORKS 51

played forte by muted trumpets, which is heard again
later on ; but previous to this we come across a modi-
fied form of the first theme played by horns. This is
again taken up by oboe and cor anglais. The move-
ment now develops into a veritable dialogue between
strings and wind intruments. In bar 98 recurs the
above-mentioned trumpet theme in a slightly modi-
fied form: it is one of the finest examples of Debussy's
use of the whole-tone scale in polyphonic harmony.
He continues to employ it during several succeed-
ing measures. Bar 133 gives a change of key to
D flat with a short motif played by horns, which,
however, is not heard again. Long-sustained
harmonics on first violins with arpeggios on two
chromatic harps form the accompaniment for flutes
and oboes which reintroduce the first theme with
chromatic variations. The sudden change to key of
C major, and sixteen bars later the return of that of
D flat reveal nothing fresh beyond the development
of the first theme. The concluding portion of this
movement is a delicate idyll representing the dalli-
ance and coquetting of wind and wave, in which
each half of the orchestra has its apportioned de-
clamatory expression.

In the String Quartet, written after the Prelude de
V apres-midi d'un faune, the cyclic treatment of
themes is as remarkable as in the subsequent
Nocturnes. The opening bars contain the funda-
mental subject of the quartet. In the first movement
in 4 time, this motif, expanded and developed, is
associated with a second theme, and the two hence-

52 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

forward continue their metamorphosis linked and
interwoven. In the Scherzo the viola voices the
first theme in a different rhythm (f ). It is taken up
in succession by the other instruments. The first
violin plays it in lengthened cadence, and later it is
employed in pizzicato form. In the third movement,
Andantino doucement expressif, an amplification of
the first theme reversed is given out by the first
violin in the fifth bar ; afterwards the viola plays it
in the second section in a modified form. In the
fourth movement (tres modere) the initial motif
is used in a fragmentary manner. Later this
subject takes the form of a fugue, and is given out
by the 'cello, answered by the viola, and taken up
by the first and second violins. The movement
ends with a modified recapitulation of the funda-
mental theme and works up to the climax, ending
with a long scale of G played on the first violin.
Though in treatment a great deal of the old classic
form is adhered to in this Quartet, yet it is broad and
uncircumscribed, and conveys a feeling of enchant-
ment such as is suggested by Keats' distant haunted
meres and faery seas forlorn.

The interweaving of human passions with the
play of Nature's mighty forces has a constant
fascination for Debussy, and he has been for some
time engaged in writing incidental music for King
Lean He has also in preparation a setting of
D. G. Rossetti's strange mystic sonnets " Willow-
wood," and it is announced that M. Albert Carre
will shortly produce another work at the Opera

WORKS 53

Comique from the pen of the composer of Pelleas
which is a series of episodes from the "Story
of Tristan." The treatment of this romantic old-
world legend will be on totally dissimilar lines from
those of the Wagnerian drama.

CHAPTER IV
SONGS AND PIANO PIECES

Mystiques barcarolles

Musique qui p£netre. — Verlaine

Together with such song-writers as Duparc,
Chausson, Faure, Jemain, Strauss, and Max Reger,
Debussy is a past master of his craft. One can be
mindful of his discriminating choice of poems — and
selection needs discretion, for there are forbidden
degrees in the alliance of music and poetry — but a
strict investigation of ithe exact art with which he
fashions these dainty creations of his brain is as
impracticable as endeavouring to analyse the essence
of a morning dewdrop or the fragrance of a night-
scented flower. Certain outward signs of the
workmanship of his songs can be noted, but " the
secret of the grace beyond the reach of art " eludes
our pursuit. It appears as if, having grasped the
general purport and trend of a poem, he recorded
his impression in music with a series of gleams and
sudden lights, which partial impressions are derived
from the main theme or thought. It is in his songs
that the parallel between his art and M. Henri le

SONGS AND PIANO PIECES 55

Sidaner's exquisite colour impressions is most
clearly perceptible. In one of his recent series of
paintings, named by him " Venise : Lueurs et
Lumieres," Le Sidaner takes as his subject a few of
the old monumental palaces and buildings in Venice ;
also one of her smaller canals, and a concert on one
of her wide watery highways. He surrounds these
with the poetry of the different times and seasons in
which he surveys them. And to their own intrinsic
charm he adds the specific quality of light apper-
taining to Autumn, Winter, Dawn, Gloaming,
Eventide and Night. They one and all possess,
not only their special atmospheric luminosity, but
each of them is a record of Nature mirrored in the
mind of an exceptionally gifted artist and made
ostensible against a background of ordinary general
interest. In Debussy's Ariettes oubliees, Verlaine's
second Aquarelle, Spleen is a delineation of the
poet's mood reflected on the sensitive plate of the
composer's mind and appropriated to a similar
mood of his own. The satiated desire anticipating
and fearing the inevitable change is rendered
objectively perceptible in the poet's overstrained
perception of the excess of summer beauty in
crimson roses, cloudless skies, translucent green
sea. The hot midday rays of the sun accentuate
the gloss on the holly leaves, glint the glimmering
brightness of the box trees, and suffuse the
lengthening landscape with glowing heat. The
song begins with a short melodic cadence as
prelude; it is used as an undertone throughout.

56 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

The words " Les roses etaient toutes rouges, et les
lierres etaient tout noirs " are declaimed. Then to
the harmonised accompaniment of the opening
prelude and its development is heard in poignant
descending cadence : " Chere, pour peu que tu te
bouges, Renaissent tous mes desespoirs." Similar
accents, harmonised in the accompaniment, voice
the poet's despondent mood. For the mainspring
of the poem is anxiety and anticipation, which
corrode the happy present.

Je crains toujours, ce qu'est d'attendre
Quelque fuite atroce de vous.

The last words are underlined by a series of
ascending, restless demi-semiquavers. Then later
a group of ascending chords leads to the climax and
descends to the anticlimax :

Je suis las,
Et de la campagne infinie
Et de tout, fors de vous, Helas !

Helas ! is sung at the end of the recurrence of the
little plaintive initial prelude. The song concludes
with some soft long-drawn chords in F minor.
This slight musical analysis, which is merely an
attempt at delineating a musical impression in pen
and ink, is given to show how minute is Debussy's
elaboration of detail in even a short song of thirty-
four bars And this perfect little piece of workman-
ship is characterised by apparent simplicity and de-
lightful spontaneity of thought and treatment.
Verlaine's poems have furnished many a com-

SONGS AND PIANO PIECES 57

poser with subject-matter for songs. Among
French musicians Gabriel Faure has perhaps set the
greatest number ; both Faure and Ernest Chausson
have captured the soulful qualities of these lyrics ;
the dainty* decorative aspect and light descriptive
touches of many of them have appealed most to
Charpentier, De Severac and to Doret. Debussy
has found his own moods and feelings mirrored in
Verlaine's verse, and his songs are not so much
conceptions of the poems as reflections of the poet's
immaterial impressions.

The airy delicacy of the third Ariette oubliee in
both words and music could not easily be surpassed.
Just a glimpse is given of the shadowy waters of a
river : in their depths the trembling reflection of the
adjacent trees, while overhead in their branches the
soft plaint of doves is heard. An analogy is
hazarded between this coup-d'ceil of the dim
landscape and the human soul lamenting, like doves
amid high foliage, sunken hopes and lost ideals.
The little song is as delicate as a spring windflower :
insubstantial as the smoke to which Verlaine likens
the waving tree reflections, the breath of superfluous
words almost injures its aerial beauty. In the
same volume of songs "Chevaux de Bois" is
included ; also " Green " and the two first numbers
of " Ariettes oubliees." In the three last, words and
music are again in intimate communion. The
accompaniment to "II pleure dans mon cceur"
lends a feeling of continuity and monotony to the
murmur of the rain falling upon earth and roofs

58 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

and dulling the poet's sad heart. "Chevaux de
Bois," descriptive of a circus merry-go-round in a
sordid part of Paris, is in vivid contrast to the
other songs. It is full of life and movement,
resembling one of Manet's animated canvases.
Round and round, a hundred times, a thousand
times, revolve the gaily painted horses to the
sound of the clanging steam-made music. On them
sit the child in red and the mother in white, the boy
in black and the girl in pink, each with their Sunday
penny. And in the midst of the rabble and rush, in
and out of the hurly-burly, walks the poet, hungry
and tired and dizzy. The setting is an evocation of
the picture and of the writer's mood when visualising
it. Rapid in execution, the song leaves a vertiginous
effect behind it. Verlaine's " En Sourdine " and
" Colloque Sentimental" are amongst the best
instances of Debussy's delicate handling of fugitive
evanescent dream-lyrics. The first is a crystallisation
of a perfect moment of life ; the second, a suscita-
tion of the spectres of past emotions. A feeling of
close intimity and fruition is given to the one, while
to the other one of eeriness and loss is apportioned
by the sympathetic composer.

Fantoches is a jest ; its humour and finesse are
reciprocated with skilful, dainty touch. Clair de lime
gives the composer opportunity for effective nature
transposition. The fabric of the music is light and
graceful in outline ; the delicate arabesques in the
accompaniment suggest the play of shifting,
changeful moonrays ; and over the whole composi-

SONGS AND PIANO PIECES 59

tion a feeling of stillness and tranquillity is suffused.
The three Chansons de Bilitis are taken from Pierre
Louys' volume of poems bearing that name.
Bilitis is supposed by her creator to have been a
contemporary of Sappho. He tells that she was
born in the mountains west of Pamphylia. Amidst
wild scenery, where great lakes are cradled in the
heights, and the valleys are still and silent, Bilitis
wrote of the nymphs whom she cherished and of the
fountains round which they congregated. Later she
told of her deep love, and when sorrow came to her
she ceased to sing. Debussy has set La Flute de
Pan, La Chevelure and Le Tombeau des Naiades. In
the first, the Lydian scale is used as prelude
and introduced into the accompaniment with
singular effect. It gives a reedy, sylvan sound to
the pastoral theme. In the accompaniment to La
Chevelure the same Lydian scale (5th Gregorian mode)
is employed. By the simplest possible means, for the
melody is of almost psalmodic declamation, a wealth
of impassioned sentiment is concentrated into a few
phrases. The subject is a vivid dream, related by
Bilitis, in which a moment of ardent love is relived
in memory. The relaxation of tension after the
climax is particularly striking, and combined with
the grave simplicity of the prelude and opening bars
places the strong emotion displayed midway in the
composition in salient relief. The white, wintry
picture of Le Tombeau des Naiades is realistically
reproduced. The clear-cut tonalities of the accom-
paniment with its reiterated shuddering groups of

60 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

ascending semi-quavers, the sustained uniformity of
the clear utterance, the acciaccatura in front of the
chords, all combine to produce an effect of chill and
cold and the uniformity of a snow-swept landscape.
After the archaic style of these songs Baudelaire's
"Cinq Poemes" seem showy in comparison. But it is
in his diversified treatment of contrasting themes
that Debussy's genius is so clearly shown. Baude-
laire's exotic imagery has been allied to some of the
most exuberant and richly coloured melody of all
Debussy's songs. In chronological order they
were published five years before the Chansons de
Bilitis and also before some of the Ariettes oubliees.
In each of them the accompaniments are more am-
plified than in any of the other songs. A greater
redundancy is given to harmonic effects and to the
treatment of the different themes. They are rhap-
sodical and ornamental in design. The strange union
of sensuousness and spirituality, of Eastern ardour
and delicate sensibility in the poems, is mirrored
in the exquisite melodic phrases and passionate
accents of these songs. In La Mort des Amauts and
Le Balcon the supple, expressive themes unite them-
selves with perfect grace to the diversified emotional
and lyrical movements of the poet's thoughts, while
in Recneillement and Harmonie du Soir a more placid
soul state is mirrored.* In Debussy's own Proses
Lyriqnes, especially in De Reve and De Fleurs,
the influence^ of Baudelaire may be felt. De Soir

* "Le Jet d'Eau/1 (Baudelaire) has lately been scored for orchestra
by the composer.

SONGS AND PIANO PIECES 61

is a little idyll recording the joys of Sunday mi-
grations into the country. Then " sad; unavailing
thoughts come to him and cause him to lament the
Sundays of yester-year." The little prose-poem ends
by telling how velvet-footed night comes to lull the
weary sky to slumber and "'tis Sunday in the avenues
of stars,where the gold and silver Virgin scatters earth-
wards the dream flowers of oblivion. Vite, les pet its
anges, depassez les hirondelles afln de vons catcher
forts d! absolution . Prenez pitie des villes, prenez pitie
des ccenrs, vous} la Vierge or sur argent." The
quaint and simple music is admirably adapted to
this pretty fancy with its archaic, decorative ending.
From among other skilful settings of poems
by Bourget, Tristan L'hermite, Theodore de
Banville and others, mention must be made of
the two Rondels by Charles due d'Orleans. The
stately refinement, stiff grace and gentle pathos
of these have been refashioned in the appropriate
music.

It is certain that the right rendering of these
beautiful songs is no very easy matter. They bristle
with the kind of difficulties which the ordinary
average singer seldom cares to surmount. For the
awkward intervals and intricate progressions an
extremely accurate ear is required. In each case the
poet has to be considered equally with the musician.
For this, intelligence and a poetic insight are
needed ; also artistic taste, refinement, and the power
of conveying the lighter and subtler shades of emo-
tion and sentiment. Hard work and earnest study

62 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

will, however, be amply rewarded, and no real musi-
cian can fail to apprehend the rare beauty contained
in the varied collection of Debussy's masterpieces
of vocal art.

Many of the piano pieces are almost equally inter-
esting. Hommage a Rameau, in the style of the sara-
bandes of the old Masters, is a graceful tour deforce.
Reflets dans Veau and Jardins sous la Pktie are both
impressionist sketches. The first is a delicate repro-
duction in harmonic sound of shimmering waters
and of the shifting, dazzling reflections seen in their
depths. The rippling flow and trickle of running
stream or brooklet is heard, the cool, translucent
effect and gurgle of disturbed water is given, and
throughout the piece the constant mobility of the
trembling, wavering shadows is maintained. Jardins
sous la Pluie depicts the monotonous dripping of a
summer shower through thick leafy trees, the gradual
dispersal of clouds and the first flicker, after the
shower, of sunbeams falling on the refreshed and
radiant flowers. Mouvements is a paean of joyful life
and action. Many of Debussy's characteristic har-
monies and whole-tone scales occur in these different
studies. In Pagodes his free, fantastic use of unre-
lated chords and hitherto unlicensed intervals will
be found in plenty. It is full of Eastern colouring
ending in a soft, vibrating, dissonant chord which is
in keeping with the bizarre Chinese picture. In
Une Soiree en Grenade (mouvement de Habanera) the
quick transpositions of key and rhythm and abrupt
changes of mood and feeling portray the varying

SONGS AND PIANO PIECES 63

southern nature with its alternations of ardour and
extreme languor. Among the earlier compositions
for the piano are Deux Arabesques : both are melo-
dious, and the first, though in no way anticipating
Debussy's later style, is extremely graceful and pleas-
ing. The second set of Images : Gigue triste, Iberia
and Ronde, have been successfully scored by the com-
poser for orchestra. Masques, L'Isle Joyeuse, Suite
Bergamesque, and Pour le Piano are all well known and
often heard on concert platforms. Something of
the fluidity of the Pelleas fountain music and of the
" deep music of ancient forests " has crept into the
first number of Pour le Piano, entitled Prelude, and
classic grace and eloquence permeate the old-world
Sarabande. In all these sonorous impressions, the
mind of a true poet and the hand of a subtle har-
monist can be traced. There is no straining for
effect, no affected posing ; all is the outcome of an
independent genius objectively projecting his ideas
in new and original harmonies.

CHAPTER V
"PELLEAS ET MELISANDE"

" Le theatre doit etre le reflet de la vie, non de
cette vie exterieure de parade, mais de la vraie
vie interieure toute de reflexion." — Maeterlinck.

Sooner or later, at some epoch of their lives, most
composers of note turn to opera as a means of ex-
pressing themselves. It is for them at one and the
same time a growth, a development, a widening of
scope, a focussing of scattered energies. The gradual
and consistent evolution of Debussy's art fulfilled
itself in the writing of the lyric drama Pelleds
et Melisande. This opera falls into place in his
career as the logical outcome of all that preceded
it. The psychology displayed in the song miniatures,
the iridescent colouring of the Apres Midi d'lin
Faune and the Nocturnes; the cyclical devices of the
Quatuor and the varied fugitive hues and shades of
the piano pieces are all gathered up and converged
into the larger and more elaborate work. This
selection of Maeterlinck's play as subject-matter is
also co-ordinate with his previous associations of
poetry and music. The Belgian writer's drama was
particularly fitted for the exercise of Debussy's

"PELLEAS ET MELISANDE" 6$

mystic turn of mind and fanciful play of thought,
and it lent itself readily to the amplification it
received from his musical setting. Spontaneous,
original, full of thought and symbolism, it is as
fragrant as the flowers in the gardens of the old
castle in Allemonde, and as fresh as the sea which
beats round King ArkeTs domain. It belongs to
the series destined by its author for a theatre of
Marionettes. The explanation given by him of his
reasons for choosing this appellation are sufficiently
interesting to be briefly quoted : unintentionally
they demonstrate how puissant an aid music can be
to these suggestive scenic poems. Maeterlinck
shares with many others the feeling of disillusion
when the curtain lifts on a favourite poetic play.
"The theatre/' he says, " kills the majority of chefs
d'ceuvre. . . . Every chef d'ceuvre is a symbol, and
a symbol does not tolerate the active co-operation
of human beings. . . . The Greeks were aware of
this antinomy, and the masks used by them, which
have no meaning to us, probably served to extenuate
the appearance of human beings and to assuage the
symbol." It is for these same reasons that he
places the actors behind a veil of transparent gauze,
uses the style of utterance of simple primitive folk,
and assigns his dramas "to beings by nature not
unfriendly to poetry," who, for want of a better name,
he designates as " Marionettes." * In Debussy's
lyrical drama of Pelleas et Mclisaude, the music aids

* French preface to second series of Maeterlinck's plays, trans-
lated by Richard Hovey.

E

1

66 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

the dramatist's theories by accentuating the illusi
and emphasising the poetic content ; it voices inl
own mysterious language the hidden beauty I
symbol, and reveals the secret hopes and feaT
lurking in the hearts of the characters.

In outline the story runs thus : There was on
an old king of Allemonde named Arkel. In h
grim castle, situated on a wild rocky coast a
partly surrounded by dense forests, there lived WitS
him his daughter Genevieve, her second husbanB
and her son Pelleas ; also her son by a form«
husband, Golaud, and his little son YniolB
Golaud's wife had died, and his grandfather, fcJ
political reasons, had arranged a marriage for hi J
with a princess of an adjoining country name!
Ursula. One day Golaud, who was a mighfl
hunter, left the castle where his stepfather \M
dangerously ill, and started off on a boarhuntirH
expedition. He loses his way in a forest, anfl
emerging from the thick trees and undergrowth
to an open space, he sees a beautiful maiden, dress
like a princess, sitting by the side of a pool ai
weeping. She is very timid and frightened ai
begs him not to touch her. She tells him 5
comes from a far distant land ; that she has
away and that a crown some one had given her
fallen into the water. She forbids him to seek f
it, and warns him if he does she will throw hers
into the pool. Finally, though she thinks him
and rough and grey-haired, he persuades her
come away with him. Six months later Pelle

Photo, Pergcr, Paris

MISS MARY GARDEN* AS MELISANDE

"PELLEAS ET MELISANDE" 67

■receives a letter from Golaud telling him of his
■marriage with the little unknown Melisande, and of
Bier beauty, and begging him, ere he returns home
■0* intercede on his behalf with his grandfather.
HPelleas gives the letter to his mother, and she breaks
■he news to the old king, who wisely accepts the
■nevitable. Golaud brings Melisande home to the
Bolitary gloomy castle where, in his absence on
Blunting expeditions, she wiles away her time play-
■ng with her little stepson, and discovering the old-
Bme meanings of affinity and love. With gay
Hisouciance Pelleas and Melisande are ever roaming
Bpgether in the sunniest parts of ArkeTs ancient
Homain. But the green flame of jealousy in Golaud's
■yes dispels their golden dreams, and slowly and
Belentlessly the gyves of Fate wind round them.
Bpne beautiful moonlight night the morose and
Higry husband surprises the lovers by an old well
Helebrated for its curative powers of blindness ; he
Hienaces Melisande and stabs Pelleas to death,
■hat night to the stunned and frightened Melisande
■ child is born, and her life is in dire peril. While
m is trembling in the balance, Golaud, maddened by
■ie, desire of ascertaining if her love was innocent
H\ guilty, plies the dying girl with brutal questions ;
Hie' agitation is too severe for the weakened system :
Helisande loses her frail hold on life and dies. This
Hmple story, fraught with pathos and passion,
H)rtrayed by Maeterlinck with his usual insight
Hid sympathetic touch, has gained a still greater
Hu§ive beauty and a deeper significance by its

68 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

association with the music so aptly adapted by
Debussy to its needs. His setting of the story is on
no preconceived lines : it has no relation to any
opera that has preceded it. The whole drama is sung
by the characters to a kind of psalmodic declama-
tion. This sprach-melodie might be called intensified
speech occasionally resembling plain or Gregorian
chant. It is sung in measured cadences ; its free
accent forms the melody, and it is always perfectly
balanced and symmetrical. The delicate orchestra-
tion is well adapted to the needs of this declamatory
style of utterance. Sometimes the dialogue is
merely accompanied by a few sparse richly-coloured
chords ; at other times it is sustained by an aggrega
tion of beautiful chord sequences ; unusual com-
binations are continually scintillating among these,
and the ancient modes devoid of leading note
intensify the old-world feeling of the legendary
drama. At intervals the orchestra voices the inner
soul-states of the characters, depicting also the
sympathy between these and the sentient soul of
Nature and amplifying the objective moods of each
The dialogue is never lost in the orchestration ; it is
always independent, clear and vocal. There is no
labelling of objects, places, emotions and personages,
as in • Wagner's music-dramas, but there are a
certain number of suggestive themes treated cyclic
ally and always in close relationship to what has
preceded or succeeded them. Debussy is strongly
averse to the intimate coalescence of voice and
orchestra. The following words, written by him in

•

"PELLEAS ET MELISANDE" 69

the Revue Blanche of 1901, express his opinions on
the subject : " Wagner has left us an inheritance of
certain formulas for the union of music and drama,
the inefficiency of which will some day be recog-
nised. It is admissible that for his own particular
reasons he should have invented the leit-motif
itinerary for the use of those who cannot find their
way in a score, and by so doing he expedited
matters for himself. What is of more serious
import is the fact that he has accustomed us to
making music servilely responsible for the pro-
tagonists. . . . Music possesses rhythm, and this
inner power directs its development ; the move-
ments of the soul have also a rhythm : it is more
instinctively comprehensive, and it is subordinated
to a multitude of different circumstances and events.
From the juxtaposition of these two different
rhythms a continual conflict ensues. The twain do
not amalgamate ; either the music gets out of
breath running after the protagonists, or the pro-
tagonist has to hold on to a note in order to allow
the music to overtake him. There have been
miraculous conjunctions of the two forces, and to
Wagner the meed of praise is owing for having
brought about some of these encounters ; but these
fortuitous occurrences have been due to chance
which more often than not shows itself un-
accommodating or deceiving. Thus once and for all
it may be said that the application of the sym-
phonic form to dramatic action, instead of helping
it, as was triumphantly asserted in the days when

7°

CLAUDE DEBUSSY

Wagner reigned over lyric drama, is liable to
injure it."

In Pelleas its composer's theories are seen in
practice. The result is one of complete freedom
for the characters of the drama. They are sur-
rounded by the music, upheld by it, but never
merged in it or obscured. This lyric drama is a

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true instance of unity in variety, and from the first
bar to the last the greatest effects seem to be
brought about by the least possible means. The
soft grave opening theme appertaining to the first
Gregorian mode (scale of D without leading note)
suggests at once the remote legendary atmosphere
in which the play is cast. There is also a semblance
of Fate in its solemn steady rhythm. It is succeeded

"PELLEAS ET MELISANDE"

71

by the Golaud motif and by a brief melody sustained
by broken arpeggios symbolising Melisande, but as
the branches of the forest trees are thrust aside by
Golaud he makes his entrance to the pensive, tristful
initial chords. Melisande's characteristic theme
resembles the commencement of a folksong ; for
Pelleas five notes surrounding a diminished chord
of the fifth are used. All these motifs are generating

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themes of the opera ; they undergo infinite modi-
fications during the course of the work. In Scene
11., when Genevieve reads Golaud's letter to Pelleas
relating the marriage of the former with Melisande,
and when, later, Pelleas enters and acquaints his
mother and grandfather with the contents of the
letter he has received from his friend Marcellus
entreating his presence by his bedside, the rules of

72 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

plain chant are requisitioned and adapted. The
first part of psalmody, the intonation, is not used, but
the second and third forms, a reciting note (domi-
nant), and cadences, either medial or final, are em-
ployed to punctuate the phrases. The long-sustained
accompanying chords founded on the Diatonic
scale are tranquil and simple in texture, in no way
hampering the freedom of the rhythm. The whole
scene is of premonitory gravity. The soft plaint of
Melisande's motif interwoven with ArkeTs speech
accentuates the note of warning. Afterwards, in the
castle gardens, enclosed by the forest and the sea,
Melisande is told by Genevieve to turn her eyes from
the dark woods and look towards the light on the
sea ; then from the shore Pelleas comes at Gene-
vieve's call. The three together watch the vessel
which had brought Golaud and Melisande leaving the
neighbouring port. A mist falls on the water, and
the revolving beacon flame of the lighthouse seen on
the coast is mirrored in the music, also signs of a
coming storm. Genevieve, foreseeing the approach
of night, goes to minister to the wants of the little
Yniold, and Pelleas and Melisande are left alone
watching the lights kindling on the coast. When
the wind freshens Pelleas suggests going indoors and
offers to guide Melisande home. Her hands are full
of flowers, and the road is steep and dark, so he holds
her arm, and tells her that perhaps on the morrow
he will be leaving the castle. " Oh ! why do you go
away? " she replies, with an acute accent on the last
note. This, her first unwitting heartache, is depicted

"PELLEAS ET MELISANDE"

73

in sighing cadence by the orchestra. This theme is
introduced in different parts of the drama, and its
pathetic utterance is often heard in the last sad death
scene.

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Subtle as he is in his portrayal of the workings
of the human heart and soul, Debussy is equally
wonderful in his Nature touches. The instability
and insecurity of water, its dank stagnancy in
underground caves, its clear bubbling depths in
living fountain, spring or mere ; or again, the cool

74 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

shifting effect of moonlight, the palpitating atmo-
sphere of midday, the dark gravity of ancient thickset
forests, the wide free expanse of ocean and sea : all
these are visualised in sound and are woven sym-
bolically around the different temperaments and
personalities of those who live amid these environ-
ments. For sunny gladness and light-heartedness
the first scene of Act II. is not easily surpassed.
The curtain lifts on a secluded portion of the castle
grounds in which is situated an old abandoned
miraculous spring. The wandering steps of Pelleas
and Melisande have led them thither. The place is
suffused with sunlight, and the cool spot is welcome
after the heat of the gardens. The stillness around
the old well is very marked. In the silence Pelleas
thinks he hears the water sleeping. Melisande leans
over the edge of the marble basin : she wants to see
the bottom of the well. She is feverishly happy.
Pelleas questions her about her meeting, also by
the side of a well, with Golaud, but she parries his
questions and, contrary to his entreaties, takes her
wedding ring and plays at throwing it up in the
glinting light on the water and catching it as it
descends. Higher and higher she throws it, and
finally, after one fateful leap upwards, as midday
sounds on the castle bell, the golden circlet eludes
her grasp and falls into the deep well. There is a
faint suggestion of the Golaud motif which has been
underlying some of the previous cadences, and as
the girl gets more and more frightened and agitated,
this sinister theme is still more strongly accentuated.

"PELLEAS ET MELISANDE" 75

At the outset, in this scene, in which the music
seems woven of sunbeams and running water,
Pelleas' theme, originally sounded on five flutes,
is heard slightly modified on two flutes, as if
suggesting the sympathy of Nature with the lovers.
In the interlude which follows, Golaud's motif is
worked up and interwoven with the Melisande
theme, and continues restless and intermittent until
the curtain rises on Golaud's apartment in the
castle some hours later, where he lies ill in bed
from a wound caused by a fall from his horse at
midday on the same day. In this scene, where
Melisande watches by her husband's side, her pre-
occupation and her distress are first notified by the
modulated short theme referred to in the garden
scene, suggesting her then sudden and now hidden
love for Pelleas. When Golaud's suspicions are
aroused he questions her : Can she not accustom
herself to the life at the castle ? — in monotonous, re-
iterated! descending crotchets on an ascending conse-
cutive scale of A minor this dull existence is depicted
by the voice and orchestra. " Yes, yes, it is true
one never sees the sky here," she sings, and then, to
a reminiscence of the fluid fountain music, she says,
" I saw it for the first time this morning." When
Golaud misses her ring she fears to tell him the truth.
Then follows the subtle-scene in the grottoes
by the sea, where the lovers are forced to act the
living lie. Afterwards the beautiful balcony scene,
where the melodic declamation reaches almost
lyrical expression, followed by the short rapid epic

76 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

of hate, when Golaud leads Pelleas down to the castle
vaults under pretence of showing him the stagnant
water lying within. The feeling of suffocation, 'of
intense darkness is reproduced in the heavy sombre
music, also the black night of jealousy in the heart
of Golaud and the nervous terror in that of Pelleas.
They turn and mount the stairs in silence, and the
curtain falls, presently to lift and disclose the terrace
at the entrance to the subterranean passages. The
short entr'acte portrays their ascent from the foul
underground air to the clear atmosphere of garden
and woodland. Delicate arpeggio passages herald
the coming light ; the brothers emerge from obscu-
rity, and Pelleas welcomes with delight " all the air
of all the sea." He notices the freshness of the
newly watered flowers, and drinks in the smell of
the grass and the wet roses. It is midday : sounds
of bells are heard, and of children running to the
beach to bathe. This short scene pulsates with
dramatic and orchestral effect. Following the scene
in which Golaud insults Melisande, and strikes her
in his rage to the ground, there is the final meeting
of the lovers by moonlight at the well in the wood.
Pelleas avows his love, and Melisande whispers^a
trembling rejoinder. At this crucial moment the
silence of the orchestra is most effective ; it is
broken by two successive chords of the ninth played
pianissimo. Later the clanging of the bolts and
bars of the massive castle doors is heard in the music
and the grinding of the heavy chains as all is made
secure for the night, and the lovers realise they are

"PELLEAS ET MELISANDE" 77

locked out. Then a suggestion of the sinister
Golaud theme, the sensing of his approach by
Melisande, the close embrace of the lovers, the stab
in the dark, Pelleas' death and Melisande's flight.
Finally the touching death scene, with its tangle of
reminiscent themes and counter themes. The
whole opera is a constant tracery of melodious
allusive phrases, and the last act resembles a piece
of filigree work in delicacy of design and detail.
The orchestral impressions crowd on one another.
Golaud's remorse and consequent morose stillness
is depicted, also the flicker of life in the dying
Melisande momentarily fortified by the invigorating
sea breeze flowing in through the large open window.
The tender Melisande motif flickers and fades and
then gains in volume, as the throb of pleasure in the
girl's eyes at the sight of the setting sun is voiced in
the ascending chords and major and minor triplets.
After an interval of joy in returning life she notices
Golaud and calls him to her side. Here the solemn,
fateful, initial theme of the drama is heard presaging
again disaster and woe. Golaud begs to be left
alone with his wife. The doctor and Arkel leave
the room. Then in the quiet death chamber, all
the stronger for being at first held in check, the
storm wind of human jealousy and passion rages.
"Didst thou love Pelleas?" . . . "Why, yes,
I loved him. Where is he ? " is the simple answer.
And in the girl's mind sweet recollections surge one
by one — the last meeting with Pelleas ; her first
heart-struggle in the shadowy garden by the sea ;

78 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

her happy hours with him by the fountain in the
midday sun, on the balcony by the light of the
moon ; the cool depths of the miraculous fountain ;
the dream rose seen in the dusky green in the night
scene of flowing tresses and clasped hands ; all
these reminiscent themes and many more are inter-
linked and reproduced by the orchestra, while all
the time Golaud persists in his selfish questioning.
The pathetic Melisande motif becomes pianissimo and
doucement expressif : the harassed girl faints. At
that moment Arkel and the doctor re-enter the room.
The voice of the kindly old grandfather is always
soothing to Melisande. Arkel is the symbol of wise
and loving compassion. He again recalls her to life

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and love ; the first love theme accompanies her
answer to him and is repeated when the tiny infant
is replaced in its cradle. It is heard once again in

"PELLEAS ET MELISANDE" 79

one of its numberless modifications when the trem-
bling soul quits the worn-out body. A few bars
later the Melisande theme is played for the last time
accompanying ArkeTs words referring to her after her
death : " It was a little quiet being, so timid and
so silent. It was a poor little mysterious being, like
all the world."

This lovely music-drama, which recalls itself to the
memory as if woven of dreams and many-coloured
sounds, cost its composer thirteen years of work.
Produced at the Paris Opera Comique in May 1903,
it marks an epoch in the history of operatic music.
It is entirely without precedent, bearing no resem-
blance to any other opera. Some will be captivated
at a first hearing ; others will be puzzled and per-
plexed. Its charm is not contained in any usual or
hackneyed effects. Its appeal is to the mind and
imagination far more than to the emotions and senses;
to the lover of rich rare polyphony rather than to him
who delights in flowing melody and tuneful phrase.
The constant succession of ideas, each more or less
complete in itself, is given by the brilliant harmonic
progressions, which are eminently satisfying and rest-
ful to the ear. Its appearance raised a storm of con-
flicting criticism. In the five years that have elapsed
since its first performance it has gained for itself a
select public, the ranks of which are steadily increas-
ing year by year. It has been heard with success in
Germany, Belgium and Italy. Together with its
" inoubliable Melisande," as M. Debussy names Miss
Mary Garden in his dedication to her of his Ariettes

80 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

oubliees, it will shortly be performed in New York at
the Manhattan Opera House. MM. Jean Perier and
Dufranne are also members of the anticipated cast.
Before long, it is to be hoped, it will find its way
to other important stages, where it will earn the
admiration and favour of all who are discriminating
and who can appreciate its mystic, poetic, and
original qualities.

CHAPTER VI
AS WRITER AND CRITIC

"Truth ! there can be no merit, no craft at all,
without that." — Walter Pater.

M. Debussy's prose writings as critic have a peculiar
charm of their own. They are especially interesting
inasmuch as they reveal some of the workings of his
original mind, and they tell in terse, incisive language
his views and opinions, not only on music and musi-
cians, but also, incidentally, on extraneous matters
bearing on his art. He uses words with a Frenchman's
loving respect and care, and occasionally his prose
is poetical in matter and manner. He is accused of
having a mordant pen, and there are times when his
racy style verges in that direction ; but he is seldom
acrimonious, and a study of his writings as a whole
convinces one of the equity of his judgment and of
his unfaltering truth and sincerity. There is always
a "vein" of bonhomie apparent behind his most
caustic remarks, and he possesses a goodly amount
of wit and finesse. In the first and second chapters
of this book, some of his utterances on his own atti-
tude towards his art have been given. For the
purposes of allowing free rein to his fancy he in-

F

82 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

vented a character whom he named M. Croche ;
through the medium of this lay figure he vented, in
an outspoken manner, all that irritated or pleased him
during his brief period of excursion into the domain
of musical criticism. He held the post of critic on
the Revue Blanche during the greater part of the years
1901 and 1902, and he contributed in the same
capacity to the columns of Gil Bias in 1903. In the
following paragraphs he introduces his readers to M.
Croche : — " It was a lovely evening and I had decided
to be idle (in more polite language, we will take for
granted that I gave myself up to dreaming). I
dreamt : . . .formulated my thoughts ? . . . or should
I finish some work? Are not these each and all so
many interrogations suggested by an infantile vanity
anxious to free itself at all costs from irksome
thoughts ; all of which ill conceal the foolish notion
of wishing to appear superior to others. And this
superiority represents no particular effort if it does
not include the desire to rise above oneself. But
that is a special alchemic process in which one must
give as a holocaust one's own cherished little per-
sonality. And this is hard to endure and absolutely
barren in result. The evening was still beautiful,
but, as may be noticed, I was not in a good humour.
I was losing sight of my own identity, and all kinds
of tiresome impersonal ideas floated round me. Just
then my front door bell rang and I made the ac-
quaintance of M. Croche."

Debussy proceeds to describe his imaginary
visitor, whose physiognomy reminds him at one and

AS WRITER AND CRITIC 83

the same time of the jockey Tom Lane and M.
Thiers. He discusses all manner of things hence-
forward with this personage : audiences, amateurs,
institutions, Prix de Rome, art and artists, Nature :
all are touched upon and given some new aspect or
fresh turn of thought.

In Gil Bias there are some delightful bits of writing
on Bach, Beethoven and other classicists, some amus-
ing impressions of Wagner's Tetralogy in London
and a few clever pen-pictures of modern musicians.
It is difficult to select from among the many pas-
sages on Bach ; some are too lengthy and will not
bear cutting, but the following is short and
concise : —

" From Bach's works a somewhat striking analogy
forces itself on the mind : Bach is the Graal and
Wagner Klingsor who would destroy the Graal and
usurp the homage given to it. Bach exercises a
sovereign influence on music, and in his goodness
and might he has willed that we should ever gain
fresh knowledge from the noble lessons he has left
us, and thus his disinterested love is perpetuated.
As years roll by Wagner's sombre and disquieting
shadow lessens and grows dim."

A propos of Beethoven's ninth Symphony he
says : " There is nothing superfluous in this monu-
mental work ; not even the andante, which some
modern aesthetes have deemed too long. Is
it not a rest thoughtfully foreseen between the
persistent rhythm of the Scherzo and the instru-
mental torrent leading irresistibly to the glory of

84 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

the finale ? . . . The overflowing humanity, which
poured across the traditional limits of the sym-
phony, issued from the soul inebriated with
the desire for freedom. By irony of circumstances
this soul was beating, a prisoner, against the golden
bars erected by the mistaken charity of the great
and powerful. With his heart brimful of pain
Beethoven ardently desired communion with all
men. Actuated by this longing, he directed the
manifold expression of his genius to reach the hum-
blest and poorest of his ' brethren.' Has he been
heard by them ? The question remains prob-
lematic."

Our English literature is familiar to Debussy;
and Shakespeare is one of his favourite poets.
He had occasion to criticise G. Hue's "Titania"
at the Opera Comiqne in 1903. A series of foggy
days had caused him to think of London, and, as he
says, " the association of ideas did not demand a
great mental effort. And the name of Titania," he
continues, u of necessity recalls that of Shakespeare
and of his fascinating Midsummer Night's Dream
of which the true and most poetical title would be
a Dream of St. John's Night : the shortest night of
the year. Glowing night, luminous with myriad
stars, brief enchanted night, spanned by a twilight
unwilling to die and a dawn impatient of birth.
Dream night, whose life is the length of a dream."
Then his thoughts travel to Weber and to his
<* Oberon." He evokes a vision of this composer
wandering in the London streets, but his remarks

AS WRITER AND CRITIC 85

on Weber's art work have been given in an earlier
chapter.

In June 1903 Debussy came to London to write
his impressions of Wagner's Tetralogy for Gil Bias.

"It is difficult," he says, "for any one who has
not had the same experience to picture to themselves
the condition of a man's mind, even the most
normal, after attending the Tetralogy for four con-
secutive evenings. A quadrille of leit-motifs dances
in one's brain, in which Siegfried's theme and
Wotan's lance, are vis-a-vis, while the malediction
motif cuts some weird figures. It is more than an
obstssion, it is a complete possession. One loses
one's identity, and becomes transformed into a
walking leit-motif moving in a tetralogical atmo-
sphere. It seems as if for the future our habitual
code of civility will not prevent us from hailing our
friends with Valkyrie exclamations ! Hoyo-toho !
Hei aha ! Hoyohei ! How gay it all is ! Hoyohei . . .
ah ! milord ! how insufferable these people in
helmets and wild-beast skins become by the time
the fourth evening comes round. Remember that
at each and every appearance they are accompanied

by their d d leit-motif. There are some who even

sing it themselves. It is as if a harmless lunatic were
to present you with his visiting card while he de-
claimed lyrically what was inscribed thereon." Some
lengthy remarks follow on the different dramatic
effects, and Debussy ends by saying : u All this is
really dramatic criticism, which is outside my pro-
vince, and I prefer to describe the impassioned

86 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

beauties in the Tetralogy. There are long moments
of ennui when one does not really know which is most
at fault : the music or the drama ? Then suddenly
the most supremely lovely music, irresistible as the
sea, surges into one's ears and criticism flies to the
winds. Sometimes this is only of a minute's dura-
tion, at other times of greater length. ... In
conclusion I would affirm that one cannot criticise
such a momentous work. It is a monument, the
architectural lines of which stretch far into infinity."
To the work of his contemporaries M. Debussy is
ever ready to accord cordial and unstinted admiration
when he feels he can conscientiously do so. He speaks
of L'Etranger as " le pur drame musical de Vincent
d'Indy marquant a ce qu'il me semble une ere
nouvelle dans Tart si probe de ce compositeur."
And in G//Z?/<2S,Januaryi2, 1903, apropos of this same
opera he writes : " Comme celui qui chercher a d'in-
sondables symboles dans cette action j'aime a y voir
une humanite que Vincent d'Indy n'a revetue de
symbole que pour rendre plus profond cet eternel
divorce entre la Beaute et la Vulgarite des foules.''
He writes of Strauss " as perhaps the most original
musician of young Germany. He resembles, at one
and the same time, Liszt by his remarkable virtuosity
in the art of conducting and Berlioz by his employ-
ment of literary themes to support his music." u Hel-
denleben," he says, " is a series of pictures, it is even
cinematography. But it must be conceded that a
man who can construct such a work with such con-
tinuity of thought is little short of a genius."

AS WRITER AND CRITIC 87

In a few short sentences Debussy has drawn some
vivid pen-pictures of individuals. Strauss is one of
them: "he is tall, and has the ingenuous and decided
manner of those great explorers who have made
their way through the territories of savage tribes with
a smile on their faces. For the purpose of rousing
a civilised public it is as well to possess a little of
this particular manner. All the same his forehead
is that of a musician, but his eyes and features are
those of a ' superman ' ; this last expression is
borrowed from his instructor in energy, Nietszche."
Herr Weingartner reminds Debussy " of a brand
new knife ; his gestures partake of a quasi-
rectilinear eloquence ; then all of a sudden his arms
make relentless signals which evoke a bellowing
from the trombones and drive the cymbals distracted.
This makes a great impression and seems allied to
necromancy. The public hardly knows how it can
adequately express its enthusiasm."

Grieg's music gives him " the charming and bizarre
sensation of eating a pink bonbon stuffed with
snow." He notices how the Norwegian composer
conducts the orchestra with a nervous minutiae of
detail, discovering and underlining nuances and dis-
tributing emotional effects with untiring attention.

These few examples, together with others scattered
through the opening chapters of this volume, will
suffice to give an idea of M. Debussy's versatile
critical powers. His criticisms were, as he had
intended them to be when taking the part of musi-
cal critic, "des impressions sinceres et loyalement

88 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

ressenties." As to matter and manner, they were
always interesting and entertaining. With wide
and broad outlook he steered clear of affectation
and pedantry. And with M. Croche as stalking-
horse the personal note was skilfully avoided.

In these days of rapid motion, wireless telegraphy,
and aerial transit, even phases of thought and art
participate in the general acceleration, inasmuch as
their nomenclature partakes of the celerity extant.
When Wagner's star appeared in the musical firma-
ment, in spite of the ferment of conflicting opinions,
a somewhat general concurrence was given to the
designation of his art as Music of the Future. In
his case only a passing echo is left of the clash of
contending criticisms. In the midst of the dust and
noise raised in the glare of the present by the work
of certain contemporary composers, the sound of dis-
tant bells may be heard proclaiming in silvern
accents the advent of the Music of To-morrow. As
yet to only a minority does this delicate phantom
peal render itself audible. But as the morrow never
delays its coming, so there are signs in this hurrying
century of the speedy recognition of this near future
for many French composers, prominent among
whom stands Claude Debussy. This is not an age
of giants. One no longer sights their herculean sta-
ture among the followers of any art. Yet in and
out of the crowded precincts of music's territory
some striking figures arrest the eye. Debussy walks
solitary and apart. Down the path he has trodden

AS WRITER AND CRITIC 89

none may closely follow. But some who are known
not to be imitators, while recognising his unique
position, have set their faces in a similar direction
and, keeping him in sight, proceed by other byways
towards the same distant horizon. How far he may
travel onwards, to what extent his migrations may
lead those who watch his course, it is premature to
prophesy. Like all pioneers, he is in advance of his
age. In France an ever-increasing band of his ad-
mirers repudiate conjecture as to his merits and
fame. Outside his native country his renown is
steadily increasing. His art, fast rooted in the soil
of tradition, has put forth new shoots ; it possesses
therefore the best qualifications for ensuring endur-
ance and long life. In one of his articles on Beet-
hoven he says : " The right lesson to be learnt from
him is not to hold fast to ancient formulas, neither
is it necessary to follow in the tracks of his earlier
footsteps, but it is of greater importance to look out
of open windows to the free sky beyond." This
unrestricted outlook has given vitality to Debussy's
work. From his vantage-ground of vision he has
glanced far and wide. And like Novalis he has
been attracted by a "high light-blue Flower"; on it
his gaze has been long riveted. This unwearying
Quest of the Ideal will undoubtedly lead him to
still higher flights of imagination and thought. " The
Knights are lying dead on the Graal's Highway" he
sings in his beautiful Prose lyrique De Reve ; never-
theless he passes them by and hastens on, ever eager
for fresh achievements.

9o CLAUDE DEBUSSY

It may be drawing on futurity and stealing
a march on Time, but it is almost a foregone
conclusion that some future historian of musical
events and incidents, referring to Claude-Achille
Debussy's compositions and to the contention to
which they gave rise, may find these words of an
Irish contemporary poet both useful and appro-
priate :

" Something that the little breed of earth-moles

In their day have scoffed at,

And in their despite, has lived !

For lo, a song

Tho' made of nothing more

Than wind or flame

Is indestructible.* "

* Seosamh Campbell.

CLAUDE DEBUSSY'S WORKS

1880. La Belle au bois dormant. (Dupont.)
-he 884. L'Enfant Prodigue. (Durand.)
1889. Printemps : Suite symphonique. (Durand.)

1889. Petite suite : piano duet. (Durand.)
„ Reverie. (Fromont.)

1890. Suite Bergamesque. (Fromont.)

„ Nocturnes pour orchestre. (Fromont.)
„ Cinq poemes de Baudelaire. (Durand.)

1 891. Arabesquesl.il. (Durand.) '
„ BalladeSlave. Fromont.

„ Valse Romantique. (Fromont.)
„ Danse: Tarentelle Styrienne. (Hamelle.)
^893. La [Demoiselle elue (D. G. Rossetti), poeme lyrique
pour voix de femmes, soli, chceur et orchestre,
(Durand.)
1895. Proses lyriques. (Fromont.)
,, Chansons de Bilitis. (Fromont.)
„ Quatuor a cordes. (Durand.)

1 901. Angelus. (Hamelle.)

„ Trois melodies. (Fromont.)
„ Pour le Piano. (Fromont.)

1902. Marche Ecossaise. (Fromont.)

„ Paysage Sentimentale. (Dupont.)
„ Prelude a l'Apres-midi d'un Faune. (Durand.)
„ Pelleas et Melisande, Drame lyrique en 5 actes et
12 taWeauxde Maurice Maeterlinck. (Durand.)

1903. Fetes GalSles : ierrecueil. (Fromont.)
„ Ariettes oubliees. (Durand.)

92 CLAUDE DEBUSSY

1903. Les Cloches. (Durand.)
„ Mandoline. (Durand.)

„ Romance. (Durand.)

„ Beau Soir. (Fromont.)

„ Fleur de ble. (Fromont.)

„ Nuit d'Etoiles. (Coutarel.)

„ Estampes I. II. III. (Durand.)

„ Images. (Durand.)

1904. Trois Chansons de France. (Durand.)

„ Fete Galantes : 2eme recueil. (Durand.)

„ L'Isle Joyeuse. (Durand).

„ Masques.

„ Danses pour piano ou harpe chromatique avec accom-

pagnement d'orchestre d'instruments a cordes.

(Durand.)

1905. La Mer : trois esquisses symphoniques. (Durand.)

In preparation :

King Lear.

Willowwood.

Histoire de Tristan (opera).

M. Debussy is not in the habit of classifying his works
under opus numbers. The above dates refer to the year of
publication of each composition.

DATE DUE

OCT J 2 ;

988

OEC 19

1997

DEC sj

i 896

CAYLORO

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

>db*'

wstm

MUSIC

3 5002 00394 0934

Liebich, Louise
Claude-Achille Debussy,

JML 410 . D2& L7
Liebich^ Louise
Claude-Achille Debussy

MUS'C UBRARY

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