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Prelude a L' Apres-midi d'un faune (Debussy)
The faun in Debussy's 'Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun' is an ancient pagan nature-god, guardian of herds and patron of country pursuits. The inspiration for the prelude was a poem by his friend Stephane Mallarme, the great French poet. The faun awakes in the shimmering heat of a summer afternoon and languidly plays his panpipes while watching two nymphs. His passion aroused, he seizes the water nymphs, but they are frightened by his burning kisses and the vision vanishes. As night falls he stretches himself
- voluptuously on the sand to sleep.
The poem is deliberately obscure, so it is not surprising that Debussy's form should be as fluid as the changing images of erotic dreams. Despite the work's title, it is not a prelude to something else, but a short and self-contained tone poem. Tone poems, or symphonic poems, developed from the programme music of Berlioz and the illustrative music of works such as Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream overture. Their primary purpose was to tell a story in music.
NAM 5 (composed in 1892-94) has a three-part (or ternary) structure in which the languid faun's theme (bars 1-4) is heard in sharp keys centred on E major in the two flanking sections (bars 1-54 and 79-110). The central section is based on a more impassioned theme in flat keys (centred on Db major) which is heard three times (woodwind in bars 55-62, upper strings in bars 63-74 and solo violin in bars 75-78). Listen to the music and make sure that you can recognise these main ideas. Try to decide what you feel are the most important features of the music and then see if you agree with our list below:
- complex rhythms that disguise a regular pulse
- melodic variation (rather than the development of motifs)
- rich colourful harmony that often seems to obsc~re the keys of the music rather than define them
- subtle orchestral textures.
All of these features contribute to a style of music in which the atmosphere created by colour, tone and texture seems more important than clearly-defined phrases and structures. This late romantic style, which looks forward to some features of 20th- century music, is known as impressionism. The term is borrowed from French painting of the period in which there is a similar interest in conveying the impression of light and movement, rather than giving an exact representation of shapes
Mallarme was delighted with the result which he said went further than his own poem in representing 'nostalgia and light with subtlety, malaise and richness of expression'
Debussy's melodic style is very different to the constant development of motifs that we saw in Wagner's prelude. When we examine the way Debussy treats his opening flute melody we find that he:
- repeats it unchanged with an accompaniment of fluttering tremolo strings (bars 11-14)
- lengthens the first note and decorates the melody of bar 3 with demi-semiquaver triplets (bars 21-22)
- ends the phrase with a fast version of the first bar (bars 26-27)
- slows the whole melody down (bars 79-82 and 86-89)
- and so on. At no point does Debussy extract motifs and manipulate them to form new melodies. Instead he presents the same theme in various rhythmic and melodic variants, and in different textures and harmonisations.
The importance of instrumental colour is apparent in the very first bar, in which the augmented 4th (or tritone) outlined by the opening motif is presented in the distinctive bottom octave of the flute's register. The lower notes of the flute are very quiet and so Debussy leaves the melody unobscured by any accompaniment. The tone colour then changes to that of soft horns, with delicate harp glissando and muted (sourdine) string accompaniment.
A taste of Debussy's harmonic style can be seen in the final perfect cadence (shown left). There is little tonal tension - the cadence seems to be enveloped in a haze of sound. This is partly attributable to the fact that the leading note (D#) puts in a late and very quiet appearance in the dominant chord, and partly by the diatonic discords (nhs, 9ths, l1ths and 13ths above the dominant) that add sensuous colour rather than tonal direction. Debussy goes out of his way to ensure that a regular pulse will not be apparent by introducing lazy duplets and groups of four, completely disguising the compound-time beat as the music drifts timelessly to a close.
The music of the last five bars contain many examples of instrumental subtlety. Muted strings are divided into 12 parts to play the tonic chord in bar 106, but the two top notes are played by unmuted solo violins. Muted horns subtly colour the middle range and against this chord two harps play the four-quaver groups. In bar 107 two solo muted horns in 3rds are accompanied by muted first violins for the chromatic fragment from the opening motif of the work. In bar 108 the flute adds a 6th to the tonic chord (echoed by a harp harmonic), while the violins play an appoggiatura (A#) that lasts six beats before it resolves. Tiny antique cymbals sound the root and 5th of the tonic chord and almost inaudible pizzicato cellos and basses bring the work to an end.
Private study
- What do you think is meant by the instruction to the harpist in bar 17
- What is a glissando (harp, bar 4)?
- The small circles over the last four harp notes indicate the use of harmonics. What does this term mean? (Look it up in a good dictionary of music if you are not sure.)
- What do you notice about the number of performing directions in this piece compared with NAM 1?
- Choose two passages that you feel are examples of interesting orchestration and explain why each of them is so effective.
Comments
This essay is aimed at AS Level music.
Originally written by Fletch on TSR Forums.
