Classical Music | Piano Music

Claude Debussy

Images, Book I  Play

Christopher Falzone Piano

Recorded on 07/14/2004, uploaded on 05/01/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

      Reflets dans l'eau

      Hommage à Rameau

      Mouvement

The great French Impressionist composer, Claude Debussy was one of the most original and influential musical geniuses that ever lived. The impact of his revolutionary ideas on 20th century piano music was comparable to Chopin's revolutionary contribution to 19th century piano music. Born near Paris in 1862 into a non‑musical, middle‑class family, his talent nevertheless was apparent, and his parents sent him to study at the Paris Conservatory when he was ten years old. His teachers at the conservatory, however, did not appreciate his audacious chord progressions and unorthodox approach to music composition. Debussy introduced totally new harmonic concepts through the use of dissonance, altered chords, and foreign harmonies. His melodies often were constructed on unusual scales--modal, pentatonic, or whole tone scales, for example--to achieve certain moods.

Though Debussy did not like to be referred to as an Impressionist composer, his work is consistent with the movements that were ongoing in other arts at the time. French Impressionist painters, such as Monet and Renoir, were using dots and small brush strokes of pure color designed to be blended together by the viewer's eyes to evoke a visual impression rather than an exact replica of the subject. Color and shading, for example, became more important than form and substance.  A similar movement, known as Symbolism, was ongoing in French poetry. Symbolist poets placed more importance on how a word sounded than on its exact meaning and refused to be limited by the rules of syntax or sentence structure. In a similar vein, the essence of Debussy's work is suggestion, rather than outright statement, and he frequently uses fragmentary motives and flashes of tone color to evoke impressions. Like the Impressionists and Symbolists, he refused to let rules prevent him from fully expressing himself.

Debussy published two books of Images that are excellent examples of his Impressionistic style. Book I consists of three contrasting pieces that Debussy brilliantly imbued with an underlying sense of unity. The first piece, Reflets dans l'eau (Reflections in the Water), reveals Debussy's great love of nature and his fascination with water and light. The second piece, Hommage à Rameau (Homage to Rameau), is a lovely sarabande written as a tribute to the great 18th century French composer, Jean‑Philippe Rameau with whom Debussy felt an affinity. The final piece, Mouvement, consists of a driving, perpetual triplet rhythm that evokes images of the modern, industrial age.   Christopher Falzone

_______________________________

Images I    Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy’s trio of piano pieces entitled Images, Book 1 was published in 1905, the same year as his Suite bergmasque. The composer’s choice of title, however, is somewhat curious as it can be argued that the title could equally be well-applied to any of Debussy’s compositions. Indeed, it seems almost as generic in nature as the titles of “Intermezzo” or “Capriccio” were for German composers such as Johannes Brahms. Nevertheless, each of the three pieces of Images has their own descriptive title: Reflets dan l’eau, Hommage à Rameau, and Mouvement. And though these titles may give some direction as to the images Debussy may have had in mind while composing, they also leave ample room for the listener’s own imagination to take over.

In the first piece, Debussy magnificently captures the image of its title: reflections in the water. We know not what these reflections may be, but through Debussy’s ingenious use of color and harmony we do know that we are not looking at them directly, but rather indirectly by virtue of perhaps a chance reflection in a pool of water. Sweeping arpeggios abound throughout the piece, creating the impression of little ripples or waves that distort the reflected image. While Reflets is a dramatic piece, it closes quietly, almost with a touch of solemnity, as resonant chords replace the prior arpeggios and the principal three-note motif sounds like a reminder of the scene that has just passed by.

While composing the first book of Images, Debussy was revising Les Fêtes de Polymnie by Jean-Philippe Rameau, one of France’s greatest keyboardist and influential music theorists. Thus the second piece, as the title indicates, pays homage to the Baroques composer’s music, fashioned in the appropriate form of the sarabande. Throughout, the music is serious and solemn. The theme is announced in bare octaves to open the piece, yet Debussy’s impressionism comes to the fore as it is developed with more complex harmonies.

The last piece, Mouvement, is a toccata-like movement. It is built upon a moto perpetuo of triplets, creating a near endless and unstoppable torrent of notes throughout almost every measure of the finale. Only in the middle section is the stream of triplet partially broken, yet hardly detained in pushing onward. Despite the boundless energy of this movement, it ends, like its companions, quietly as if it has not stopped, but only moved out of our range of hearing.      Joseph DuBose