Classical Music | Piano Music

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

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Images I    Claude Debussy

      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

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.