Claude Debussy: Europe's Master Impressionist

The Saint Michael Triopresents

Claude DebussyMusicien Francais1862-1918

Debussy’sDepartures

French assertiveness

Structure and form

Picturesque

Tonality

Rhythm

Uses French!

The Sonata form

The Minuet

Some people wish above all to conform to the rules; I wish only to render what I can hear. There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law.Debussy

Jacques Louis David 1748-1825

Naming an object takes away three-fourths of its

power. To suggest is to

dream. Sté phane Mallarmé

Claude Monet 1874

The heptatonic scale

The whole tone scale

The pentatonic scale

Key

confusion!

Music expresses the motion of the waters, the play of changing breezes. There is nothing more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in that book which, alas, musicians read but too little — the book of Nature.

Debussy

Impossible!

Trio en sol, Scherzo

Music should humbly seek to please. Extreme complication is contrary

to art. Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with

immediate enjoyment, must impress us or

insinuate itself without any effort on our part.

Debussy

Interesting meters

Triple-duple

Music is the space between the notes.Debussy