10 of Claude Debussy’s greatest pieces of music

Debussy’s greatest masterpieces. Picture: Alamy

By Siena Linton, ClassicFM

 

From lazy woodland creatures on a hot summer’s day to the plains of southern Spain, Claude Debussy is the unparalleled master of evocative musical imagery.

Forever entwined in the imaginations of his admirers with lethargic fauns, and idyllic woodlands thick with summer haze, Claude Debussy was classical music’s answer to the impressionist art movement which took Paris by storm in the mid to late 19th century.

As Monet, Cézanne and Renoir were masters of the visual arts, so Debussy was a master at crafting intricate and mesmerising soundscapes, transporting his audiences to dream-like worlds with his musical reveries.

1. Petite Suite (1907)

   Originally written for piano with four hands, Debussy’s Petite Suite was orchestrated by his colleague Henri Büsser in 1907. Made up of four movements, the first evokes a picturesque seaside vista. Titled ‘En bateau’, or ‘Sailing’, it’s easy to imagine boats and dinghies bobbing over gently rocking waves, as a flute melody soars over sighing strings and harp glissandos.

   
   

2. Jeux (1913)

   Debussy’s Jeux is a one-of-a-kind piece of music. Premiered in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1913, just two weeks before Stravinsky’s riot-inducing Rite of Spring, it was described by the composer as a ‘danced poem’. The piece was written at the request of dynamic ballet duo Sergei Diaghilev and legendary choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky, to be performed by Diaghilev’s company, Ballets Russes. It follows a vague storyline of a boy, two girls, and a tennis ball, which goes ultimately unresolved – much like many of Debussy’s harmonies.

   
   

3. Ibéria (1912)

   The second movement of Images pour orchestre, ‘Ibéria’ consists of three movements itself, each depicting images of Spain: its streets and paths, the scents of night, and the ‘morning of a festive day’. It’s an adventurous musical wonderland of jingling percussion, clacking castanets and chiming church bells, evocative of the sunny Iberian peninsula.

4. La fille aux cheveux de lin (1910)

   Debussy wrote two books of solo piano preludes, the first in 1909-1910 and the second in 1912-1913. By far the best known, is La fille aux cheveux de lin, or ‘The Girl with the Flaxen Hair’. With a performance marking meaning ‘very calm and sweetly expressive’, it’s a short and simple work that, over the course of just a few minutes, perfectly depicts the soft innocence that is often associated with golden hair in fine art.

5. Rêverie (1884)

   Debussy’s Rêverie is another one of those beautifully dream-like solo piano pieces that cements its composer as one of the 20th-century greats. With gently oscillating motifs, contrasting rhythms in the left and right hands, and plenty of rubato, the music creates a blissful sense of floating and weightlessness.

   
   

6. Pelléas et Mélisande (1902)

   Although he began to write several, Pelléas et Mélisande is the only opera that Debussy completed. As a young composer Debussy was in awe of Wagner’s operas, traveling to the Bayreuth Festival to see them. And yet, as he told a friend, he had to be careful not to allow the 19th-century opera titan’s works to influence him too much: he had seen fellow French composers attempt to imitate the style, and thought it “dreary”. And so Pelléas et Mélisande is the perfect melting pot of laissez-faire French impressionism and Wagnerian drama.

7. La mer (1905)

   La mer, which translates to ‘The Sea’, was first performed in Paris in late 1905. Inspired by artists’ depictions of the sea rather than the sea itself, one of the criticisms following an icy reception at the premiere was, “I do not hear, I do not see, I do not smell the sea”. Other critics wrote that it did not depict the sea, but rather “some agitated water in a saucer”. Nevertheless, on consecutive performances the piece was much more favourably received, and remains a favourite among the world’s top orchestras to this day.

8. Clair de lune (1905)

   Think of relaxing piano music, and Debussy’s gorgeous ‘Clair de lune’ probably comes to mind. It’s the third, and most famous, movement from Suite bergamasque, which Debussy began writing in 1890 and ultimately finished in 1905. So the story goes, Debussy didn’t originally want these early pieces made public, but eventually accepted a publisher’s offer – and thank goodness he did.

   
   

9. Deux Arabesques (1891)

   Debussy wrote his Deux Arabesques for solo piano while still in his 20s, between 1888 and 1891. Despite the composer’s young age, the whimsical and dream-like character his music would come to be known and loved for can already be heard, carving the way for French Impressionism in music.

10. Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894)

    Beginning with one of the most iconic orchestral flute solos ever written, Debussy wrote Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (‘Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun’) in 1894. His inspiration was a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, in which a faun awakes from his afternoon slumber and recounts a series of rendezvous with forest nymphs. Debussy’s meandering score and rich orchestration captivates his audience and brings them to the heart of the forest on a balmy summer’s day, to hear the tales of the faun’s afternoon amidst the heady pinewood scents, floating through the breeze.

    
    

Rimsky-Korsakov’s estate devastated by fire, destroying over 1,000 valuable artefacts

Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov’s estate was engulfed in flames over the weekend. Picture: Governor of the Pskov region Mikhail Vedernikov

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM

@sophiassocials

 

Said to have been caused by careless builders, a fire at Rimsky-Korsakov’s estate has done untold damage, destroying thousands of artefacts belonging to the 19th-century Russian composer.

This weekend, a fire broke out in the estate and memorial museum of 19th-century composer, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Over half of the exhibits have been destroyed in the blaze, which has devastated more than 1,000 artefacts.

Born in the town of Tikhvin, 200km east of St Petersburg, Rimsky-Korsakov was a prolific composer, scoring a considerable body of nationalistic music including orchestral, choral, and operatic works.

He is particularly notable for being one of ‘The Five’, a collection of five Russian composers including Modest Mussorgsky, and Alexander Borodin, who led the way in creating a distinct national style of classical music.

Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908 in the now fire-damaged estate, which he had purchased as a home for his children. The estate is in the west Russian village of Lyubensk, in the Plyussky District of Pskov Oblast. Reports of the fire originally emerged from the governor of the district, Mikhail Vedernikov who posted a photo of the fire on his Telegram [social media] account, saying the damage was “significant”.

Read more: Tchaikovsky’s house destroyed by Russian army in north-east Ukraine

The fire is said to have been started due to “the negligence of builders” who were repairing the roof of the museum using a ‘hot work’ technique – construction that uses open flames. Starting on the roof, the fire spread “very quickly” throughout the building according to Vedernikov, engulfing the estate before firefighters were able to arrive. No one was injured in the blaze.

The Pskov regional Investigative Committee – of the Russian Investigative Committee – is reportedly investigating the instigating factors of the fire, and interviewing eyewitnesses in order to establish the full story.

According to the local press office, firefighters were able to save half of the museum’s exhibits, but thousands of artefacts were destroyed. Of the valuables saved, emergency workers were able to retrieve a real silver trophy and a real gold pen, as well as furniture, books, magazines and shelves.

Vedernikov wrote on Telegram that, “[the museum] is an object of cultural heritage and federal significance”, and the governor seems committed to ensuring the preservation of the remaining exhibits.

“Together with our colleagues from the Government,” the official writes, “we will do our best to restore the estate.”

The Sound of Summer Rain in Classical Music Vivaldi, Rameau, Beethoven, Grofé and Whitacre

by Maureen Buja, Interlude  

 

Channeling the sound and fury of nature through an orchestra gives everyone, from the composer to the conductor to the orchestra (primarily the string section) a thorough workout.

Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons – Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 8 (Summer)

© unripecontent.com

One of the most familiar of storms is in the third movement of Vivaldi’s Summer concerto from the Four Seasons (1720).

The sonnet that goes with the concertos sets this up at the end of the first verse: ‘Soft breezes stir the air, but threatening | the North Wind sweeps them suddenly aside. |The shepherd trembles, | fearing violent storms and his fate’. And then, in the 3rd verse: ‘The Heavens thunder and roar and with hail | Cut the head off the wheat and damages the grain’. And starting with rain in the violins, the heavens open.

Jean-Philippe Rameau: Platée – Act I Scene 6 – Orage

Jean-Paul Fouchécourt as Platée, 2000 (City Opera)

In Rameau’s 1745 opera Platée, two storms set the beginning and end of Act I. In an attempt to cure Jupiter’s wife of her jealousy, Mercury comes and tells the king of Greece that the opening storm has been caused by Juno’s jealousy. The King proposes a false love affair between Jupiter and Platée, a marsh nymph of outstanding ugliness.

Every time Juno is angered, another storm breaks out and the one at the end of Act I is a magnificent work of lightning flashes and drowning rain.

Rameau wrote the work for the wedding celebrations of Louis, Dauphin of France, son of King Louis XV of France, to the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain. Despite having an opera based on marital infidelity and deceiving one’s spouse, the opera was popular and resulted in Rameau’s appointment shortly after the celebration to the position of Composer of the King’s Chamber Music.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, “Pastoral” – IV. Thunderstorm: Allegro

© behance.net

For his fourth movement Thunderstorm in his Pastoral Symphony, Beethoven used an orchestra that could do thunder (cellos and double basses), rain (violins), more thunder (timpani), lightning strikes (piccolo), and all of the other accompanying sounds and actions of a really good storm. At the end, the storm passes, with occasional grumbles of thunder in the distance.

Ferde Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite – V. Cloudburst

Ferde Grofé’s 1931 work The Grand Canyon Suite, gives us the sound and fury of a storm in the American West. The previous movement was Sunset and so this movements continues the stillness until suddenly, there are flashes of lightning, down bursts of rain in the piano, thunder in the timpani, and suddenly, we’re in the middle of a full-blown storm. But, as the title says, it’s a cloudburst so just a quick 3-minute flash storm, and then the sunset returns, fighting its way through the clouds.

Eric Whitacre: Cloudburst

Although we’ve seen how orchestras create rainstorms, one of the most innovative of modern composers, Eric Whitacre, has given us a magnificent choral storm in his 1991 work Cloudburst. The song text by Octavio Paz is El cántaro roto (The Broken Water-Jar) and is a reflection on water and no water, dust and the burnt earth, until the rain awakens. The chorus is augmented by two thunder sheets and a bass drum, but it is the chorus itself, through finger snaps and hand claps, that brings the storm to us and then it recedes.

Cloudbursts, slashing rain, echoing thunder, and bright flashes are these rainstorms. Use it to cool off from the summer heat, or to water the thirsty plants. It can be a welcome relief or an overwhelming flood, but no matter where it comes, it’s necessary to all life.

Weird and Wonderful: Discovering Classical Music with a Difference

by Maureen Buja, Interlude

Sometimes composer break out of their box – make a new sound – make you hear music a new way – and sometimes it’s the performers who help as well. Take a listen to these performances and these interesting works from a variety of composers from the Renaissance period to today.

We’re so used to hearing BIG Beethoven. Large chords, rhythms that never seem to end, dramatic statements. But what happens if you change the means of performance? Is this the way you imagined the Moonlight Sonata? 

© Wikipedia

Luciano Berio was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for a work for its 125th anniversary, for its 1968-69 season. He gave them Sinfonia, for orchestra and 8 amplified voices, to create not a history of music, but a distorted history of culture. The third movement is a mélange of musical quotation and text quotations. The movement starts with extensive quotations from Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, a composer championed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. The orchestra also plays ‘snatches of Claude Debussy’s La mer, Maurice Ravel’s La valse, Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, as well as quotations from Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Johannes Brahms, Henri Pousseur, Paul Hindemith, and many others (including Berio himself)…’.The voices recite texts by Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, stage directions, with the original word sometimes changed or juxtaposed with other texts. 

We all know the third movement of Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2. It’s the somber Marche funebre. A funeral march at a Lento speed. What may not be so familiar is the next movement. The speed is Presto, the touch is legato, the dynamics muted, and the notes unceasing until the final note, which strikes, as a writer said, as a ‘blow from the executioner’s axe’. 

One work that on first hearing you’d have a hard time to even place it with the correct composer, let alone get the date of composition correct, is Maurice Ravel’s 1918 work for piano, Frontispice (Frontispiece). It’s for 2 pianos, but 2 pianos and 5 hands. The two pianos are in different meters: piano 1 starting in 15/8 and Piano 2 enters one measure later in 5/4. The pianos provide overlapping melodic lines that are completely independent. The piece was written as a prelude to a reading of Ricciotto Canudo’s poem S.P. 503 Le poème de Vardar, where the author reflects on his war experiences. 

We know Liszt: bravura piano music, melodically driven, constantly innovating, and then when we look at his Bagatelle sans tonalite, S. 216a (earlier titles included Bluette fantasque and Mephisto Walzer Nr. 4 (ohne Tonart), we have a work of ambiguous harmony. There are echoes of the earlier Mephisto Waltzes, but this seems to remain outside – almost a commentary on his own work.

Can you guess what unusual sound generator is used at the beginning of Arvo Pärt’s Symphony No. 2? 

Yes, those were rubber ducks, and later, there’s crackling cellophane paper. Written in 1966, this work was part of Pärt’s early serialist style.

George Crumb: Vox Balaenae score © FANDOM Music Community

American composer George Crumb was inspired by one of the largest animals on Earth for this work from 1971. Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) requires the players to be anonymized by wearing black half-masks through their performance. Written for amplified flute, cello, and piano, the work requires that the flautist both plays and sings at the same time, and the cellist uses glissandos in an ultra-high register to imitate the cries of seagulls. 

Dowland’s lute music set the style for the English court – melancholic but always melodic. We somehow always imagine these as somewhat dry pieces, performed by a lutenist to himself as his best audience. However, in one work, he guaranteed that the performer would be able to get as close as possible to his audience. His work, My Lord Chamberlain, His Galliard, was published in his First Book of Songs in 1597. This work is written for 1 lute, but two performers (or in piano-speak: 1 lute, 4 hands.

Conlon Nancarrow: Player Piano © Whitney Museum of American Art

What happens when you have a vision for the music you want to play but it’s literally impossible for a single person with two hands and 10 fingers to play? For American composer Conlon Nancarrow, he transferred his music from a regular piano to a player piano. Mixed time signatures? No problem. Notes that are impossibly fast? No problem. More than 10 keys being played at once? No problem.

The composer and humourist Peter Schickele, in his manifestation as P.D.Q. Bach (the oddest of J.S. Bach’s 20-odd children), gave us a work that is almost too familiar to talk about, but in presenting it with the vapid commentary of a baseball game, gave us a different way to hear Beethoven. It’s a legitimate analysis, with all the familiar sports metaphors, but with a commentary that doesn’t miss a note.

 Music – we have lots of way of appreciating it – sometimes seriously, sometimes with humour – but always with an understanding that there’s lots of it out there to discover!

John Williams hints at retirement from film music, says new score might be his last

Composer John Williams. Picture: Getty

By Kyle Macdonald, ClassicFM

 

In a new interview, the legendary film music composer suggests he might be writing his final score.

Movie music maestro John Williams has given his strongest hint yet at retirement, and that film music’s greatest and most illustrious career might be nearing its final chapter.

In an interview published on Thursday by Associated Press, the 90-year-old reflected on his work in film. Williams said “At the moment I’m working on Indiana Jones 5, which Harrison Ford – who’s quite a bit younger than I am – I think has announced will be his last film.”

He then hinted it may be the same case for him: “I thought: If Harrison can do it, then perhaps I can, also.”

A Star Wars film demands six months of work, he said. “At this point in life [that] is a long commitment to me.”

Read more: 10 of John Williams’ all-time greatest film themes, ranked

Alongside the score to Indiana Jones 5, Williams is currently devoting himself to composing more music for the concert hall, including a piano concerto for long-time collaborator and friend, American virtuoso pianist Emanuel Ax. In the interview, the composer also mused on music and life. “Music can raise one’s thinking to the level of poetry,” he said.

“We can reflect on how necessary music has been for humanity. I always like to speculate that music is older than language, that we were probably beating drums and blowing on reeds before we could speak. So it’s an essential part of our humanity.”

“It’s given me my life.”

John Williams and Steven Spielberg in 2016. Picture: Getty

Williams also reflected on his long-standing creative friendship with director Steven Spielberg.“It’s been 50 years now. Maybe we’re starting on the next 50,” the composer said Williams with a laugh. “Whatever our connections will be, whether it’s music or working with him or just being with him, I think we will always be together.”

John Williams is the most prolific and widely honoured living composer of film music and holds the record for being the most Oscar-nominated living person. So far he has received 59 Oscar nods during his lifetime, and won five of them.

And although he is thinking about final film scores, it also sounds as if a compositional door will always be open from the prolific composer. “I don’t want to be seen as categorically eliminating any activity,” Williams said.

And with characteristic good humour added, “I can’t play tennis, but I like to be able to believe that maybe one day I will.”

A Variety of Opera Singers in Ceramic

by Maureen Buja , Interlude 

The ceramic modeler Johann Joachim Kändler designed many music objects for the porcelain maker Meissen. In addition to the figures of the singer with the fox at the keyboard, he also did other figurines of singers.

This group of two singers at the Metropolitan Museum, created by Kändler has been identified as Madame de Pompadour and the Prince de Rohan singing in the opera Acis and Galatea, in a production that took place at Versailles in 1749. However, in the record books of Kändler, we find that this group dates from 1744. Now we can start to look for other points of inspiration.

Two opera singers (Metropolitan Museum)

We know of Kändler’s familiarity with the opera scene at the Dresden court and if we look at the designs for Hasse’s opera Antigono, which was staged in Dresden in 1744, we see a male costume much like what is shown here.

Francesco Ponte: Antigono: design for the character Learco, 1744

The costume he’s wearing was normally that of a Roman character. The costume and the plumed helmet are his identity as a classical and heroic figure. The wide scalloped skirt, the tonnelet, was worn by both male singers and ballet dancers and was a common stage costume.

When we look through other collections of Kändler’s work, we find other representations of the two singers from the production house of Meissen, such as this one that came up for auction in 2015.

Two Opera Singers, Bonhams

The auction house, Bonhams, says this was styled on Kändler’s original but doesn’t say that it’s his model. If we look at the two in comparison, we see some differences. Now her right hand has been turned down instead of up, his face is at a different angle, his feathers are smaller, her dress has a cut-out on the bottom of her dress, her fur collar is gone, etc. The whole style seems rougher and also lacks the dimensional flower details on the stand.

In some versions, the two figures have been separated to create a very different image.

Two Opera Singers, Christies

He still has the same headgear and tonnelet, but he no longer grips his sword, his right hand is posed in a much more romantic gesture towards his heart while his left hand is now behind his back. Her dress is much larger and more dramatic, with her tiny waist being emphasized.

What’s of interest are all the variants we’ve found on just one Meissen design by Kändler. It speaks to the popularity of opera and of the Dresden court that we’ve seen Kändler document before.

The composer of choice at the Dresden court was Johann Adolph Hasse. He wrote the opera Didone Abbandonata in 1742 for the birthday of August III, the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. Hasse had been kapellmeister to the Dresden court since 1731. His wife, mezzo-soprano Faustina Bordoni, prima donna of the court opera, took the role of Didone.

The final aria is her death scene, rewritten for the performance at the Dresden Carnival in 1743. At the premiere, in the August III’s hunting lodge at Hubertusberg, the stage was too small to accommodate the closing scene of Didone dying before the flames of burning Carthage, so Didone’s death was simply announced by Genderal Osmida.

Johann Adolph Hasse: Didone abbandonata – Act III Scene 7: Aria: Cadra fra poco in cenere il suo nascente impero (Iarba) – Scene 8: Numi, onde l’ira in sen tutta mi piomba (Didone, Selene, Araspe) – Final Scene: Ah che dissi, infelice! (Didone) (Valer Barna-Sabadus, Iarba; Theresa Holzhauser, Didone; Magdalena Hinterdobler, Selene; Maria Celeng, Araspe; Hofkapelle Munchen; Michael Hofstetter, cond.)

Another opera singer in Dresden that Kändler modeled was the castrato Domenico Annibali, who was another one of the star singers in Hasse’s operas.

Anton Raphael Mengs: Domenico Annibali

As part of a series of court figures, Kändler made this model of Annibali.

Kändler: Opera Figure – Domenico Annibali, ca. 1750

If we try and imagine the market for these figurines, we have to remember all those glass cabinets with glass shelves, designed to show off your exquisite taste in porcelain. Meissen’s discovery of the Chinese secret of porcelain making opened up an entire market to local wares.

Youngest ever Van Cliburn winner moved Marin Alsop to tears with this rapturous Rachmaninov

 By Siena Linton, ClassicFM

 

The legendary conductor was seen wiping away tears as Yunchan Lim thundered through the finale of Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto.

Six competitors went head-to-head at the weekend in the final round of the sixteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas.

Over four days from 14 to 18 June, each of the finalists brought two concertos to the stage to perform with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under the baton of legendary conductor Marin Alsop.

18-year-old South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim was one of three finalists to select Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto, which he performed during the third concert of the final round on Friday 17 June.

Throughout the competition, Lim performed a wide range of works by Bach to Beethoven, Chopin to Scriabin, including a highly praised rendition of Liszt’s Transcendental Études. But it was his final performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.3 which would seal his victory.

Lim stormed his way through the finale of Rachmaninov’s mighty work, as Marin Alsop attentively directed the orchestra in keeping with the young pianist’s impressive pace. Alsop could be seen nodding in approval as Lim expertly transitioned from dramatic cadenzas to the sweeping Romantic themes that Rachmaninov is known and loved for.

As Lim finished the piece in a sensational flourish, the world-class conductor could be seen wiping tears from her eyes.

The two performers hugged in a touching moment, and as Lim went to thank the first row of violinists, Alsop could be seen both nodding her head in approval, and shaking it in disbelief, as she and the orchestra marvelled at the young talent. Watch Lim’s full performance below.

Marin Alsop herself was jury chair of the competition, on a panel that also included celebrated names of the piano world, including Stephen Hough, who was recently recognised in The Queen’s Birthday Honours, and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet.

Speaking to Classic FM, Alsop said, “What a joy to be part of this inspiring and compelling performance. Yunchan is that rare artist who brings profound musicality and prodigious technique organically together. The fact that he is only 18 years old is truly awe-inspiring and gives me great hope for the future”.

Lim’s selection as a finalist already made a mark in the prestigious competition’s history books, as the youngest competitor to progress to that stage of the competition, and on Saturday 18 June it was announced that he had been awarded the gold medal.

As winner of the competition, Lim will receive $100,000 (£81,660) and three years of additional support in his career. Second place went to Russian pianist Anna Geniushene, 31, with Ukrainian pianist Dmytro Choni, 28, taking the bronze medal.