Debussy's Preludes - Book 1: Paintings of Sound

Debussy hated the term 'impressionism' to describe his music, although it is a word often associated with him, Perhaps this is because, just like an impressionist painter might do, Debussy created musical images with no exact (musical) plan and his artistic process - as well as the listener's experience of his work - has a lot to do with the 'impression' and sense of the image that's being created. This, perhaps, means that when examined in too fine detail the work may be seen as somewhat abstract, but meaning can be found in the whole.

However, as I said, Debussy hated the term 'impressionism' as it was initially taken to mean that no care had been taken over work and that detail didn't matter. It has since, however, come to mean a whole new and fully accepted style, one with a very different type of detail. Debussy creates colour in an unrivalled way through his use of chords on the piano. It's these tonal colours which make up the images in his Preludes. He uses the piano in such an ingenious way here that it can be used to represent parts of the image he is creating (such as church bells - see if you can spot them) and such as to create very complex moods and images just from the addition of a few notes. These pieces are so vivid that you can almost hear them painting a picture in your mind's eye.

There are twelve movements here, and after each in the piano music, Debussy writes what each of them represents. Why, then, are they not written at the start of the piece? Is it because the music is so vivid and exact that the image is clear already? Or is the performer's or listener's interpretation more important than the composer's? Either way, maybe you could try listening to them without paying much attention to the titles to begin with and try to imagine what Debussy might be showing you. After all, do you need to know a painting's title to know what it depicts? I'll leave a link to some more detailed movement-by-movement explanation so that you can listen to them again with the composer's images in mind - just as I did on my first time hearing them, and I was so surprised at just how vivid and clever the music was.

These pieces are all quite varied, some are more famous than others, some are more calm than others and some are more strange than others - but that's what makes this set realistic. Debussy doesn't follow musical rules to the letter, but rather human rules. His harmonies are so rich that their colour can almost be heard, and his musical style so detailed and human that it almost feels more like looking than listening and experiencing rather than imagining.



If you enjoyed this, try listening to:
- The other book of Preludes by Debussy, as well as most of his piano pieces after turn of century as this is after he was inspired by the sounds of Gamelan, creating these interesting harmonies. For example, his Images, Preludes, or Reverie - and orchestral arrangements of these too.
- Ravel's 'Gaspard De la Nuit'
- Poulenc's 'Les Soirees de Nazelles'
- Satie also wrote some very interesting piano pieces - including the well known Gymnopedies and Gnossienes, as well as the more...artistic 'Veritably Flabby Preludes (For a Dog)'.

Link to a PDF which summarises both the scenes and has some more musical detail about the pieces (including those from Book 2, if you're interested - you'll need to copy and paste this into your browser for it to work) - http://www.ivoryclassics.com/releases/73004/pdf/booklet.pdf

Thank you to Eli for the suggestions :)