CHAPTER 43
Mythical Impressions: Program Music at the End of the Nineteenth Century
OVERVIEW
Chapter 43 discusses the Impressionistic music of Debussy within the context of contemporary
French painting and literature. It explores Debussy’s Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun to
illustrate French artists’ fascination with mythology and exotic cultures at the turn of the
twentieth century.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To understand Impressionism in music as defined by the use of modal and nontraditional
scales, sustained dissonance, and diverse orchestral tone colors, typically composed within
the subgenres of program music
2. To understand the influence of non-Western music and the Symbolist poets on Debussy and
other Impressionist French composers
3. To understand Debussy’s tone poem Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun as an example of
musical Impressionism
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
1. Share with your class examples of Impressionist paintings by the artists Monet, Renoir, and
Degas. Ask students to characterize the use of color, line, shape, and content/subject matter.
Why is the term Impressionist used to describe the style of these paintings? Next, have
students read the excerpt from the poem by Stéphane Mallarmé is the program for
Debussy’s Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun (see Listening Guide 32). Ask students to
describe the narrative or content, meaning, and style of the poem. As with the previous
Impressionist paintings, ask students why the term Symbolist is used to describe the style of
the poem.
2. Ask students to compare the harmonic language of a tonal piece covered previously in class
(e.g., Vivaldi’s Spring from The Four Seasons or Chopin’s Mazurka in B-flat Minor) with an
Impressionist work by Debussy. (A good example is Voiles from Préludes) Direct students to
the dominant-tonic resolution present in the tonal example but absent in Debussy. Ask students
if they can detect Debussy’s use of the whole–tone scale in Voiles.
3. Play Debussy’s Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun and ask students to think about how the
concepts of Symbolism and Impressionism are present in the piece. Encourage students to
connect the ideas of literary Symbolism and artistic Impressionism to the musical elements
(melody, rhythm/meter, harmony, etc.) they hear in Debussy’s symphonic poem.
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. We are now at the end of the nineteenth century, and a new stylistic term describes the
music of Debussy and his French contemporaries: Impressionism. How are the stylistic and
aesthetic categories of Romanticism and Impressionist different? How are they similar? Do
they complement or negate each other? Are there any Romantic elements in Debussy’s
Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun?
2. If line, color, shape, and light make up the content of Impressionist art, what makes up the
content of Impressionist music? How does Debussy employ this content in Prelude to The
Afternoon of a Faun? Can you make similar kinds of connections between the content of
visual art and music in other styles we have explored—for example, Renaissance,
Romantic, and Classical?
TEACHING CHALLENGES
More than the other chapters in Part 5, this chapter deals with theoretical concepts of mode,
extended harmony, and scales other than major and minor. This may be a challenge for students
who had trouble with these topics in Part 1. A review of these concepts might be helpful in such
cases.
SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY
Debussy: La mer
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cummins, Linda. Debussy and the Fragment. Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi, 2006.
Cummins focuses her study on the literary sources of Debussy’s music and their influence on
his musical language. The first part of Chapter 3 (“Arcadias and Arabesques”) discusses the
literary context of the Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun.
Fulcher, Jane, ed. Debussy and His World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. A
collection of essays on Debussy and fin-de-siècle France. Leon Botstein’s “Beyond the
Illusions of Realism: Painting and Debussy’s Break with Traditions” addresses the
connections among Debussy, his music, and the Impressionists.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Mythical Impressions: Program Music at the End of the Nineteenth Century (Chapter 43)
I. Symbolism and Impressionism in Paris
A. Impressionism
1. French movement in painting: Claude Monet’s Impression: Sun Rising (1867)
2. “Impressionism” derisive term
3. freshness of first impressions
a. fascinated with changing appearance of light and color
b. hazy, luminous style
4. artists: Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir
5. Symbolists: parallel development in poetry
a. literary revolt against tradition
b. poetic images through suggestion; abstract quality
c. French writers: Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine
II. Translating Impressions into Sound
A. Late 1800s: composers break traditions
1. inspired by Impressionist, Symbolist movements
2. greater subtlety, expressive ambiguity
3. chromatic, whole-tone, and non-Western scales
4. dissonance as goal, freed from need to resolve
5. floating harmonies, ninth chords: hover between tonalities
6. rich orchestral color, free rhythm
7. subtle colors, veiled sounds: lower registers, muted brass, use of harp and celesta
8. small-scale programmatic forms
B. Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
1. most important French Impressionist composer
2. age 11, attended Paris Conservatory
a. shocked professors: bizarre harmonies, defied rules
3. age 22, won Prix de Rome
4. Pelléas and Mélisande (1902), opera: international success
5. 1889 Paris Exhibition: interest in non-Western styles
6. helped establish French art song (mélodie)
7. 1918, died during bombardment of Paris
8. small output: orchestral compositions, dramatic works, chamber music, piano music,
songs
C. Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun”
1. Debussy’s best-known orchestral work
2. symphonic poem: Symbolist poem by Mallarmé
a. faun (mythological creature: half man, half goat) dreams of three nymphs
b. symbolizes raw sensuality
3. later choreographed by Russian dancer, Nijinsky
D. Listening Guide 32: Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun” (Prélude à “L’après-midi
d’un faune”) (1894)
1. loose A-B-A´ structure; fluid and rhapsodic
2. A section: opens with lyrical, chromatic flute melody in lower register
a. free-flowing rhythms, vague sense of pulse
b. harp glissandos follow
c. dialogue in the horns
3. B section: clarinet introduces animated idea
a. new theme carries to emotional climax
4. A´ section: antique cymbals, “blue” chords
5. piece dissolves into silence