| Description |
287 pages : illustrations (some color), music ; 22 cm. |
| Series |
Dimension & diversity series ; No. 13
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Dimension & diversity ; no. 13.
|
| Note |
Translated from the German. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-284) and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction. Debussy among riveting singers and revolutionary poets ; Paul Verlaine and "musical lyricism" ; Influence of Verlain's "poetic art" on Debussy's music -- Ariettes oubliées (composed 1885-87/1903, text by Verlaine). I. C'est l'extase langoureuse ; II. Il pleure dans mon cœur ; III. L'ombre des arbres ; IV. Chevaux de bois ; V. Green ; VI. Spleen ; Musical ciphers of dejection and world weariness -- La damoiselle élue (1887-88, Rossetti). Debussy's excerpt from Sarrazin's translation ; Thematic components ; Harmonic layout ; Position of the cantata in Debussy's Œuvre -- Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire (1887-89). I. Le balcon ; II. Harmonie du soir ; III. Le jet d'eau ; IV. Recueillement ; V. La mort des amants ; Between dusk and a new dawn -- Trois mélodies de Paul Verlaine (1891). I. La mer est plus belle ; II. Le son du cor ; III. L'échelonnement des haies ; For a new sense of freedom -- Fêtes galantes I (1891-92, Verlaine). I. En sourdine ; II. Fantoches ; III. Clair de lune ; Simplicity and sophistication in the pastime of the leisured class -- Proses lyriques (1892-93, Debussy). I. De rêve ; II. De grève ; III. De fleurs ; IV. De soir ; On the human being in nature and cosmos -- Trois chansons de Bilitis (1897-98, Louÿs). I. La flûte de Pan ; II. La chevelure ; III. Le tombeau des naïades ; Music for scenes from remote times and places -- Pelléas et Mélisande (1894-1902, Maeterlinck). Search for an ideal text, and ideal musical language ; Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande ; Basics of layout and thematic material ; Thematic components of the opening scene ; Completion of the musical exposition ; Motifs and figures of a first development in Act II ; New local components in Act III ; Musical representation of the crisis in Act IV ; Facets of tragedy in Act V ; A trailblazer for musical modernism -- Fêtes galantes II (1904, Verlaine). I. Les ingénus ; II. Le faune ; III. Colloque sentimental ; Composer as stage director -- Trois ballades de François Villon (1910). I. Ballade de Villon à s'amye ; II. Ballade que Villon feit à la requeste de sa mère pour prier Nostre-Dame ; III. Ballade des femmes de Paris ; Cheerful sequence of emotions -- Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé (1913). I. Soupir ; II. Placet futile ; III. Éventail ; Mallarmé's "gallantries" in Debussy's last song cycle -- Overview of Debussy's vocal music. |
| Summary |
In fin-de-siècle Paris, composers encountered an artistic atmosphere that was crucially determined by a number of poets who met regularly in the famous cabaret "Le Chat Noir" and at Stéphane Mallarmé's Tuesday soirées. According to Paul Dukas, these poets conceived their texts like musicians or painters: "Verlaine, Mallarmé, and Laforgue presented us with new tones, new sounds. They projected lights onto their words as had never been seen before," thus developing an aesthetics that Charles Baudelaire had termed "la correspondance des arts." Claude Debussy, an avid reader of contemporary poetry, became a member of these circles when still in his early twenties. While as a student at the Paris conservatoire he had primarily set texts by poets from the generation of his parents and grandparents, he now turned to the lyric works of his contemporaries. The vocal cycles he composed in the course of the 30 years between 1885 and 1915 trace the path of his compositional development, which particularly since his encounter with the poetry of Paul Verlaine was defined by the quest for liberation from conventions handed down for too long. This book, the first of two intended complements to Images and Ideas in Modern French Piano Music, offers background information, analyses, and interpretations of his seminal cycles for voice and piano -- Ariettes oubliées (1885-1887), Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire (1887-1889), Trois mélodies de Verlaine (1891), Fètes galantes I & II (1891-1892/1904), Proses lyriques (1892-1893), Trois chansons de Bilitis (1897-1898), Trois ballades de François Villon (1910), and Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé (1913) -- complemented by the cantata La damoiselle élue (1887-1888) and Debussy's only completed opera, Pelléas et Mélisande (1902). |
| Language |
Translated from the German. |
| Subject |
Debussy, Claude, 1862-1918. Songs.
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Debussy, Claude, 1862-1918 -- Criticism and interpretation.
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Debussy, Claude, 1862-1918. |
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Criticism and interpretation. |
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Songs, French -- 19th century -- History and criticism.
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Songs, French. |
| Chronological Term |
19th century |
| Genre/Form |
Songs, French.
|
| Subject |
Songs, French -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
|
| Chronological Term |
20th century |
| Subject |
Songs (Debussy, Claude) |
| Chronological Term |
1800-1999 |
| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
|
| Added Title |
Debussys Vokalmusik und ihre poetischen Evokationen. English
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| ISBN |
9781576473153 paperback alkaline paper |
|
1576473155 paperback alkaline paper |
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