Formulaic Openings in Debussy JAMES A. HEPOKOSKI By now it comes as no surprise that much of grows from not merely one, but several syntac- what may at first strike us as innovative in De- tical conventions. On the one hand, Debussy bussy's music was in fact carried out within the perceived the language of Wagner as the most framework of historical precedent and estab- progressive available style, with its motivic or- lished convention. Indeed, tracing the emer- ganization and transformation, harmonic and gence of his personal style from the early works, formal freedom, aperiodic construction, and ex- with their explicit reliance on existing models, plicit seriousness of purpose.' On the other, he to the later works, where the models or conven- inherited by culture and education the set of tions are more tacit, is an issue of fundamental languages of such French contemporaries and musicological importance. Perhaps no com- immediate predecessors as Gounod, Saint- poser of this fin-de-sikcle era exemplifies more Sains, Faur6, Duparc, Chabrier, Franck, and clearly the expressive tension that results from Massenet-languages not untouched by the ex- the forging of a creative language that simulta- ample of Wagner (and Liszt), but ones more con- neously works within a received tradition and servative in their melodic emphasis and perio- strives for radical originality. dicity, even while they admitted considerable The question of the composer's development harmonic experimentation, particularly in the is particularly complex, because his music area of modality. Debussy's early works blend in differing proportions the existing German Notes for this article begin on page 57. and French late-nineteenth-century conven- 19th Century Music VIII/1 (Summer 1984). @by the Re- tions: appropriate responses from a student and gents of the University of California. young composer searching for a distinctive 44 This content downloaded from 128.36.7.70 on Sat, 23 Feb 2019 20:33:38 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms JAMES A. voice.2 Gradually, as he matured, he was able to ages, where the stillness of the pedal functions as a HEPOKOSKI permit original material to rise in importance to kind of metaphor for the more typical initial silence. Openings in the point where it disguises-in some in- 2. An unaccompanied melodic line breaking the Debussy silence. Typically, the melodic line begins with a rel- stances, annihilates-the existing models. atively prolonged initial pitch, piano or pianissimo, Debussy's reliance on syntactical models in and glides gracefully into more active rhythmic mo- generating his own style is nowhere more evi- tion in a manner that is not emphatically metrical. dent than at the beginnings of his works. He ha- The line is often undular, returning at points to its initial pitch in a supple curve, and it generally im- bitually returns to the same initial gestural pat- plies a rather weak tonic, because of the use of penta- terns-involving distinctive treatments of tonicism, chromaticism, modality, gapped scales, or phrasing, melody, texture, and harmonic syn- other such devices. This line leads directly into: tax. These recurring patterns, whose primary 3. Either chordal confirmation or nonconfirma- purpose is to move from silence to a world of tion of the implied tonic. If confirmation, the line ex- musical motion, may be located within the lan- pands to a multivoice texture and either establishes the tonic at once (as in Hommage a Rameau from the guage options available to him as he began to piano Images) or passes through one or more preca- compose; they have demonstrable historical an- dential harmonies before arriving at a clear and reso- tecedents. Debussy's openings are often formu- nant tonic (as in La Fille aux cheveux de lin from the laic, in the general sense of the OED's first Preludes). If nonconfirmation, the line moves di- definition of a formula: "A set form... in which rectly into a chord (or set of chords) that functions to unsettle the tonality implied in the initial melodic something is defined, stated, or declared, or material (as in Printemps of 1887). which is prescribed by authority or custom to be used on some ceremonial occasion."3 The most Many examples besides those indicated frequent of the formulas are readily recogniz- above may be mentioned. Those with confirm- able, and they may easily be grouped into fami- ing chords-the larger subdivision-include the lies, bearing in mind that Debussy often devi- early Pantomime, Le Faune and, in an ambigu- ates from the "ideal" convention for expressive ous, whole-tone situation, Colloque sentimen- purposes. tale from Fetes galantes II, the Danse sacree, This study raises more questions of taxon- Bruydres from Prdludes, book II, Ballade que omy than I shall attempt to deal with here. My Villon feit ca la requeste de sa mdre pour prier present concern is merely to introduce the Nostre-Damegen- from the Trois Ballades de Fran- eral idea of formulaic openings in Debussy-to gois Villon, Soupir from the Trois Poemes de advance the concept without pretending to Stiphaneex- Mallarme, and Pour invoquer Pan haust all of its particulars. Further ramifica- from the Six Epigraphes antiques. L'Isle joy- tions of the idea may be pursued within deeper euse and Pour un Tombeau sans nom from the studies of individual works. I shall begin by Sixpre- Epigraphes antiques extend the confirming senting a summary description of the formulaic principle to the whole-tone scale, as does Voiles categories with brief exemplifications (I), move from Preludes, which also thickens the mono- onward to a consideration of the aesthetic and phonic line into a succession of parallel major- conceptual function of the formulas within third a dyads. basically Symbolist environment (II), and con- Those with nonconfirming or contradictory clude by looking more closely at the openings of chords include Spleen from the Ariettes oubli- three representative pieces (III). des, Prelude ac "L'Apres-midi d'un Faune", acts II and V of Pelleas et Mdlisande, Crois mon con- I seil, chore Climene from Le Promenoir des A. The Monophonic Opening. This category deux amants, Jimbo's Lullaby (whose ambigu- covers beginnings that pass through three ges- ous major-second dyad in m. 4 effects a momen- tural phases, the second of which seems to tary shift from Bb to F pentatonic) and The Little define the formula most clearly. Shepherd from Children's Corner, La Danse de Puck from book I of the Prdludes, Prdlude: Le 1. The silence preceding the opening notes. This is by no means an inconsequential component; De- Sommeil de la boite from La Boite ~ joujoux, bussy sometimes replaces the silence with a prelimi- and the Etude pour les 'cinq doigts'. A number nary pedal point, as in Gigues from the orchestral Im- of closely related examples are less strictly for- 45 This content downloaded from 128.36.7.70 on Sat, 23 Feb 2019 20:33:38 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 19TH Tres modere CENTURY MUSIC S A" a # ..... .! -- . roil. Suib . ,. 1 -w- NunnN I ARM- 1, -7 1 i if+ ll ?x a m p e " " f -" i aatem p o gul PkK. ... "" =;v_4 I I III" ",",, G," V - ,, I '. , I .- . .. ' ". ' ' ,, - n .. '09 'I P ri' n ' 1 n p. ...... ,.. t ?LL- i 6VI IAMI Example Ila: Prin temps, mm. 1- 14. mulaic because of the presence of extraneous Consider a clear instance: the monophonic material, such as relatively static opening opening of Printemps of 1887 (ex. la, mm. 1-8). chords or accompanying pedal points, as men- The opening pianissimo dynamic seems inti- tioned above with Gigues: these include L'En- mately related to the preceding silence or, bet- fant prodigue, Harmonie du soir from the ter, to grow in crescendo out of it-a creatio ex Baudelaire songs, En sourdine and Claire de nihilo. The single melodic line flows gracefully lune from Fetes galantes I, act III of Pellkas withet a smooth, elegant shape: the Debussian ar- Mdlisande, Dialogue du vent et de la mer from abesque.4 It is static, undular, and revolves La Mer, the Premiere Rapsodie for clarinet, and around a central pitch, here a mediant axis, A#, many other such openings. and suggests in mm. 4-5 a merging back into its 46 This content downloaded from 128.36.7.70 on Sat, 23 Feb 2019 20:33:38 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 23 JAMES A. HEPOKOSKI r- lo Openings in grim i .... Debussy L PON" tll .. ..19J ".".-X" -- . ,-,... iI -1 SAP. MM --T1 a--- poo Koc cecedaiin""- ,%.N1: : " .. ....... m . i.-- - ', ''[::iI ...... Exampla l b: fritempsdmm.i23-32 beginning. The opening monophonic phrase am aware are six of the twelve principal sym- implies a tonality, pentatonic on FO, or "black- phonic poems of Liszt: strings in octaves in note" pentatonic. The chord that appears in m. Tasso and Les Preludes; percussion in 5, F# t, suggests with its minor seventh that F# Festkliinge and Heroide funebre; other solu- might not be the tonic. This is a contradiction, tions in Hungaria and Hunnenschlacht. Per- or at least the introduction of an ambiguity, and haps even more influential were the Wagnerian it works to unsettle the presumed tonic. This music dramas. The prelude to Tristan and unsettling proceeds as the first chord changes Isolde is archetypal here-monophonic open- into a second in m. 8, an unexpected E6,. Most ing leading to an ambiguous or rich chord-as listeners would hear the Eg9 chord as an embel- are the prelude to act III of Die Meistersinger lishing sonority, not a functional one: it and the prelude to Parsifal.