Ahhhh maaaan
maaaaaaaan
I tell ya’...
it’s so...
so HOT out here!
Tres chaud!
I’m so...so...
sweaty...
so...
sexy...
so...
...in need of some female company.
Seen any babes, around?
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Claude Debussy was from a different planet.
His musical genius was always so far-out.
Born in Paris in 1862, he’s admitted to France’s leading music college aged just ten.
But his conservative conservatoire professors
want to conserve the conservative atmosphere of the conservatoire.
Get me?
Well cut a long story short and Debussy’s failing his exams.
He's a naughty pupil.
Not the sex and drugs kind.
I’m talking the radical sort who shocks his classmates through his ART.
He’s scandalise them just by sitting at the piano
and thinking up crazy harmonies that rip up the rules of the textbook.
Tres chic!
Though he gets haters,
he’s at least got some homies rooting for him:
the Symbolist poets.
They’re just as radical in their own field.
They write freestyle poetry based on associations and impressions,
rather than logic and narrative.
Now Stephane Mallarme is Debussy’s favourite amongst them.
Back in 1876, Mallarme courted controversy with his sexy poem L’apres-midi d’un faune.
It evoked the erotic experiences of a randy faun
half-man, half-goat
who tries to woo some passing nymphs.
Debussy loved the way Mallarme’s poem rejected poetic convention and emphasised sound over sense.
The way it appealed directly to the reader’s emotions
reflected exactly what Debussy was trying to do with his music -
impact the listener through experience, not explanation.
Sometimes it’s better to show, not tell.
So in 1892, aged 30, Debussy starts composing a three-part
piece to accompany dramatic readings of Mallarme’s L’apres-midi d’un faune.
As it happens, he only completes the first part
the prelude
which he decides to turn into the complete single-movement piece.
Mallarme’s pretty threatened by this
"Isn’t my poem good enough on its own?!"
Mallarme turns up to the premiere in December 1894, ready for a fight.
But that never happens because Mallarme’s totally astonished by Debussy’s masterpiece.
Not only does it evoke the richness of Mallarme’s poem, but it enhances the sensual atmosphere.
It triumphs with the audience.
They insist it be repeated immediately.
Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune epitomises the hedonism of Belle Epoque Paris.
It eventually becomes even more famous when Sergei Diaghilev’s
legendary Ballets Russes transforms it into a groundbreaking ballet in 1912.
The piece opens with a meandering flute solo.
It’s the sound of the faun’s flute, fashioned out of a reed to seduce passing nymphs.
He’s just awoken from deep slumber.
He languishes in the sultry summer heat of the forest.
The flute ascends and descends chromatically across a range of notes known as a tritone.
This interval between the notes creates an unsettling sound.
So unsettling that in medieval times, tritones were considered evil
for it was thought the devil was contained in their dissonance.
Throughout the piece, this theme is traded between instruments
with different sound textures to create colourful effects.
So we now hear an oboe take up the theme.
The faun is stretching in his sweaty, dreamy haze.
He dials up the sex appeal by erotically devouring a bunch of grapes.
Two flutes play a variation of the theme,
this time twisting and turning expressively as though a breeze is blowing through the forest.
It’s in fact a passing group of nymphs – maidens of the forest.
One has removed her veil to bathe in the stream.
The faun’s aroused as the clarinet ushers in another variation of the main theme.
An unusual run of notes called a whole tone scale makes it sound exotic -
supernatural, even.
Muted strings play staccato as the faun approaches the group.
All but one of the nymphs flee.
The oboe plays as the faun courts the lone nymph.
Debussy’s music refuses to settle in any particular key,
his colourful chords sounding in ambiguous harmonies
that seem to go in no predictable direction.
It moves as unsteadily as the faun’s freaky dance –
you know, it’s not so easy doing sexy moves with the body of a man on goat’s legs.
In 1894, this was considered a deeply original way of writing music.
The woodwinds let out an expansive, yearning call
as the faun and nymph do their jerky courting dance: the robot.
Hear how the rhythm pulsates, a bit out of time?
Well those are cross-rhythms;
they’re what you get when you pit different rhythms against each other.
Perhaps faun and nymph aren’t really dancing to the same tune?
In fact, no they’re not!
Mrs Nymph HAS ONLY JUST GONE AND LEFT poor Mr Faun.
The music subsides and a sad solo violin plays.
The faun’s been abandoned in the blazing heat of the sun-stroked forest.
But...wait a second...
...she’s forgotten her veil! Ha-ha!
The opening flute theme returns with a harp playing shimmering arpeggios beneath.
The faun goes to pick up the veil
but not before the oboe interrupts
as the group of nymphs return to challenge him.
We hear a flurry of staccato woodwinds as the faun retreats.
Once the nymphs have disappeared, the faun picks up the veil and holds it to his cheek.
We then hear an instrument with a different timbre:
the cor anglais – or English horn.
The strings and clarinets let out a trembling sound as the lone nymph returns one last time
but disappears as if she were only ever a mirage.
The faun decides to quit his game.
He's got her veil and that's all he needs to indulge his desires.
He lays it down and lowers his body onto it.
This scene in the ballet was so controversial that many
booed in uproar with the police attending to check out the alleged obscenity.
Muted horns intone the main theme one last time
as the faun’s body tenses with his head curled back in ecstasy.
Some antique cymbals chime as the harmony finally settles
and the faun falls into intoxicating sleep.
Those who attacked Debussy’s piece
and its ballet interpretation
could never anticipate its lasting influence.
They claimed it was a formless blur of messy chords and vague harmonies.
But they missed the point.
The free-flowing – almost improvisational – feel was an illusion.
Debussy in fact planned his composition so meticulously
that it was exactly the same number of bars as the lines of Mallarme’s poem.
Though he abandoned the traditional structure of the classical symphony,
with its usual development of melody and harmony,
this certainly didn’t mean it was formless.
Instead, Debussy treated his music like a painter’s canvas,
blending together fragments of unusual sound to create a unified whole.
It’s why he’s considered the first impressionist composer.
Just like Monet’s painting, Debussy assembled his own palette of instruments
flute, oboe, clarinet, cor anglais
to create the impression of colourful soundscapes.
Ultimately, Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un Faune is a seductive impression of mystical reverie:
a dream as fleeting as the sound of the faun’s flute.
Psychedelic...