Portrait of Debussy 6, Debussy and French Music

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Portrait of Debussy. 6: Debussy and French Music

Rollo Myers

The Musical Times, Vol. 108, No. 1496. (Oct., 1967), pp. 899-901.

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and many passing details will tend to be submerged.

For Howells, as for Elgar and Delius, the ecstatic

and the elegiac-the visionary glory and the sense of

loss-are closely bound up together, and the

measure of this is to be found precisely in the har-

monic texture. Bearing in mind Howells's roots in

the West Midlands, in the country of the Three

Choirs, one might expect to discover some clear

affinity with Elgar, but in fact the 't rue light' in

Hymnus Paradisi

has a distinctly Delian radiance

(ex 3-vocal score, pp.88-9). The harmonic in-

flexions in this passage for chorus,l especially at

'true light' and 'endured in the heat', are unmis-

takable. Not that this music could ever be attributed

to Delius-quite apar t from the words Compare

it with the choral writing in, say,

Sea Drift

and some

striking differences in style at once emerge.

Even

here, at his most homophonic, Howells thinks

naturally in terms of line, and in general his chroma-

ticism has a firmer diatonic background-diatonic

and modal. But the Delian affinity remains. The

final pages of

Hym nus Paradisi

are the sort of thing

that Delius might have written had he worked within

the framework of the English Church and its choral

tradition. Howells's vision is 'evermore', Delius's

'nevermore', but the music speaks of a similar yearn-

ing. There is no mistaking a sunset, whichever way

you happen to be facing.

It says much for Howells's creative stature that

this comparison with Delius can be made unflinch-

ingly. How far there is any real debt to Delius is

difficult to tell, for Howells has so thoroughly

absorbed his influences. He is not an original, as

Delius was; he is both more limited and more com-

plex. Behind the fastidiousness and the precise

workmanship there is a retiring, self-effacing musical

personality, but at the same time an acute self-

awareness. His style is a synthesis of most of the

2the orchestra ente rs at the end of the fourt h bar but does no t

modify the harmony.

Portrait of Debussv-6

things characteristic of the English revival in its

Georgian phase.3 As used here, the term Georgian

denotes an attitude of mind rather than a definite

period of time-a desire to take refuge in an idealized

countryside and 'the pursuit of Beauty in her more

chaste and subtle guises'-but the years of World

War I and its aftermath are, of course, the critical

ones. In embracing this attitude, Howells has given

it his own distinctive emphasis. Significantly, the

poet he has set most extensively is not Housman but

de la Mare : the two cycles from

Peacock Pie

contain

several of his best songs, and their dream-like feeling

is really quite different from the typically Georgian

'lost content'. Perhaps the main weakness of the

Georgians generally is not their escapism but their

complacency: they are content with their 'lost

content', and that is fatal. Howells, no doubt, has

written his share of this minor pastoral and elegiac

music, but in the main his sense of anguish and of

aspiration have raised him well above it. And im-

plicit in his vision of the beautiful is a keen aware-

ness of its transience and vulnerability. There is

nothing complacent in that.

By summing up, refining and intensifying-and

even transcending?-the Georgian phase, Howells

has acquired a unique place in the English revival;

and it is a far more distinguished place than the

present lack of performances would lead one to

suppose. A chance to hear the Concerto for Strings

and the second piano concerto, both composed in

1939, would be particularly welcome, and it is time

the controversial

Missa Sabritzensis

(1954) was

thoroughly reconsidered:

I

was one of the doubters

at the first performance, but those who say it is

Howells's greatest achievement could well be

right.

most, not all: the hea rty and the rollicking have passed him

by. and he is too good an artist to mistake mere whimsy for

significant feeling.

< Y

reprod~irrccri v

penriisrio ~

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Bo o se )

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Rol lo Mye r s

DEBUSSY AND FRENCH MUSIC

In this series of articles we attempt to build a com-

posite portrait of' Debussy the musician through

examination of the very diferetzt impressions he left

on the mlrsic of other composers: itz general, and also

in particular by documentatiotz of wha t wor ks they

heard, and when, their statements, and the rejections

found in their own compositions.

As early as

1895,

when the only major works he had

published as yet were the String Quartet and the

Prelude

a

I'aprPs-midi d'lm faune,

Debussy, in a

letter to his friend Pierre Louys, made a highly

significant and revealing statement showing that he

was already fully aware that what he had set himself

to do in music would have far-reaching results:

I

am

working', he wrote, 'on things that will only be

understood by our grandchildren in the 20th cen-

tury.' (I take this to be the meaning of 'les petits-

enfants du XXe.siecle'.) And he goes on:' They alone

will see that fine feathers do not make a musician.

They will strip the idols of their veils, reveal~ng nly

a miserable skeleton beneath'.

What is interesting about this statement is ( a ) that

it can now be seen to be true; and

( b )

that it seems

to rule out the possibility that Debussy thought

himself likely to be an 'influence' on his immediate

successors. He was, of course , only too well and

scornfully aware that some of his methods were

being copied by the smaller fry among his contem-

poraries-did he not exclaim in disgust: 'Les

debussystes me tuent'?-but the last thing he wanted

to be was, in any sense, a

che fd 'ecole .

The truth is that great artists d o not so much have

a direct influence on other individual artists, as an

indirect influence on the whole future development



of their art. Thus , for example, music has never

been quite the same since Beethoven, although

there are few composers one can think of whose

music bears any direct resemblance to that of the

creator of the

Missa Solemnis

or the late string

quartets . The same could be said of Rembrandt,

Cezanne, or Picasso; and among the moderns I

think Debussy is an outstanding example of the

pioneer who stands alone, without any immediate

followers, yet destined to exert a tremendous influ-

ence on future developments. This, of course, implies

recognition of the fact that while technical idio-

syncrasies and mannerisms can always be copied,

what is fundamental in the approach of any great

artist to his art will always be inimitab le. And th e

greatness of Debussy lay precisely in the fact that

his conception of what music ought to be and the

methods he envisaged to make his ideals come true

were so radically new that the composer of today is

confronted with an almost unlimited choice of

exploratory avenues to pursue. In a paper read at

the international seminar held in Paris in the

Debussy centenary year M Andre Souris made the

point that just as Mallarme was not merely con-

cerned to write a sonnet but to re-invent poetry,

while Cezanne similarly aimed a t re-inventing paint-

ing, so did Debussy also set out to change the very

nature of music and the rules and principles by

which it had hitherto been governed. His aim was,

in fact, to remould and reorganize musical thinking

from top to bottom -and it is undeniably from this

angle that any modern critical assessment of

Debussy s influence on the music of his and our own

time must be undertaken.

Perhaps one of the most curious things in con-

nexion with this particular aspect of the cas

Debussy is the apparent failure of his contem por-

aries to realize, as musicians everywhere toda y have

done, the full extent of his importance as an inno-

vator and founding father of 20th-century music.

An d this is true, not only of the generation that , so to

speak, grew up with him, o r followed him imme-

diately (a reaction to be expected), but also of F rench

musicians generally throughout the 30s and 40s

until the Back to Debussy movement set in, largely

due to the perspicacity of Pierre Boulez and other

members of the avant-garde, not only in France but

all over the world. Now that we are accustomed to

seeing Debussy in this new perspective and hearing

h i n ~ xtolled above all as a m aster of form and in-

ventor of all kinds of structural subtleties, it seems

strange that Cocte au, writing in 1918 in

Cock and

Harlequin, should h ave been obsessed with one aspect

only of Deb ussy s music-its so-called impres-

sionism and atmos pheric vagueness. Thus, for

exa mp le: Debu ssy missed his way because he fell

from the German frying-pan into the Russian fire .

Once again the pedal blurs rhythm and creates a

kind of fluid atmosphere congenial to

shortsighted

ears'.

O r again: The impressionist school substi-

tutes sunshine for light and sonority for rhythm.

Debussy played in French but used the Russian

pe da l .

.

one cannot get lost in a Debussy mist as

one can in a Wagner fog, but it is not good for one.

Enough of hammocks, garlands, and gond olas;

want some one to build me music I can live in, like

a house. Admittedly all this was part of Cocteau s

propaganda campaign in favour of Satie and to

prepare the way for Les Six and a down-to-earth

new music where th ere will be no caressing strings,

only a rich ch oir of w ood, brass and percussion ,

but it did represent, all the same, an attitude to-

wards Debussy and pre-1914-war French music

which was pretty comm on at the time. It is only fair

to say here that Cocteau in later life revised his

opinion of Debussy whose greatness he fully ac-

knowledged.

And yet, even the staunchest ad mirers of Debussy

among practising musicians were not necessarily

influenced by him. Charles

Koechlin, for example,

wro te: Certainly benefited from the innov ations

embodied in PeNtas et M lisande.

.

but in spite

of my admiration for Debussy, it cannot be said

that I was a Debussyist. My style of writing and

thou ght were di ffe ren t.. they showed a feeling-a

need for rhythm

in contrast

[my italics] to the ad-

mirable

Prihide d I'apr s-midi d'un . fame

and a

contrapuntal style of writing in which the spirit of

the fugue is never far away . By this time I had

heard

The Rite of Spring,

and Darius Milhaud had

introduced me to his first works, which reflected the

need felt for polytonal writing. It was from these

directions, then, that the wind of change was

blowing at tha t tim e; yet despite Milhaud s own

strong disapprova l of the impressionist school with

which Debussy, rightly or wrongly, had been asso-

ciated, he made it clear, in a broadcast some ten

years ago, that ever since his first meeting with

Debussy around 1905: my admiration for him

always grew and grew and never stopped , and th at

although the Six at that time were strongly against

Impressionism and all the complications of the

followers of Debussy met with rather complete

disapproval, we had only love for Debussy.

.

First of all, he had found a new langu age; in his

followers, of course, that is a conventionality of

language which we don t lik e. very often the

Impressionist music seems to be scattered in pieces

and go away like smoke or fireworks.

.

In the end, then, the reaction against Debussy

soon after his death an d during the 1930s and 40s

always turns out to be in reality a reaction against

his imitato rs, the so-called Debussystes . But who,

in fact, were they? Ap art from th e small fry, whose

very names today are forgotten, one might perh aps

include in this category composers like Pierne and

Andre C aplet, though this perhaps would be hardly

fair to two excellent musicians in their own right.

And among the very few who could be said to have

felt the influence of the real Debussy in a real sense

-that is to say those who learned som ething from

the tou gh conciseness and inventive subtleties of the

late works which have left any suggestion of im-

pressionism far behind-one might perhap s cite the

names of A lbert Rou ssel an d even Olivier Messiaen.

Then there is Paul Dukas, whose

Ariane et Barbe-

Bleue

inevitably reveals a certain indebtedness,

however involuntary, to

Pelleas,

though on a rather

different aesthetic plane; and last, but not least

amo ng those up on w hose should ers, if only for a

mo ment a nd however lightly, the M aster s man tle

may have descended-Maurice Ra vel himself.

9



Here we are on controversial ground . It was no

doubt inevitable that the co-existence and contem-

poraneity of two such outstanding musicians should

have led to misund erstandings and rivalries, al-

though these were fomented not so much (if at all)

by the protagonists themselves as by their respective

partisans in the musical maquis of those days, when

rival schools of musical thought were always sniping

at one another and carrying on guerrilla warfare in

the Press. In this particular controversy Pierre Lalo,

the music critic of Le Temps, played a leading part,

and brought matters to a head by publishing in his

paper on March 19, 1907, an article entitled 'Ravel

et le Debussysme' in which he attacked Ravel's

Histoires t~atu relles nd Une barque sur I'octan (in its

orchestral version) and added salt to the wound by

asserting: 'In both these works o ne hears continually

a very distinct echo of the music of M D ebussy. You

are. of course, aware that

M

Ravel is not the only

one of his kind: it is an indisputable fact that a very

large number of young French composers are

writing Debussyist music.' He then proceeded to

demolish the theory by which those accused of

'Debussyism' sought to defend themselves by argu-

ing that Debussy was merely one among many of a

whole generation of composers who all shared the

sam e ideals-a line of defence which Lalo qu ite

rightly dismissed as an 'impudent joke' which can-

not be supported on either aesthetic or historical

groun ds. Ravel for his part objected to being, by

in~ plic atio n, lassed amo ng the 'young composers'

in question, and said so in no uncertain terms in a

dignified letter to Le Temps in which he paid tribute

to 'an artist of genius, Claude Debussy', and chal-

lenged Lalo 'to produce a single witness who has

heard me utter any such absurdities. It is a matter of

indifference t o m e if I

am looked upo n, by those who

only know my works through the critics, as an

impudent plagiarist; but I object to being made to

appear, even in their eyes, as an imbecile'.

So far as the charge of plagiarism is concerned,

the boot may even have been on the other foot; for

was not Debussy accused of having 'borrowed'

rathe r freely in his So iri es duns Grenade (published

in 1903) from Ravel's early Haba nera (com posed in

1895)?-and did not Ravel on another occasion,

when a critic had given Debussy credit for having

inaugurated an entirely new pianistic style in his

L'ile joyeuse and Reflets duns I'eau (dated re-

spectively 1904 and 1905) feel bound to point out

that w hereas his own Jeux d'eau had ap peared in

1902. Debussy had by then written nothing for the

instrument more important than Pour le piano-'a

work which'. said Ravel, 'I need hardly say I

passionately admire, but which, from a purely

pianistic viewpoint, conveyed nothing really new.'

In any attempt to assess the extent to which either

comp oser can be said to have 'influenced' the other,

it is important to remember that Ravel, though 13

years Debussy's junior, had matured far more

rapidly, which explains, for example, why some of

his earlier piano music may seem to be more 'ad-

vanced' than Debussy's; but by the time Debussy

had got into his stride he had begun to forge ahead,

while Ravel's style was already crystallized and set

firmly in its mo uld . The refo re if the question of

influence arises at all, it could only in the long ru n

have been one way. Yet that Ravel, despite his

enormous admiration for Debussy (an admiration

which he never sought to hide) was ever influenced

by him would be very difficult to prove. Superficial

similarities there may have been: and that Ravel

was conscious of this is shown in a remark he once

made to a critic to the effect that any likeness be-

tween his music and Debussy's was due, not to any

influence, but to what he called an 'innate resem-

blance' (similitude innie).

But the fact remains that in methods, technique

and above all temperament they had very little in

common, Debussy being a pantheist and a devotee

of Nature, while Ravel delighted in artifice and pre-

ferred his emotions second-hand. T o quote Milhaud

again: 'The quality of Debussy is different.

everything came from his heart really, and also his

human qualities are always in his music. Ravel

was far away from me, because his music has this

sort of preciosity which I don't personally like very

m u c h .

.

A

subjective reaction, admittedly, but

one which underlines the essential difference be-

tween the two composers. Th e 'innate resemblance'

of which Ravel spoke was, I suggest, far more dis-

cernible in their general aesthetic outlook and liter-

ary tastes-both for example admired Mallarme,

Baudelaire, and

E

A . Poe, and both had a taste for

rare and precious sensations-than in their me thod s

and style of com pos ition . Th e classicism of Ravel's

form and his clearly defined and precise outlines

are in marked contrast with Debussy's far more

fluid structures and atmospheric harmonies; and

while Ravel did not mind if his scaffolding was

visible, Debussy was always anxious that his music

should sound like an improvisation. Debussy, in

fact, inhabited a different world, a world into which

Ravel did not seek to penetrate, and the label that

best fits his music, if label there must be, is that of

'symbolism' rather than 'impressionism', in so far

as the term expresses the symbolists' ideal of a n art

which, in the words of Paul Valery, 'unites the world

in which we live to the world by which we are

haunted. '

We seem, then, forced to the seemingly para-

doxical conclusion that Debussy has not been a

major influence on French music specifically, how-

ever great his influence on music in general ha s been.

He would have hated to be called a 'revolutionary'.

yet the revolution for which he was responsible-

what Henri Sauguet has called 'a permanent

revolution' because music since Debussy has en-

joyed a freedom it never knew before-is still

having a profoun d effect on the evolution of the art .

The Educational Group o l the Musical Instrument Association

oPiers £100 for an original organ co mpo sition lasting to

minutes. N o age limlt. Entries b y D e c 31 to EGMTA 5 Oxford

S t L o n d o n I

The New Philharmonia Orchestra announces the setting up of

the Martin Musical Scholarship Fund t o aid the post-graduate

studies o f young musicians .

Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowships are available in

1968

for those actively engaged in the creative arts. Only UK

cit izens may apply. N o age l imit . Enquiries by Nov 15 to 37

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Portrait of Debussy 6, Debussy and French Music