Romantic Music, Debussy, Dissonance

[eschiss1]

I hadn't actually meant this to be a thread -about- Debussy - was bringing him in for a contrast and a... well, I can't say I mind, either. As to La mer, the suggestion that I temporarily ignore the headings and hints of programmatic subtext (which I've never really liked with anyone's music, it's a sort of thing that kept me away from Liszt until Walker...well, that's another subject) and listened to it in a more "absolute" frame, as an orchestral work with some titles and history attached. Worked for me, for whatever that does or doesn't say (says most about me, not about La mer, I realize. Not that the internal motivic argument and between-movement (Franckian) recalls (... and harmonies, if one's going to evoke Franck) are exactly the heart of the work, but in La mer they're somewhat more present, I think, than in some other well-known works of his (before his last works).)

[sdtom]

I for one knew where you were coming from, well sort of.
Tom

[chill319]

I hadn't actually meant this to be a thread -about- Debussy

Regarding dissonance in Romantic music generally and Debussy, two thoughts:

(1) It's instructive to read what Rimsky-Korsakov wrote about his deliberate attempt to use dissonance in Kashchei the Deathless during the early 20th-century;

(2) It's useful to distinguish between music that attempts to use upper overtones as an extension of Romantic harmony (i.e., as potentially harmonious elements; think Scriabin) and music that uses dissonance locally for its shock or dramatic value (like a sword striking sparks from a stone, as Nielsen described it).

Debussy, like most composers of his era, wrote passages in both manners. But he strongly favored the former.

[eschiss1]

Extending the topic a little (but keeping within its spirit, I believe- hrm...) one reason it's hard to define the limits of Romanticism is because the Romantic spirit, or part of it (yes, indeed, think of Liszt) -includes- experimentation of various kinds (don't perseverate on "vertical dissonance", but think of other kinds- formal, harmonic progression in time, all sorts of other kinds...) - so I for one find a description of a neo-Romantic composer who rejects any experimentation in their music to be - at best an alignment with one particular school of the Romantic era, but since even the Mendelssohn-etc.-etc.-etc. school of Romanticism couldn't in fact be accused of such lack of curiosity and that (also consider Alfred Einstein's distinction between "conservative revolutionary" and "revolutionary conservative" - gah, this topic really can extend for chapters and books and I compress it too much, sorry...) - it makes one (ok, _me_!) doubt whether "Romantic" really fits those (just-described) "neo-Romantic" composers after all. (After all, there's something - several somethings - in Walker's The Weimar Years about Liszt and his pupils and associates' delight in testing new contrapuntal, harmonic, orchestral, &c possibilities. Was this part of their Romanticism or orthogonal to it?... this may well belong in a new topic and I may well be taking the subject too seriously, and as Alan said we may have discussed this in some detail before- apologies since it's 11 pm the night before a bank holiday here (in regards which cheers and happy wishes).)

[John H White]

Back in 1852, Spohr, in a letter to Moritz Hauptmann, wrote,"What would Haydn and Mozart have said if they had been forced to listen to the hellish noise which is now considered to be music?" Of course, Spohr himself poked fun at the avant garde composers of his day in the finale of his Historical Symphony and in his penultimate violin concerto (No 14 in A minor, Sonst und Jetzt).
Of course, around 30 years earlier, Beethoven had complained about the excessive chromaticism in the harmony of Spohr's own music!

[chill319]

Interesting, John. I never took the Spohr finale to be "poking fun." Since it was written before Schumann's canonic 4, I presumed it showed Spohr paving the way for RS. I suppose I wouldn't hear Draeseke symphony 4 as musical satire per se either, were I not forewarned.

[Gauk]

Just a comment that most historians of music that I have read/heard regard Debussy rather than Wagner as the beginning of modernism in music.

[chill319]

the beginning of modernism in music

Not so sure any more what "modernism" is, but to my ears Schoenberg owes more to Tristan than to Pelleas. And Tristan, in turn, owes a very distinct debt to Liszt. And Liszt was influenced by...

[jerfilm]

That may be so, but I still think that to put Debussy in perspective vis a vis "modern" music, you have to listen to pieces like L'Isle Joyeaux.  It's hard to swallow that this guy is also the composer of Afternoon of a Faun......

Jerry

[eschiss1]

... or la Cathedrale engloutie?... (well, that connects well enough to Afternoon of a Faun, come to think of it, but ... hrm.

(actually you're probably right, "modernist" in the usual technical sense (which is fairly well-defined, and doesn't just mean "modern", else "post-modernist" would raise hackles about as much as "music of the Future" should to people lacking, to make a poor joke for the 2nd time today, a time travel device) - as opposed to "modern", characteristic more of something of the 20th/21st-centuries (or one of their many artistic threads), etc. ... - characterizes certain Debussy works, while Cathédrale while static, whole-tone, bldy weird and maybe even "prophetic" is modern but not "modernist".)

[chill319]

I take your point, Jerry. I'll never forget how riveting it was to discover Debussy's prelude "Ce qu'a vu le vent d'Ouest" at the keyboard. An astonishing work that is not merely tone picture but primal utterance.