The Humanistic Tradition, Book 5 Romanticism, Realism, and the Nineteenth-Century World

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Q How does this poem compare with

those of Wordsworth and Shelley

(Readings 27.1 and 27.2)?

Q What aspects of Mallarmé’s poem do

Music in the Late Nineteenth Century: Debussy

and the paintings of Monet?

Music in the Late Nineteenth

Century: Debussy

CHAPTER 31 The Move Toward Modernism 115

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to the exotic music of Bali in Indonesia, which he had heard

performed at the World’s Fair of 1889.Debussy experiment-

ed with nontraditional kinds of harmony, such as the five-

tone scale foundin East Asian music.He deviated from the

traditional Western practice of returning harmonies to the

tonic, or“home tone,” introducing shifting harmonies with

no clearly defined tonal center. His rich harmonic palette,

characterized by unusually constructed chords, reflects a fas-

cination with tone color that may have been inspired by the

writingsoftheGermanphysiologistHermannvonHelmholtz

(1821–1894)—especially his treatise On the Sensations of

Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music(1863).

But Debussy found his greatest inspiration in contemporary

poetry and painting. A close friend of the Symbolist poets, he

set a number of their texts to music.His first orchestral com-

position, Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun”(1894), was (in

his words) a “very free illustration of Mallarmé’s beautiful

poem,” which had been published eighteen years earlier.

Debussy originally intended to write a dramatic piece based

on the poem, but instead produced a ten-minute orchestral

prelude that shares its dreamlike quality.

In 1912, his score became the basis for a twelve-minute

ballet choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky (1888–1950;

Figure 31. 2 ). This brilliant Russian choreographer violated

the formalities of classical dance by introducing sexually

(^2) A volcanic mountain in Sicily.
That mounts the unwrinkled zenith visibly,
Where inspiration seeks its native sky.
You fringes of a calm Sicilian lake,
The sun’s own mirror which I love to take, 25
Silent beneath your starry flowers, tell
How here I cut the hollow rushes, well
Tamed by my skill, when on the glaucous gold
Of distant lawns about their fountain cold
A living whiteness stirs like a lazy wave; 30
And at the first slow notes my panpipes gave
These flocking swans, these naiads, rather, fly
Or dive.

See how the ripe pomegranates bursting red

To quench the thirst of the mumbling bees have bled; 35

So too our blood, kindled by some chance fire,

Flows for the swarming legions of desire.

At evening, when the woodland green turns gold

And ashen grey, ’mid the quenched leaves, behold!

Red Etna^2 glows, by Venus visited, 40

Walking the lava with her snowy tread

Whene’er the flames in thunderous slumber die.

I hold the goddess!

Ah, sure penalty!

But the unthinking soul and body swoon

At last beneath the heavy hush of noon. 45

Forgetful let me lie where summer’s drouth

Sifts fine the sand and then with gaping mouth

Dream planet-struck by the grape’s round wine-red star.

Nymphs, I shall see the shade that now you are.

It is no surprise that Symbolist poetry, itself a kind of

music, found its counterpart in music. Like the poetry of

Mallarmé, the music of Claude Debussy (1862–1918)

engages the listener through nuance and atmosphere.

Debussy’s compositions consist of broken fragments of

melody, the outlines of which are blurred and indistinct. “I

would like to see the creation... of a kind of music with-

out themes and motives,” wrote Debussy, “formed on a sin-

gle continuous theme, which is uninterrupted and which

never returns on itself.”

Debussy owed much to Richard Wagner and the roman-

tic composers who had abandoned the formal clarity of

classical composition (see chapter 29). He was also indebted

Figure 31. 2 Vaslav Nijinsky, “Afternoon of a Faun,” 1912. Photo:

L. Roosen. Dancing the part of the faun, Nijinsky moved across

the stage in profile in imitation of the frieze on an ancient Greek

vase. While he performed professionally for only ten years, his

provocative choreography ushered in modern dance.

 See Music Listening Selections at end of chapter.



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