Tutor HuntResources Composition Resources

A Comparative Study Of Early Debussy And Rachmaninoff

An analysis of the two composer`s harmonic and rhythmic experimentation in their early works (unfortunately the website`s formatting does not allow the insertion of examples from the score)

Date : 18/06/2014

Author Information

Curtis

Uploaded by : Curtis
Uploaded on : 18/06/2014
Subject : Composition

In this essay I will be comparing two composers who would later create highly individual and successful styles for themselves in the 20th century, but through early pieces they wrote whilst still finding their voices as composers. I wanted to look at two pieces in more detail that were personal favourites of mine, as well as pieces I had been exposed to in my music lessons in less detail than this format allows. Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in Novgorod, Russia in 1873. He was sent to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory aged 10, and quite early on he was already displaying an individual musical style, building on and developing the influence of the great Russian composers he followed such as Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He developed a particularly strong admiration of - and even a friendship with - Tchaikovsky, and the composer's death in 1893 sent the young Rachmaninoff into a deep grief. In a burst of creativity he channelled this into his Trio Elegiaque No. 2 which displays the emotional force and extreme harmonic style he would later develop in his maturity. Claude Debussy was born in 1862, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, France. He studied at the Paris Conservatory, and despite an early love for the Romantics, such as Wagner, he quickly moved away from the norms of classical music at the time. His early efforts at innovation, as he was finding increasing success and renown, often showed themselves in small works, as he rebelled against the increasing trend for sprawling and grand works, and his Two Arabesques - specifically the far more popular first (written in 1888) - show this phase of his career very clearly: it is a solo piano piece, small and conventional in form, but it makes heavy use of original and innovative rhythms and harmonies which later became Debussy's main legacy. An arabesque in some way is expected to reflect Arabian art and designs, but this connection is often stretched by many composers and the only real rule of thumb is that an arabesque is highly melodic, and light-hearted in mood. The first bars of the First Arabesque follow this expectation completely. In common time, at a tempo andantino con moto, which is slightly quicker than walking pace, and marked quietly at piano the piece opens with light arpeggios in E major for two bars. This gives an impression of the waving curved patterns that were typical in the European idea of Arab designs. It then develops into a more complex polyphonic texture after two bars, with parallel arpeggios in the two hands weaving underneath a calm melody. From bars 6-10 a new idea is introduced. The left hand plays broken chords whilst the right plays a descending triplet figure, mostly staying on the E pentatonic scale. The blending of the duplets (suggesting simple time) and triplets (suggesting compound time) between the two creates a very prominent cross rhythm, and a consistent ambiguity, as the piece avoids settling into either metre. Although written in simple time, the piece shows a hemiola effect in how it frequently slips into a 12/8 feel. This use of non-classical scales and strange rhythms are typical of the musical impressionism Debussy helped develop. In bar 17 the piece repeats the first bars but with an altered harmony and melody, suggestive of sonata form. The piece develops further, incorporating more complicated harmonies such as an A# diminished 7th chord in bar 15, which shows a brief modulation to the dominant key, B. Sequential movement also appears, with the phrase of bars 21-22 being repeated as a descending sequence in bars 23-24. The structure clearly shows itself to be a kind of ternary form similar to a sonata, as a contrasting section marked tempo rubato with a whole new melody is introduced at bar 39. The first section ends with an E major chord in bar 37, giving a sense of conclusion, but it then moves into the A major middle section. In a sonata the norm would be to modulate to a minor key (such the relative minor, in this case C# minor) for a contrast, but to avoid radically changing the light mood of the arabesque Debussy opts for the sub-dominant major. In the middle section the harmonies become more ambiguous, with the first bar containing a broken A major chord in the right hand and broken B minor chord in the left at the same time, in a brief occurrence of polytonality . At bar 55 this melody is repeated with a descending chromatic scale joining the middle voice on the right hand. At bar 63 the same theme restates itself again in C major, and at bar 65 shows contrary motion. In keeping with the ternary sonata form of the piece, bar 71, marked at the tempo of the first bars, sees a recapitulation of the very first melody in the home key of E major. From there Debussy restates the previous parts of the piece, before moving onto an extended line of sweeping arpeggios including two diminuendos that culminate at a B dominant 7th chord, softly leading in a perfect cadence to the earlier pentatonic figure harmonised in E, before the piece quietly concludes in an E major chord, giving a full sense of completion. The Rachmaninoff Trio apparently shares no similarities - it is written for piano, violin and cello and the Arabesque is a solo piece; it is grave and furious whereas the Arabesque is whimsical. Even though they were written within 5 years the two composers would go onto vastly different styles - Debussy became the most famous Impressionist and Rachmaninoff would become the last great Late Romantic composer. Despite these differences, both pieces are marked by uncommon harmonies and rhythms. The trio opens with a simple 1-bar piano ostinato: a pedal on D, followed by a D minor chord and short, almost moaning chromatic descent. The cello (played arco, with bow) enters with an inverted pedal, with heavy use of legato, as well as a swelling crescendo followed by a diminuendo. In bar 4 a half-diminished chord containing a C# occurs - the sharpened 7th of D harmonic minor. Before bar 61 the same pattern is developed, and a large accelerando, with the strings playing an increasingly dissonant ascending sequence, with heavy upward appogiaturas, leads into a frenzied allegro vivace section at 61. In the first 4 bars of new section, the strings in unison play massive melodic leaps, and several tremolos. The piano part is almost totally atonal, with the right hand playing chords descending in semitones, and the left mostly jumping from an A to an Eb chord - a tritone. Whilst the strings play tremolos the piano is playing an ascending line starting on and accenting the off-beat, creating a highly syncopated feel. Although vastly different, you can a similar experimentation as with Debussy, trying to throw the listener's idea of what the key and rhythm might be. This is shown further at bar 86. Here the piece uses irregular metres - 6/4 and common time alternating. For the first time in the piece Rachmaninoff uses real counterpoint, as the violin and cello play contrasting and equal parts. The violin, played pizzicato, plays a chromatic ostinato; the cello plays a more flowing melody. Meanwhile the piano plays a substantial chordal pattern. Structurally, the piece is difficult to categorise. It fundamentally rests on a few key ideas, which are consistently repeated, but in very different forms, with no section ever being truly repeated - which means all you can consistently say is that the piece is strongly through-composed. Take bars 131-135 for example. From the previously rapid passages, the piece slows to a mere 80 bpm, with a winding, quiet, arpeggio figure. In this very contrasting section, the cello plays an apparently new melody, but in fact it opens with the same 3 note descending phrase as the piano at bar 86, and is actually an adaptation of that whole figure. This kind of imitation links the piece's many moods, keys and tempos together. One of the most extremely contrasting sections occurs immediately after this allegro moderato section. From 155-157, the first two bars of this excerpt, large D major chords are spelled out by the piano, whilst the strings continually move upward in a question answer pattern, suggesting some kind of cadence or resolution, ideally to G major, giving a full V-I perfect resolution. Instead at 157 a thundering A major section follows, marked extremely fast at presto. The chromatic chordal pattern from bar 61 makes a fresh appearance, stopping 0the section from feeling unfamiliar regardless of how unexpected it is. This section makes many contrasts. From bar 160-165 the focus moves from the piano to the strings. The piano at bar 160 cuts off with a very heavy sforzando chord, then followed a by a bar of silence. The piece re-starts as the strings again restate the 3-note pattern the cello had last handled at bar 133, now far more vigorously and in unison at fortissimo, with heavy accenting of every note. In bar 165 the whole trio then drops down to pianissimo. As the piece draws closer to the end Rachmaninoff exploits every opportunity for dynamic contrast - as he runs the risk of tiring out or over-repeating the same melodies this late in the piece, he keeps tension going by more dramatically contrasting the different parts. Debussy is in a similar situation with the first Arabesque, in his recapitulation he doesn't introduce any real new material, but the dynamics alone give variety, with changes in tempo and volume giving the piece new life. The main contrast is in the degree these contrasts can occur - Rachmaninoff writes in a more obviously expressive romantic style, so he can use sudden changes from fortissimo to pianissimo - and in the trio he has different instruments to replay different themes, as opposed to solo piano. One such difference is that Debussy starts and ends the Arabesque quietly and softly, despite the contrasts in that piece. Rachmaninoff, having begun quietly, finishes with a section almost unrecognisable from the start of the piece. The final section is at Allegro Molto, simply "very fast" 192 bpm, the fastest tempo of the piece so far, having begun at 88bpm. But actually this final part is totally related to the whole piece, despite its contrast to what has come before, it rounds everything up perfectly. The pianist plays a version of the chromatic figure from bar 61 on the left hand, augmented to fit into 6/4 rather than common time. The right hand's chord pattern is a simple adaptation of the cello melody from bar 86. In the second bar of this section the cello and violin make a sudden and jarring entrance, which on closer inspection is the frequently-referenced 3 note motif from the piano part at bar 86, but in very close canon between the two. The references are important to the whole structure, but often concealed, and even though the last bar of the movement is not a cadence of any sort, but just a resounding C# in unison, almost totally ignoring any of the conventional cadence points of D minor, the piece ends with a feeling of wholeness. Despite all appearances to the contrary, it works as a coherent and unified whole. This style of misleading the listener - using unfamiliar rhythms and key changes is a fundamental link between these two works. The two composers were in their early stages of their careers and trying to work out new ways to make music interesting. Cross rhythms and time signature changes are one of the most direct ways of achieving this, and both are used extensively by these two composers. At the same time they are used in very different contexts. Rachmaninoff is writing very aggressively and trying to create an effect of clashing different parts, whereas Debussy is going for a gentler, dreamy touch. Ultimately both composers showed a remarkable ingenuity and originality with these early efforts, and although much change took place after them, they both still contain clear and easily identified features of these composer's later styles - in their harmonies, rhythmic techniques, and their own ways of handling and adapting a small amount of melodic material.

This resource was uploaded by: Curtis