Images (piano pieces)
Images (German "Bilder") is a collection of piano pieces by the French composer Claude Debussy . It was composed between 1904 and 1907 in two series of three compositions each. With this work, his impressionistic style reached a further stage of development and opened up new timbres and expressive possibilities for the piano. The economy of means is just as striking as the attention to detail and the suppleness of the piano setting. The two cycles move in a circular motion, with the finale and the first piece referring to the water in a clay painting manner.
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Images I
The first, probably most popular piece of the collection “Reflets dans l'eau” in D flat major ( Andantino molto , 4/8) musically depicts the light reflections on the water. It begins slowly with a simple, downward-sloping motif of the left hand consisting of only three tones (a-flat-f-es) , which is played around by rising and falling colored chords of the right hand, which reflect the light reflections on the moving surface of the water suggest. The impressions of light and water mix, while brilliant, whipping wave figures played with the right hand complement the scenery. The central three-tone motif can be heard in different positions over the length of the composition and is accompanied by frequently changing harmonies, a process that is typical of Debussy's middle and late style. In this way, the diatonic sound supply becomes independent and is presented in ever new groups.
The second piece “Hommage à Rameau” ( Lent e grave , 3/2) in G sharp minor is composed in the style of a sarabande , albeit without its severity. It pays homage to the French composer and music theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau .
The third piece, “Mouvement” ( Animé ; 2/4) in C major, should be performed with “fantastic but precise ease” and is reminiscent of an etude . A sharply contoured fifth CG of the left hand initiates a continuous triplet movement of the right hand. The relationship later changes, with the right hand taking over the fifths and the left hand taking over the triplets, until both hands are crossed in a virtuoso movement. The close interplay of the hands that have to interlock is one of Debussy's peculiarities that give the piece the character of a bravura piece. Debussy's preference for the musically narrow movement is expressed in the condensed climax, where an excessive C major triad leads to the unusual dynamic climax in forte fortissimo . The genre of the pianistic perpetual motion machine , motorized, pianistic demanding pieces, was later continued with Bartók's Allegro barbaro or Prokofiev's Toccata .
Images II
The again three-part collection begins with the “Cloches à travers les feuilles” (Bells ringing through leaves) ( Lent , 4/4), a piece that combines or juxtaposes several sounds: the tone of the church bells and the soft falling noise or that Rustling of leaves lying on the ground. In addition to the ringing from afar, you can hear exotic sounds reminiscent of the pentatonic scale of gamelan music that Debussy had heard years earlier.
With the second, melancholy piece "Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut" (And the moon descends over the past temple) ( Lent , 4/4) in E minor, Debussy takes up a motif of his friend Louis Laloy , one of them Critic and music writer. He goes beyond the romantic and enthusiastic model and penetrates into areas of spatial and temporal wanderlust by turning the ruin into a conjured symbol of a great past. A second, pentatonic theme is overlaid by a Doric triplet melody.
“Poissons d'or” (Golden Fish) ( Animé , 3/4) in F sharp major is a dazzling, virtuoso apotheosis of water as a constantly changing primary substance. Debussy dedicated it to the Spanish avant-garde pianist Ricardo Viñes , who premiered numerous works by the composer. At the latest in the middle of the piece, the association with a Japanese lacquer painting that is said to have inspired the composer disappears. In the bass, a tapping octave theme sets in, which works its way up and sets the water in wild movements. Debussy illustrates the changeable character of the element through surprising major-minor changes.
Background and reception
The language, which is new in its compression, has been referred to several times. The compressed style and brevity do not detract from the sensitivity of the sensations and the colourfulness that characterized his earlier works. In the specific, final form, the composition appears classic. In 1905 Debussy wrote to his publisher Jacques Durand, evaluating his own pieces and pointing out their quality: Without being vain, he believed he could say that his cycle was a success and that it would occupy a place in piano literature “to the left of Schumann and to the right Chopin's ... "
The pieces convince with their sovereign, sometimes extraordinary piano setting. The model of Franz Liszt can be recognized by the notation, which sometimes extends to three systems, and the high pianistic demands . The fact that his name, like Richard Wagner's , is kept secret is due to Debussy's distance from the pathos of the one and the expressively tense chromaticism of the other.
Debussy's idea of deriving a whole piece from a simple germ cell, a core motif, like the three tones of the first piece, had already emerged in the pagodas of the Estampes of 1903, in which he had processed impressions of Java's gamelan music . Here he is consistently putting it into practice. In the Rameau homage, Debussy reveals his long-standing interest in pre-classical dance forms, which was also reflected in the second piece - also a sarabande - of the effective Pour le piano collection , a composition that was composed between 1894 and 1901. Debussy revives traditional dance forms with new means of sound and sentence.
Of the six pieces, the first would prove to be the most effective and popular. After Ravel's ' 1901 composed Jeux d'eau attacks it - just like the last piece of the collection - the popular in Impressionism water issues and implements them musically. The sounds of the piece reminded Alfred Cortot of a faun who, as in the famous Prelude à l'après-midi d'un faune , dances and languishes here.
interpretation
The images have been interpreted by numerous pianists. The interpretation by the Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli ( documented on film in Turin in 1962 ) is still considered so outstanding that the recording is regarded as a reference. For Joachim Kaiser there was no piano artist in the world who made it so difficult for the sake of pure beauty as Michelangeli. His scruples, his distrust of his own performance were monstrous. In order to elevate the piano to an instrument of pure euphoria, he has worked for decades to reach the peak of perfection. He plays the images with a perfect touch culture. Already during the first ten bars of Reflets dans l'eau, infinitely more happens musically and pianistically than in a Beethoven sonata he interpreted. The grand piano blossoms under his hands, the rubato breathes, but does not seem forced and the overtones glow. The frightening abundance of nuances does not become an end in itself with him.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The presentation is based on: Harenberg piano music guide, 600 works from the baroque to the present, Claude Debussy, Images , Meyers, Mannheim 2004, pp. 318–321
- ↑ Quoted from: Harenberg piano music guide, 600 works from the baroque to the present, Claude Debussy, Images , Meyers, Mannheim 2004, p. 319
- ↑ Joachim Kaiser, Great Pianists in Our Time, Benedetti Michelangeli and Casadesus , Piper, Munich 2004, p. 176
- ↑ Joachim Kaiser, Great Pianists in Our Time, Benedetti Michelangeli and Casadesus, Piper, Munich 2004, p. 183