Material and ‘immaterial’ music

Debussy spent much of his life in rebellion against the stylistic priorities of his contemporaries. Anything that confined the imagination, provided easy solutions, or smacked of contrivance was repugnant to one who proudly confided to his publisher in 1907 that Rondes de printemps (orchestral Images) was ‘immaterial’ music, not to be handled ‘as though it were a robust symphony, walking on all four feet’. ‘Immateriality’ may be less pronounced in La mer, Rondes being later, but La mer's strong outline should not obscure its freedom from convention. A vital component of this freedom is La mer's evolution of new processes to suit the changing environment of each movement and, indeed, each section. The form of the first movement gives a crude indication of how these evolving processes appear when described in schematic terms: ‘ABCDE’ may not denote a musical process, but as a means of organising material in a symphonic work it is stunningly original. Each section, moreover, evolves new means of articulation and expression. In harmonic terms, for example, the introduction and first principal section are largely based on the acoustic scale on D♭ (later on E); in contrast, the second principal section uses the Dorian mode on C (some would argue the major mode on B♭); the coda re-employs the acoustic scale on D♭ but omits its C♭. In short, each section has a different modal structure.

The succession of different chordal types used in ‘Jeux de vagues’ to characterise and demarcate the progressive changes from short-term to longterm rhythmic and motivic organisation is another example.