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18 - Debussy and Late-Romantic Performing Practices: The Piano Rolls of 1912

from Part Five - Performance and Reception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2019

Jocelyn Ho
Affiliation:
University of California at Los Angeles.
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Summary

Claude Debussy is often viewed as a modernist composer, a pioneer of musical Impressionism who moved decisively away from romantic aesthetics and idioms. It seems logical to ask, then, whether Debussy's performing practices were similarly modernistic. Did Debussy the pianist adopt a radically different performance style from his contemporaries, a style parallel to his radical compositional ideas?

The perception of Debussy's compositional language as decidedly postromantic/ Impressionistic—nuanced, understated, and subtle—is firmly solidified among today's musicians and well-informed audiences. To probe this, I conducted a small informal survey of my colleagues about their impressions of Debussy's music. Their responses included “delicate,” “ephemeral,” “subtle,” and “distilled,” as well as more imaginative phrases such as “like a well-constructed dream” or “like a delicate and crystalline pastry, only faintly sweet.” Together these cues, creative as they are, suggest that in addition to a nuanced and colorful sound-world there is an element of restraint, delicately moderated balance, and painstakingly crafted structure in Debussy's music. Indeed, such a view of beauty-as-careful-construction is explored elegantly in Roy Howat's Debussy in Proportion.

Although Debussy's compositional traits are well known, the same cannot be said of his performance style. Nevertheless, the modern-day understanding of Debussy's aesthetics has colored our perception of how his music ought to be played: restrained, yet infinitesimally nuanced. As a pianist I have come to know intimately this restraint and delicate balance in my own preparations of Debussy's works for an informed public with certain expectations. I have compared the commonly accepted way of playing Debussy with my own artistic inclinations and propensity for historically informed performing practices. A well established twenty-first-century tradition of performing practices prescribes that rubato in Debussy's music should be subtle and minimally applied, that nuances should be crafted from dynamics and touch, rather than through local rhythmic flexibility, and that score indications should be vigilantly observed to preserve Debussy's intentions. According to this position, only through understated rubato and careful observation of every detail in the score can Debussy's genius shine through.

But I question these common assumptions, as they may be based on a false premise. Does the meticulous craftsmanship of Debussy's compositions necessarily require a stifling, over-zealous adherence to the score? Is self-imposed performative restraint—a disciplining of the pleasurable urges derived from the ebbs and flows of musical phrases—a necessary characteristic of Debussyian playing?

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Chapter
Information
Debussy's Resonance
, pp. 513 - 561
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2018

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