Estampes [1903]

Pagodes: modérément animé

La Soirée dans Grenade: mouvement de Habanera

Jardins sous la pluie: net et vif

Many of the sounds of Estampes, above all the gamelan echoes of Pagodes, entered Debussy’s consciousness at the great Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. The work was not completed, however, until 1903 when he had at last worked out how to reproduce those sounds in keyboard terms. The use of the pentatonic scale in Pagodes is an obvious exotic effect, of course, but the oriental influence goes far deeper here, forming the basic texture of the piece as a delicate thread of melody mingles with a variety of percussion colours in subtle rhythmic counterpoint.

According to Manuel de Falla, Debussy heard Spanish music at the Exposition too - which helps to explain how a musician who had never been to Spain could achieve what the Spanish composer described as Andalusian “truth without authenticity.” Falla was quite specific about what La Soirée dans Grenade meant to him: “The music actually evokes reflections of moonlit images in the lakes of the Alhambra,” he said – even though he knew that the langurous habanera rhythm that runs through much of the piece is not as authentic a feature as French musicians fondly imagined.

The generic title of Estampes, or “prints,” is obviously well applied to Pagodes and La Soirée dans Grenade. Jardins sous la pluie is rather less evocative of place, although the folk-song allusions leaves little doubt that the rainy gardens are in France. In this context the toccata-like figuration is suggestive of pattering rain while in another it could be regarded as a brilliantly witty scherzo, a game of hide and seek with two nursery songs, “Nous n’irons plus au bois” and “Do, do, l’enfant, do.”

Pagodes: modérément animé

La Soirée dans Grenade: mouvement de Habanera

Jardins sous la pluie: net et vif

Debussy’s visits to the Exposition universelle, under the newly built Tour Eiffel on the Champ de Mars in 1889, were a profoundly formative experience. He first heard the Javanese gamelan there and the music of the Annamite theatre. According to Manuel de Falla, he heard Spanish music at the Exposition too, which helps to explain how a composer who had never been to Spain could achieve what Falla called Andalusian “truth without authenticity.”

Estampes was completed only in 1903 but many of its sounds, certainly those of Pagodes, entered Debussy’s consciousness at the Exposition universelle. The use of the pentatonic scale is an obvious exotic effect, of course, but the oriental influence goes far deeper in Pagodes, forming its basic texture, which is a delicate thread of melody mingled with a variety of percussion colours in subtle rhythmic counterpoint.

La Soirée dans Grenade is even more atmospheric. Falla is quite specific about it: “The music actually evokes reflections of moonlit images in the lakes of the Alhambra” which, as he knew, Debussy had never seen. Reflections in water, dream images or, perhaps, sounds carried by a changeable evening breeze: a distant lament, the nearer throbbing of a guitar, a vigorous dance close at hand, the clacking of castanets towards the end and finally the earlier sounds receding into the silence from which they emerged. The languorous rhythm of the habanera runs though much of the piece - as it does in the Ravel Habanera, which Debussy had known and somewhat grudgingly admired since 1898.

The generic title of Estampes, or “prints,” is obviously well applied to Pagodes and La Soirée dans Grenade. Jardins sous la pluie is rather less evocative of place, though the use of folk song leaves little doubt that the rainy gardens are in France. It is not so much a semi-visual impression, of the sort that predominates in Debussy’s piano music from 1903 onwards, as one of the clavecin-type pieces he was writing a few years earlier. There is, in fact, an earlier version of Jardins sous la pluie in the Images oubliées of 1894. In the context of Estampes the toccata-like figuration is suggestive of pattering rain but out of that context it would be regarded as a brilliantly witty scherzo, a game of hide and seek with two nursery songs, “Nous n’irons plus au bois” and “Do, do, l’enfant, do.”

Pagodes: modérément animé

La Soirée dans Grenade: mouvement de Habanera

Jardins sous la pluie: net et vif

Many of the sounds of Estampes – above all the gamelan echoes of Pagodes – entered Debussy’s consciousness at the great Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. The work was not completed, however, until 1903 when, with some help from the epoch-making impressionist example Ravel’s Jeux d’eau, he had at last worked out how to reproduce those sounds in keyboard terms. The use of the pentatonic scale in Pagodes is an obvious exotic effect, of course, but the oriental influence goes far deeper here, forming the basic texture of the piece as a delicate thread of melody mingles with a variety of percussion colours in subtle rhythmic counterpoint.

According to Manuel de Falla, Debussy heard Spanish music at the Exposition too - which helps to explain how a musician who had never been to Spain could achieve what the Spanish composer described as Andalusian “truth without authenticity.” Falla was quite specific about what La Soirée dans Grenade meant to him: “The music actually evokes reflections of moonlit images in the lakes of the Alhambra,” although, as he knew, Debussy had never seen them. Reflections in water, dream images or, perhaps, sounds carried by a changeable evening breeze: a distant flamenco lament, the nearer throbbing of a guitar, a vigorous dance close at hand, the clacking of castanets towards the end and finally the earlier sounds receding into the silence from which they emerged. The languorous rhythm of the habanera runs though much of the piece - as it does in the Ravel Habanera, which Debussy had known and somewhat grudgingly admired since 1898.

The generic title of Estampes, or “prints,” is obviously well applied to Pagodes and La Soirée dans Grenade. Jardins sous la pluie is rather less evocative of place, though the use of folk song leaves little doubt that the rainy gardens are in France. It is not so much a visual impression, of the sort that predominates in Debussy’s piano music from 1903 onwards, as one of the clavecin-type pieces he was writing a few years earlier. There is, in fact, an earlier version of Jardins sous la pluie in the Images oubliées of 1894. In the context of Estampes the toccata-like figuration is suggestive of pattering rain but out of that context it would be regarded as a brilliantly witty scherzo, a game of hide and seek with two nursery songs, “Nous n’irons plus au bois” and “Do, do, l’enfant, do.”