Ibéria

Par les rues et par les chemins

Les parfums de la nuit -

Le matin d’un jour de fête

Debussy spent no more time in Spain than the few hours it takes to cross the border to San Sebastián, watch a bull fight and go straight back to France. Even so, Spain was one of the three countries, with England and France itself, where he was most likely to find inspiration. There is no more vivid demonstration of that than his Images for orchestra, where Ibéria occupies the central and much the most prominent position between comparatively modest tributes to England in Gigues and France in Rondes de Printemps. Next in line after Ravel in the tradition of French composers fascinated by the music of Spain, Debussy had a sense of atmosphere so authentic in both perception and communication that Manuel de Falla was moved to describe it “as nothing less than miraculous.”

The first of the Images to be written - it was completed in 1908 - Ibéria is more than just a Spanish rhapsody. Its three movements, linked by an intricate network of thematic cross-references, are as finely wrought in construction as they are abundant in picturesque detail. Debussy begins by gathering some of the main themes together in a preliminary survey of “the streets and roads” of Andalusia. While there is no actual folk material in Par les rues et par les chemins, the setting is unmistakable from the opening bars onwards in the rhythms rattled by castanets or plucked by strings and in the cheerful sevillana dance tune introduced by clarinets. The observations might seem accidental but, in fact, every tiny motif is chosen for both its immediate effect and its long-term value. And though the route might seem haphazard, it actually follows a carefully plotted circular route by way of a slower central section coloured at first by delicate string harmonics, characterised by a soulful melody for oboe and solo viola in unison and interrupted by the entry of a brass band with vigorous horns, brilliant trumpets and grumbling trombones and tuba. Some of the material from the middle section is worked into the reprise of the opening section when the initial tempo is resumed.

One of the principal attractions of southern Spain for visitors from France was the comparatively liberated sexuality of the night life. In Les parfums de la nuit Debussy could indeed, as the title suggests, be luxuriating in the heady floral scents of the night, but there are surely more senses than one involved in this extraordinarily voluptuous music. The seductive rhythms derive largely from that of the habanera, which makes its first clear entry in a rich texture of lower strings after an introduction which is not only fragrant with celesta arabesques, violin glissandos and chromatic sighs on woodwind but also reverberant with allusions to material from the previous movement. The expressive line poised by the oboe on the habanera rhythm in the strings is an echo of the soulful melody introduced by the same instrument in Par les rues et par les chemins, which is also the source of the melancholy horn tune heard a little later. Much of this seems to happen somewhere in the distance. But with the entry of a short but passionate exclamation high on first violins the action gets nearer and more heated until, after a recall of the sevillana, it moves away again.

“You can’t imagine how naturally the transition works between Parfums de la nuit and Le matin d’un jour de fête,” said Debussy after hearing a successful rehearsal of Ibéria. “It sounds as though it’s improvised.” As a flute and solo violin linger over the night-time scents, day-time life stirs in quietly throbbing march rhythms on the lower strings. Morning bells ring out and activity increases with lively echoes of sounds from the day and the night before on trumpet and on a raucous combination of oboe and piccolos: holiday celebrations are clearly about to begin. Debussy is too subtle a composer, however, to indulge himself in a sustained high-profile march. There are two short march-time passages, both of them plucked by strings as though by a bandurria band and accompanied by military drum. But two other fiesta episodes come between them: one mingles shrill street-wise clarinets with more expressive woodwind and trumpets; the other features a fiddler whose fanciful dance music accelerates into the second march passage and then returns to stimulate a recall of the brass-band music on woodwind and to precipitate the joyous coda.

One of the most inspired of all Debussy’s orchestral works, Ibéria met with uncomprehending hostility on its first performance in Paris in 1910. The complete set of Images fared little better three years later.