La Mer

De l’aube à midi sur la mer (From Dawn to Midday on the Sea)

Jeux de vagues (Games of Waves)

Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea)

Debussy completed the orchestration of La Mer at Eastbourne in 1905. He had started it two years earlier while on holiday at Bichain in Burgundy, which is about as far from the sea as one can get in France. But, as the composer explained to a friend, he had “an endless store of memories of the sea and, to my mind, they are worth more than the reality, whose beauty weighs down thought too heavily.” What his memories were exactly, how directly they influenced the music he was writing, just how pictorial these “three symphonic sketches” are: all these questions must remain a matter for conjecture.

Certainly, no one listening to the first movement, “From Dawn to Midday on the Sea,” could seriously claim, as Erik Satie so wittily did, to have “a particular liking for the little bit at a quarter to eleven.” It is safe to assume only that the movement opens in darkness and ends under the bright sun of midday - and that those two events correspond to the slow introduction, where several of the main thematic features begin to take shape, and the expansive coda in which the most important of them emerges in full glory. The intervening structure is divided into two parts, one a little quicker than the other. The first floats in on rippling violins and violas and more deeply undulating cellos. They bring with them a variety of themes which are to be combined in a brief but extraordinary climax of conflicting rhythms. The second surges forward on a handsomely harmonised entry of eight cellos and, after its central climax, recalls on cor anglais and muted trumpet a theme first heard on those same instruments in the slow introduction. This theme, it turns out, when it appears in chorale form on four horns in the coda, is the theme intended from the start to carry the sunrise message of the whole movement.

The “Games of Waves” is a scherzo so flexible in construction as to seem to proceed on spontaneous impulse and so resourcefully scored as to seem to reflect every chance change of wind, current or light. Broadly, however, it is in three parts, the first of which presents an apparently infinite variety of thematic ideas - a dance on the cor anglais, a quicker flight of trills and triplet figures on the violins, a kind of bolero with its melodic line carried by cor anglais again under a rhythmic ostinato on flutes and clarinets… These are developed in the middle section, where another new theme makes its entry in the form of a trumpet call to urge the movement towards its climax. Debussy’s melodic invention is still not exhausted: in what might otherwise be called a recapitulation second violins and cellos introduce a waltz that rises through the strings in ever increasing animation before the wind drops and leaves the sea comparatively becalmed.

There is little calm in the last movement, which opens with the low rumble of an approaching storm on cellos and basses and a gust of wind on woodwind. As well as its clear descriptive function, however, the “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea” has a long-term structural duty to perform. Within a few bars it recalls two motifs from the beginning of the work, including the muted trumpet theme which was converted to the midday horn chorale at the end of the first movement.

The main theme of this third movement, which is shaped as a rondo, is the chromatic melody on woodwind that seems to be running before a swift but capricious wind. The first episode recalls the trumpet theme, but at the bottom of the pitch range this time on bassoons and pizzicato cellos and basses, without relaxing the pressure until a distant echo of the chorale version of the same theme is heard on four horns. The chorale appears once more towards the end of the movement where, intoned by the whole of the brass section in counterpoint with the wind-swept rondo theme on woodwind, it fulfils its long-destined function of tying the whole work together.

Gerald Larner©

De l’aube à midi sur la mer

Jeux de vagues

Dialogue du vent et de la mer

Debussy completed the orchestration of La Mer at Eastbourne in 1905. He had started the work two years earlier while on holiday at Bichain in Burgundy, which is about as far from the sea as one can get in France. But, as the composer explained, he had “an endless store of memories of the sea and, to my mind, they are worth more than the reality, whose beauty weighs down thought too heavily.” Besides, La Mer is not just an exercise in observation. Declared enemy of the symphony though the composer was, Debussy’s “three symphonic sketches” are at least as symphonic as picturesque. At the same time, while the imagery is clearly inspired by the movement of the sea and the changing light, it is more often a case of generalised atmosphere than specific detail.

Certainly, no one listening to the first movement, “From Dawn to Midday on the Sea,” could seriously claim, as Erik Satie so wittily did, to have “a particular liking for the little bit at a quarter to eleven.” It is safe to assume only that the movement opens in darkness and ends under the bright sun of midday - and that those two events correspond to the slow introduction, where several of the main thematic features begin to take shape, and the expansive coda, where the most important of them emerges in full glory. The intervening structure is divided into two parts, one a little quicker than the other. The first floats in on rippling violins and violas and more deeply undulating cellos. They bring with them a variety of themes which are to be combined in a brief but extraordinary climax of conflicting rhythms. The second surges forward on a handsomely harmonised entry of eight cellos and, after its central climax, recalls on cor anglais and muted trumpet a theme first heard on those same instruments in the slow introduction. This theme, it turns out, when it appears in chorale form on four horns in the coda, is the theme intended from the start to carry the sunrise message of the whole movement.

The central scherzo, “Games of Waves,” is so flexibly constructed that it seems to proceed on spontaneous impulse and so resourcefully scored that it seems to reflect every chance change of wind, current or light. Broadly, however, it is in three parts, the first of which presents an apparently infinite variety of thematic ideas - a dance on the cor anglais, a quicker flight of trills and triplet figures on the violins, a kind of bolero with its melodic line carried by cor anglais again under a rhythmic ostinato on flutes and clarinets. These are developed in the middle section, where another new theme makes its entry in the form of a trumpet call to urge the movement towards its climax. Debussy’s melodic invention is still not exhausted: in what might otherwise be called a recapitulation second violins and cellos introduce a waltz that rises through the strings in ever increasing animation before the wind drops and leaves the sea comparatively becalmed.

There is little calm in the last movement, which opens with the low rumble of an approaching storm on cellos and basses and a gust of wind on woodwind. As well as its descriptive function, however, the “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea” has a long-term structural duty to perform. Within a few bars it recalls two motifs from the beginning of the work, including the muted trumpet theme which was converted to the midday horn chorale at the end of the first movement.

The main theme of this third movement, which is shaped as a rondo, is the chromatic melody on woodwind that seems to be running before a swift but capricious wind. The first episode recalls the trumpet theme, but at the bottom of the pitch range this time on bassoons and pizzicato cellos and basses, without relaxing the pressure until a distant echo of the chorale version of the same theme is heard on four horns. The chorale appears once more towards the end of the movement where - intoned by the whole of the brass section in counterpoint with the wind-swept rondo theme on woodwind - it fulfils its long-destined function of tying the whole work, symphony and seascape, indivisibly together.

Gerald Larner ©2005

Here I am again with my old friend the Sea. It is still unfathomable and beautiful. It is one of the things in nature that really put you in your place. The trouble is, no one has enough respect for the Sea… It shouldn’t be allowed, those bodies disfigured by everyday life soaking themselves in it: but, really, all those arms, those legs moving in such ridiculous rhythms, it’s enough to make the fish weep. In the Sea there should be nothing but Sirens. But how can we expect those admirable creatures to come back to waters frequented by such bad company?

Debussy to Jacques Durand, Le Puys, near Dieppe, 8 August 1906