La Mer (Debussy)
Encyclopedia
La mer, trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre (French for The sea, three symphonic sketches for orchestra), or simply La mer (i.e. The Sea), is an orchestra
l composition
(L 109) by the French
composer Claude Debussy
. It was started in 1903 in France and completed in 1905 on the English Channel
coast in Eastbourne
. The premiere was given by the Lamoureux Orchestra
under the direction of Camille Chevillard
on 15 October 1905 in Paris
. The piece was initially not well received - partly because of inadequate rehearsal and partly because of Parisian outrage over Debussy's having recently left his first wife for the singer Emma Bardac
. But it soon became one of Debussy's most admired and frequently performed orchestral works, and became more so in the ensuing century. The first recording was made by Piero Coppola
in 1928.
s, piccolo
, 2 oboe
s, cor anglais
, 2 clarinet
s, 3 bassoon
s, contrabassoon
, 4 horn
s, 3 trumpet
s, 2 cornet
s, 3 trombone
s, tuba
, timpani
, bass drum
, cymbal
s,
triangle
, tamtam
, glockenspiel
, 2 harp
s and strings
.
Usually translated as:
and programme music (see below on the title "Three symphonic sketches") as those terms were understood in the early 20th century, it obviously uses descriptive devices to suggest wind, waves and the ambience of the sea. But structuring a piece around a nature subject without any literary or human element to it - neither people, nor mythology, nor ships are suggested in the piece - also was highly unusual at the time.
Debussy called La mer "three symphonic sketches," avoiding the loaded term symphony
. Yet the work is sometimes called a symphony; it consists of two powerful outer movements framing a lighter, faster piece which acts as a type of scherzo
. But the author Jean Barraque (in "La Mer de Debussy," Analyse musicale 12/3, June 1988,) describes La mer as the first work to have an "open" form - a devenir sonore or "sonorous becoming... a developmental process in which the very notions of exposition and development coexist in an uninterrupted burst." Simon Trezise, in his book Debussy: La Mer (Cambridge, 1994) notes, however, that "motifs are constantly propagated by derivation from earlier motifs" (p. 52).
Simon Trezise notes that "for much of La Mer, Debussy spurns the more obvious devices associated with the sea, wind, and concomitant storm in favor of his own, highly individual vocabulary" (p. 48-49). Caroline Potter (in "Debussy and Nature" in The Cambridge Companion to Debussy, p. 149) adds that Debussy's depiction of the sea "avoids monotony by using a multitude of water figurations that could be classified as musical onomatopoeia: they evoke the sensation of swaying movement of waves and suggest the pitter-patter of falling droplets of spray" (and so forth), and — significantly — avoid the arpeggiated triads used by Wagner and Schubert to evoke the movement of water.
The author, musicologist and pianist Roy Howat has observed, in his book Debussy in Proportion, that the formal boundaries of La mer correspond exactly to the mathematical ratios called The Golden Section. Trezise (p. 53) finds the intrinsic evidence "remarkable," but cautions that no written or reported evidence suggests that Debussy consciously sought such proportions.
called La mer "A piece that I rank alongside the St. Matthew Passion and the Ring cycle as one of my favorite works". Richter said further, on listening to his favorite recording (by Roger Désormière
), "La mer again; shall I ever tire of listening to it, of contemplating it and breathing its atmosphere? And each time is like the first time! An enigma, a miracle of natural reproduction; no, even more than that, sheer magic!" Richter also mentioned two other Soviet admirers of the work: "One day, after listening to this work, Anna Ivanovna exclaimed, 'For me, it's exactly the same miracle as the sea itself!'" . Richter also said that for his teacher, the legendary Heinrich Neuhaus
, La mer was "the work by Debussy that he loved above all others ('Slava, put on La mer,' he almost always used to say whenever he came round here.)". Of the Désormière recording, which he played for Neuhaus, Richter said it is "The most beautiful in the whole history of the gramophone."
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
(L 109) by the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
composer Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
. It was started in 1903 in France and completed in 1905 on the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
coast in Eastbourne
Eastbourne
Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...
. The premiere was given by the Lamoureux Orchestra
Lamoureux Orchestra
The Orchestre Lamoureux officially known as the Société des Nouveaux-Concerts and also known as the Concerts Lamoureux) is an orchestral concert society which once gave weekly concerts by its own orchestra, founded in Paris by Charles Lamoureux in 1881...
under the direction of Camille Chevillard
Camille Chevillard
Camille Chevillard was a French composer and conductor.He was born in Paris, France. He led the Lamoureux Orchestra in the premieres of Debussy's Nocturnes and La mer . He was the son-in-law of conductor Charles Lamoureux...
on 15 October 1905 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The piece was initially not well received - partly because of inadequate rehearsal and partly because of Parisian outrage over Debussy's having recently left his first wife for the singer Emma Bardac
Emma Bardac
Emma Bardac , née Moyse, was the mutual love interest of both Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy. Of Jewish descent, Emma married, aged 17, Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac, by whom she had two children, Raoul, and Hélène . Emma was an accomplished singer and brilliant conversationalist...
. But it soon became one of Debussy's most admired and frequently performed orchestral works, and became more so in the ensuing century. The first recording was made by Piero Coppola
Piero Coppola
Piero Coppola , was an Italian conductor, pianist and composer.-Life and career:Coppola was born in Milan; his parents were both singers. He studied at the Milan Conservatory, graduating in piano and composition in 1910. By 1911 he was already conducting opera at La Scala opera house in Milan...
in 1928.
Instrumentation
La mer is scored for 2 fluteFlute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, piccolo
Piccolo
The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
, 2 oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, cor anglais
Cor anglais
The cor anglais , or English horn , is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family....
, 2 clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s, 3 bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s, contrabassoon
Contrabassoon
The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...
, 4 horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
s, 3 trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s, 2 cornet
Cornet
The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...
s, 3 trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s, tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
, bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
, cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s,
triangle
Triangle (instrument)
The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
, tamtam
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
, glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
, 2 harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
s and strings
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
.
Movements
A typical performance of this piece lasts about 23 or 24 minutes. It is in three movements:- (~09:00) "De l'aube à midi sur la mer" - très lent (si mineur)
- (~06:30) "Jeux de vagues" - allegro (do dièse mineur)
- (~08:00) "Dialogue du vent et de la mer" - animé et tumultueux (do dièse mineur)
Usually translated as:
- "From dawn to noon on the sea" or "From dawn to midday on the sea" - very slowly (B minor)
- "Play of the Waves" - allegro (C sharp minor)
- "Dialogue of the wind and the sea" or "Dialogue between wind and waves" - animated and tumultuous (C sharp minor)
Interpretation
La mer is a masterpiece of suggestion and subtlety in its rich depiction of the ocean, which combines unusual orchestration with daring impressionistic harmonies. The work has proven very influential, and its use of sensuous tonal colours and its orchestration methods have influenced many later film scores. While the structure of the work places it outside of both absolute musicAbsolute music
Absolute music is a concept in music that describes music as an art form separated from formalisms or other considerations; it is not explicitly about anything; it is non-representational. In contrast to program music, absolute music makes sense without accompanying words, images, drama, or...
and programme music (see below on the title "Three symphonic sketches") as those terms were understood in the early 20th century, it obviously uses descriptive devices to suggest wind, waves and the ambience of the sea. But structuring a piece around a nature subject without any literary or human element to it - neither people, nor mythology, nor ships are suggested in the piece - also was highly unusual at the time.
Debussy called La mer "three symphonic sketches," avoiding the loaded term symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
. Yet the work is sometimes called a symphony; it consists of two powerful outer movements framing a lighter, faster piece which acts as a type of scherzo
Scherzo
A scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...
. But the author Jean Barraque (in "La Mer de Debussy," Analyse musicale 12/3, June 1988,) describes La mer as the first work to have an "open" form - a devenir sonore or "sonorous becoming... a developmental process in which the very notions of exposition and development coexist in an uninterrupted burst." Simon Trezise, in his book Debussy: La Mer (Cambridge, 1994) notes, however, that "motifs are constantly propagated by derivation from earlier motifs" (p. 52).
Simon Trezise notes that "for much of La Mer, Debussy spurns the more obvious devices associated with the sea, wind, and concomitant storm in favor of his own, highly individual vocabulary" (p. 48-49). Caroline Potter (in "Debussy and Nature" in The Cambridge Companion to Debussy, p. 149) adds that Debussy's depiction of the sea "avoids monotony by using a multitude of water figurations that could be classified as musical onomatopoeia: they evoke the sensation of swaying movement of waves and suggest the pitter-patter of falling droplets of spray" (and so forth), and — significantly — avoid the arpeggiated triads used by Wagner and Schubert to evoke the movement of water.
The author, musicologist and pianist Roy Howat has observed, in his book Debussy in Proportion, that the formal boundaries of La mer correspond exactly to the mathematical ratios called The Golden Section. Trezise (p. 53) finds the intrinsic evidence "remarkable," but cautions that no written or reported evidence suggests that Debussy consciously sought such proportions.
Reception
In a book of interviews, the great Ukrainian/Soviet pianist Sviatoslav RichterSviatoslav Richter
Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter was a Soviet pianist well known for the depth of his interpretations, virtuoso technique, and vast repertoire. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.-Childhood:...
called La mer "A piece that I rank alongside the St. Matthew Passion and the Ring cycle as one of my favorite works". Richter said further, on listening to his favorite recording (by Roger Désormière
Roger Désormière
Roger Désormière was a French conductor.Désormière was born in Vichy in 1898. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where his professors included Philippe Gaubert , Xavier Leroux and Charles Koechlin , and Vincent d'Indy...
), "La mer again; shall I ever tire of listening to it, of contemplating it and breathing its atmosphere? And each time is like the first time! An enigma, a miracle of natural reproduction; no, even more than that, sheer magic!" Richter also mentioned two other Soviet admirers of the work: "One day, after listening to this work, Anna Ivanovna exclaimed, 'For me, it's exactly the same miracle as the sea itself!'" . Richter also said that for his teacher, the legendary Heinrich Neuhaus
Heinrich Neuhaus
Heinrich Gustavovich Neuhaus was a Soviet pianist and pedagogue of German extraction. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1922 to 1964. He was made a People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1956...
, La mer was "the work by Debussy that he loved above all others ('Slava, put on La mer,' he almost always used to say whenever he came round here.)". Of the Désormière recording, which he played for Neuhaus, Richter said it is "The most beautiful in the whole history of the gramophone."
Influence, quotation and sampling
Generally speaking, La mer has been influential to many contemporary soundtrack composers because of its highly suggestive and moody atmosphere.- Some passages (the 3rd movement, for example) of La mer may have inspired John WilliamsJohn WilliamsJohn Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
for the score he wrote for JawsJaws (film)Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
(1975). - In 1991, the Japanese composer Toru TakemitsuToru Takemitsuwas a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu possessed consummate skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre...
based a work, Quotation of Dream: Say Sea, Take Me! on a theme from La mer. (Takemitsu said, "I am self-taught, but I consider Debussy my first teacher!") - In 2002, Norwegian composer Geir Jenssen (alias BiosphereBiosphere (musician)Biosphere is the main recording name of Geir Jenssen , a Norwegian musician who has released a notable catalogue of ambient electronic music. He is well known for his "ambient techno" and "arctic ambient" styles, his use of music loops, and peculiar samples from sci-fi sources. His track "Novelty...
) loosely based his ambient album ShenzhouShenzhou (album)Shenzhou is an album by ambient musician Biosphere which was released on June 3, 2002. The structure and sound of this album is drastically minimalistic in comparison with Geir Jenssen's previous work up to this point, a concept that would be further elaborated upon with the next album...
around looped samples of La mer http://www.junkmedia.org/index.php?i=193.
External links
- http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/psorecordingsLive recording of "La mer" by the PeabodyPeabody InstituteThe Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University is a renowned conservatory and preparatory school located in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland at the corner of Charles and Monument Streets at Mount Vernon Place.-History:...
Symphony Orchestra] (2002-2003 Season) is available here. - http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2009/10/12/091012sh_shouts_brenner?currentPage=all