You make some wonderful points. There is, however, a distinctly French aesthetic that predates both Satie and Debussy. It's in the spoken language, in the art (Boucher, Watteau)...in almost everything throughout France's history. You allude to the French emphasis on charm, and that's very important. There is also, in my view, a strong respect for humor in French music (Satie, Milhaud, Poulenc, Saint Saens). And, perhaps more than any of this, there is a certain detachment in French arts (visual, musical, literary, etc.). Even when Debussy's works are marked "sad" in the music (triste), it doesn't sound like Debussy's sadness. Instead, it sounds like the idea of sadness--as if sadness exists without someone to feel it. That detachment (when the work isn't about self expression, but wise observation) is--for me--the quality that allows all the other typically French qualities to live so vibrantly. Thank you for making a video about a subject I've thought abut my entire adult life.
Thank you for making this comment, these were some fantastic observations that I agree with and there is a lot of evidence to back up what you are saying and where that may have emerged from. Feel free to keep in touch at theartismagistra@gmail.com as I'd like to access your commentary and ideas more regularly, and please let me know if you have written about these sorts of things more extensively anywhere, if not, feel free to write freely to me on any of these topics you may have thought about as you may feel like it, and to read these ideas would be an honor really and a great gift.
I think that music kept evolving and thus the feelings we all get when listening evolved as well. You can kinda feel the wind of change and progression in the artform when you hear something that sounds so modern but was made years and years ago.
Ravel used the Coltrane changes long before Coltrane was even born. Bach used harmony that wouldn’t bee seen again until Noel Rawsthorne. There’s always things hiding in classical music that you don’t expect to find there.
Yeah, but I don't really define extended harmony/chords as "jazz harmony" or "jazz chords". I know why they are often considered this way, but the definition of what jazz IS has everything to do with the COMBINATION of rhythmic syncopation/sometimes/often swung rhythms, improvisation sections, instrumentation, form and textures more unique to jazz music, and THEN the whole extended and/or (dep. on the piece) bluesy harmony kind of deal. And jazz isn't really supposed to be as "formal" as classical music. So its kind of like Venn diagrams, or bubbles. The bubble of extended tertial harmony overlaps with the bubble of jazz, but they are not quite the same thing...
Indeed, my music history teacher last year assigned me to write an paper about Debussy's connection to Symbolism, and how and why he wasn't an Impressionist.
I'm petty sure Picasso didn't want to be called an impressionist (or maybe he said this about cubism, I can't remember. You get the point though). Artists make the art. I don't think they really get to decide how they should be classified though
@@mattchu. Then that raises questions whether artists know themselves and their works. And again, doubts are raised whether critics know deeply what each characterism means. At least in my research I've found that Debussy was characterised as an Impressionist in his time, simply because "Impressionist" was the trendy term conservatives would apply to the progressive ones. (cf. also: doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.07353 )
Well, Bach was absolutely influenced by Italian style, as was usual in his time. In fact, before Bach, Italians and Frenchs dominated the European music scene
Yes, Corelli was in fact the one who made tonality popular. And he was the first one in having international success for instrumental music instead of vocal.
Yeah, the hyperboles said in the beginning of this video are way overblown and over the top. It's this sort of idolatry around composers that I dislike about the classical music fandom in general. For instance, Weber and Spohr should be more credited than Beethoven for bringing about Romantic chromaticism. Beethoven even criticized them for being too daring. He told Schindler that "Weber's Euryanthe is an accumulation of diminished sevenths; all little backdoors!" "Spohr is too rich in dissonances, and pleasure in his music is marred by chromatic harmony." Heck, Beethoven is even less chromatic than Mozart. Brahms said that "Dissonance, true dissonance as Mozart used it, is not to be found in Beethoven. Look at Idomeneo. Not only is it a marvel, but as Mozart was still quite young and brash when he wrote it, it was a completely new thing."
@@jackjack3320 Dissonance in Mozarts music is only used for expression ! Mozart is the supreme genius able to use musical tools ( dissonances, fugue, religious themes) for only ONE PURPOSE : EXPRESSION. Debussy doesnt use dissonances, he just makes a NEW language with them ! HUGE DIFFERENCE !
As a Russian and a lover of late Russian classical music and literature I can’t fully agree with the parallel between Rachmaninov and Dostoyevsky, there definitely is a Deep relationship seen from the foreign eye, but the relevance triples and blooms if you compare Rachmaninov to Pasternak. You will literally hear Rachmaninov reading “Doctor Zhivago”. To me it’s not just minor or dark, it’s probably living on the edge or a marginal area and learning to love and sacrifice in the face of most tragic times. It’s a way of seeing a ray of light between the stormy clouds I guess, and it is transcendental (exceeding any life) channeled through Russians. It’s because they had to blend western and eastern cultures growing in between them for thousands of years.
The first time I heard Debussy's music, I was 7 years old. A friend of mine gave me a cassette telling me "it is electronic Bach". I went home and my soul was absolutely trapped and mesmerized. When my mother -a social anthropologist - came home, I ran to her to showed my new musical discovery; she listened to the tape for a few seconds and told me: "that's not Bach... that's Debussy". it happened to be "Snowflakes are Dancing" a record made by the japanese genius, Isao Tomita, with electronic versions of some of Debussy's more popular compositions... since that day, I don't think I have let one week pass by without listening to Debussy: orchestral arrangements, solo piano versions... all of the available versions. I later became a musician myself (for 31 years now... uf!), and understood the revolutionary harmonic treatments of the French impressionists... I still say it is and will be my very favorite of them all.
Some nice analysis here. Another French composer whose work shares some features with Satie and Debussy, yet who had her own distinct style, was Lili Boulanger. Some beautiful use of parallelism and ambiguous tonality in her work, as well as exquisite orchestration.
Talking about rule books, it was French composer Rameau the one who wrote the great harmony treatise focusing on the notion of "fundamental". Maybe the Germans were playing by the French rule book all along.
Hahaha true, true! To an extent. Rameau's treatise is quite different from the voice-leading style of Bach though, if you go through the rules he lays out
@@InsidetheScore But Bach's voice-leading style was 1) not the foundation for Haydn, Mozart Beethoven 2) dates back to late renaissance counterpoint: Palestrina of course and on the other route through Schütz and his huge influence on german protestant music back to Gabrieli and Lassus. And ultimately all that dates back to Josquin, Ockeghem, Du Fay... and from there to ars nova and ars antiqua, where we find French composers again. Music history didn't start with Bach's generation, and what Bach did was in no way avantgarde or forward-looking in his time... he didn't do anything that composers before him didn't do already...
@@jasonschwartzmanstein9661 Bach was pretty conservative in his time. He wrote great music, but not avant-garde music. Telemann was more avant-garde as him. What I said is not about how good his music is, but how is it placed in his time.
And that's why they, especially Ravel, are my most beloved: The qualities that the composers influenced by germanic school have (the deep look into soul and sorrow) are things which a human being will face on earth often enough.
French music is great for this! But i feel like germanic music has a bit of a wrong/bad image in this regard. Not all germanic music is depressed, serious Beethoven/Wagner. It's just that these two are the poster children for it somehow... Haydn literally single-handedly invented the classical style of thematic variation, which is the foundation for literally everything composed after that. Listen to some Haydn Symphonies or piano sonatas. They are way lighter than Beethoven. I always feel like on a calm and sunny spring morning when listening to Haydn. Mozart too is very light-hearted.
I teared up when you played Debussy’s Rêverie at 5:50. I poured my heart and soul into that song and I can now play it to the best of my ability. I truly did tear up when you put it on. Thank you
Please, PLEASE, do a video on Prelude à laprès-midi d'un faune! It is an incredible piece with so much to uncover, to learn, and to experience. Its impact on the world of music cannot be understated, and would make for a perfect theme for one of your productions! Nonetheless, it is by far my favourite piece, and seeing you cover it in any way or form would be incredible! Keep up your good work; your videos are works of art!
There's a UA-cam video of a lecture by Leonard Bernstein, called "The Delights and Dangers of Ambiguity," one of six lectures delivered at Harvard in the early 1970s. The final part of it is an analysis of the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. You might find that worth a look.
@@stravinskyfan but when you learn how to fly like the butterfly, on your instrument, you gain the ability to step into this world of music yourself. I want to understand how to play with chords and improvise as though I'm in the same place as these amazing peices. Such amazing beauty.
I believe a clue to Claude's uniqueness may be in spending his formative years in Russia studying Mussorgsky. He escaped the smothering dominance of Wagner. The older Saint Saens assumed the German school was the only path foreward. He coudn't 'get' Debussy. If you want some good chuckles from German love of polyphony versus French love of lyricism,read Strauss' commentary on Berlioz' Treatise On Instrumentation. Also,Mark DeVoto has a superb book out full of analysis of all of Debussy's major works. I found it very illuminating.
I find it really interesting to connect Debussy to jazz. You talk about how consonance was re-defined and I think that is essential for jazz music as jazz uses almost every chord under the sun.
Thank you so much. I am French Canadian, but that is not why I am writing to you. I have already listened to some of your videos and it touched me deeply. I even shed tears because you were able to express on several occasions how I feel deep inside about music. I wanted to comment earlier, but now I am taking the time to do so. Your passion for music without any arrogance is admirable. I am now subscribed to your channel. I'm less than an amateur, but I've been trying to compose for over a year. I would do this 48 hours a day! Thanks again!
I remember the first time I heard my brother play Debussy - I spent many nights pleading for him to play while I was falling asleep. It is the music of dreams. Nice video 🙏
I agree. It is dreamy. The blogger says the music is sad. I disagree. It isn't sad as say Chopin is. For me its very soothing and spiritually fulfilling.
One of the best feelings is when something is explained to you in a way that makes it seem so simple and obvious that you wonder why you didn't already know this before. Thank you for this video
Faure is also really french sounding but in a different way; his early and mid period works are firmly in the romantic vein, but his later works also take some (not all, the perfect cadence remained in his vocabulary but he made them weaker) of the features of impressionism, with weird voice leading, lack of resolution to dissonances, parallelism, wholetone scales. he did teach ravel, so there's an element of Faure being a precursor to this soundworld too. recommend listening to his later piano works and song cycles, and the piano trio and string quartet
Chopin had a large influence on Debussy and Ravel. Although obviously Mazurkas are Polish pastiche, really Chopin was instrumental in developing a French sound. He was based in Paris, lived in France most of his life and father was French. You can see the link with the French chanson, Chopin, Faure, Poulence, Debussy and Ravel. Debussy edited an edition of Chopin's Ballades.
Debussy’s use of whole tone scales, eastern influenced scales, and him and Ravel being French, and possibly frenemies, has made their particular style famous. Here’s something interesting, when most people hear Morriconne, an Italian, they think of American cowboys from his music composed for spaghetti westerns.
I feel this is all very incomplete without the mention of Franz Liszt, a composer that pioneered many of the ideas of french impressionistic music in his last 20 years (well before Satie, mind you), and is well-documented to have been a major inspiration for composers such as Debussy and Ravel, that openly admired his work (and made references to it in their own). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_works_of_Franz_Liszt Listen to the middle section, here, for example, 2:30 onward: ua-cam.com/video/CWN18ZoqzGs/v-deo.html (Both Ravel and Debussy wrote their own Jeux D'eau, in reference to this piece)
Liszt certainly pioneered non-functional harmony. Where Beethoven pioneered the use of diminished modulation Liszt did the same with augmented modulation. He even wrote a "bagatelle sans tonalité". Liszt's water games at la Villa d'Este and even Chopin's barcarolle make use of colourful chord extensions (and not as suspensions) well before either of the composer's in this video.
To be honest folks, I think most people prefer the music of Debussy, etc. (also Satie somewhat, even) over Liszt. Its more of the reason why Liszt gets overlooked, time and time again, even though we all know his piano skill was unsurpassed in his day... Liszt fans are mostly pianists, and tend to be more focused around classical music. Oh sure, you get a few hard rock folks, etc., but not many, with Liszt. Debussy fans are into jazz, world music, easy listening, all KINDS of stuff outside of just classical music. Same deal with Satie (in the Debussy camp). 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
@@BenjaminGessel It’s the same reason why everyone prefers impressionist painting to romantic and realist art. There’s nothing disturbing in Monet’s art, nothing that requires any historical knowledge or political perspective. One never has to ask “What does this mean?”. No strife, no conflict, no unpleasant emotions, no connection to any particular time, nothing mysterious. This is why it is so easy for so many different people to enjoy his painting.
Could you possibly make a video on a breakdown of romantic Russian classical music...? Like the great romantic russian composers - Balakirev, "The five", Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff. whether it be their use of the Lithurgy from the Russian Orthodox church, russian folk songs, orientalism - what makes their melodies sound distinctly russian?
If you wanna talk about Balakirev and “the five”, you need to talk about Glinka. He largely inspired all of them and laid the foundation for Russian classical music.
If you want to understand these sounds, remember that melancholy and nostalgia are originally French words, while sorrow and anger are Germanic saxon words
Chuis étonné que je peux comprendre qu'est-ce que vous dites. Je pense que je deviens meilleur à ecrire et lire français. Ecouter à parlance rapide, sur l'autre main...
Yes, so you should! 😊 Debussy has been my favourite since I was a young girl, and that was very many years ago. If I could play only his works on my piano, I would still be satisfied! I am also happy we share a birthday (August 22)
Great video! You did an amazing job explaining such complex and subtle pieces. I'd really enjoy watching more videos on early 20th century french composers. A video on Ravel would be great, as he was of course influenced by Debussy but also influenced him in return with pieces like Jeux d'eau (and also because he is my favourite composer ^^). There is so much to be said about his music, which varies from neo classicism (Pavane pour une infante défunte) and impressionism (Miroirs) to jazz (Piano concerto in G) and blues (Violin and Piano sonata no.2), and he would also be a good introduction to great orchestration!
I feel Liszt is missing here, first and foremost. He wrote the *first* Jeux D'eau, that inspired Ravel's, after all. His experimentation in his last years, in general, is known to have been a major and direct inspiration for impressionistic music. ua-cam.com/video/CWN18ZoqzGs/v-deo.html
Fantastic video. Thank you. It's strange how the Debussy's radical (as perceived in the early 20th C) ideas and his influence on the development of modern "Classical" music has not perhaps been recognised to the same extent as the 2nd Viennese School. Yet his influence was profound (Ravel, Gershwin, early Bartok, Stravinsky, Messaien, De Falla etc. and some Jazz musicians such as Bill Evans and Eric Dolphy).As well as his novel use of harmony I think his (and Ravel's) timbral subtlety is influential particularly with the likes of Henri Dutilleux and the Spectralism composers. Wow; I've just listed many of my favourite composers,
I have realized that most of my favorite composers are French: Saint-Saëns, Berlioz, Fauré, Satie, Debussy. Maybe it's because I have been introduced to classical music with Le Carnaval des Animaux from Saint-Saëns and Le Boléro from Ravel? Éric Satie is an acquired taste though. When I was younger, I thought his Gymnopédie was boring. Now, I listen to it often. That and Gnossienne No1, one of his best, in my opinion.
I've never understood what the word 'beauty' meant until it was noted, here, in Satie - and onward. Great scholarship... rare level of comprehension... First time I want to thank the presenter. Will watch the rest of your work analysis.
Excellent breakdown! I really enjoyed hearing a bit more about the historical context these composers came from! It really helps show why this style is as vibrant as it is. Btw, thumbnail looks great ;)
i really enjoyed this video. As a piano player that has played many of the preludes i loved exploring all the different modes and whole tone scales debussy used to create beautiful music. i'm showing this to my sons because it was very helpful in understanding the concepts. thanks
One of the more interesting UA-cam didactic musical posts. As you say yourself, one can not present everything in 17 minutes, but one may find some of the remarks simplistic, others unjustified and some important omissions. An enjoyable video and clear presentation. - Bach is not at the origin of major/minor tonality or the use of perfect cadences. Nor did he arrive in a sort of virgin birth. We know his important antecedents. - Does a perfect cadence need a dominant 7th? You have possibly treated the subject elsewhere, but one can't help feeling that the most important of its features is its conclusiveness, owing to the progression of the bass notes Dominant-Tonic. - I don't think you make mention of harmonic progression, only the traditional need to resolve tension. If the nature of a 9th or 13th chord is dissonant, the "sound" of Debussy is to be found partly in harmonic progression. - But also in his melodies, orchestration, as well as a French tendancy (which originated long before Debussy) to prefer repetition and variation to thematic and structural development. - Not much is taught in our universities and conservatoires of the harmonic system of Gabriel Fauré (Born some 17 years before Debussy) . He was simultaneously a French 'Institution', but also a sensitive musician whose works are too infrequently performed (apart from the ubiquitous Requiem and a few of his Mélodies). - I lost count of the times you associate "impressionistic" painting with music. It seems almost indoctrination. As if, for example 19th Century French authors and poets had not influenced composers. While Impressionism is generally taught to have been initiated on the Normandy coast, one should also look to John Turner's paintings and William Blake's coloured engravings. Was England too obsessed by nationalism to have many Impressionistic composers. - The final defeat of Napoléon Bonaparte by the Allied European Nations was a stunning blow to every single French Citizen. Humiliation. Poverty. An out-of-work army, a denial of France's capacity to be a Great Nation. That Prussia alone could again defeat the French in 1871 (as you mention) was yet another cruel blow to national pride. Loss of French territory in the East until 1918! Poets like Baudelaire worked in the mode "Spleen", a sadness generated by defeat. Composers sought refuge in the Bombastic Nationalism (Berlioz) or in writing light pieces for the theatre and opera. - Very good point that Wagner in his search for through-composed operas avoided the 'full stop' of perfect cadences in his mature works. - Robin Holloway's "Debussy and Wagner" publ. Eulenberg 1979 make a good case for the unexpected influence of the older composer on the younger. It is worth noting that Debussy attended the Bayreuth Festival with many of his young contemporaries, but later as music critic, Monsieur Croche) heavily criticised Wagner. - Lastly, in Debussy's day, the orchestra sounded differently! Not only were there gut strings, but a French harp, flute, saxophone, horn were not only made differently from their European rivals, but was played differently. French "sound" comes from this fact coupled with degree of vibrato, emphasis on the production of special registers (the lower octave of the flute for example). So you're quite right to want to amplify your remarks in other videos. Other questions are raised as riders. Does D. Scarlatti sound Italian? German? Spanish? Saint-Saëns and Magnard wrote some marvellous and well-structured symphonies. Do they sound French? German? Impressionistic? Romantic? Nationalist? Does Bach sound German ??? United Germany exists only since 1871. United Italy only since 1861. Could they be said to have composers with national sounds?
this was great, I really appreciated it, as a self-taught adult student of the piano I'm always wondering what the theory is behind what I'm trying to play (I know how chords are named, and things like circle of fifths, II-V-I, etc) but what you explained is something I could not have figured out by myself, many, many thanks. I do hope you do more.
Interestingly while influenced by Impressionism, and often called Impressionism in music, more and more I see these as connected to the Symbolist Movement. That languorous luxurious sound fits the world of Dorian Gray or Des Esseintes, with a trace of orchid and the strange paintings of Redon.
Yes I agree. Particularly Debussy. He was very interested in eastern philosophy. It is more about 'being in the moment' rather than classical development and resolution. Ravel was quite different; he was more a classicist particularly in regard to structure. He said his music was "pure Mozart". A lot of his pieces for example are in Sonata or rondo form.
@@simonjarvis6542 He was a great admirer of Turner. But his music does evoke imagery and he was happy with that observation. He objected to the use of the term Impressionism as it was then used. People now say that his stated aims are very similar to impressionist painters.
Great vidéo ! I would ad i can feel a lot of japonise shamisen classical music in debussy's piano pieces too. Japan was so in fashion in arts in the turn of this century.
When I was in high school (more than a half century ago now) I bought RCA Victrola records of Debussy’s Three Nocturnes for orchestra, Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite-essentially a French piece too. I listened to them countless times. “Nuages” from the Three Nocturnes is still the most evocative piece of orchestration that I’ve ever heard. The thing that strikes me now is how emotional my response was to this music. This music moved me way more than stuff that was supposed to be emotional like Schumann, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, etc. I felt that this music was written for me. There is one pre-Satie work that has always struck me as French and that’s the Requiem by Gabriel Faure.
I'm glad to see someone at last mentioning Fauré (a graduate of the École Niedermeyer., not the Conservatoire), because he's another composer who to me has always sounded distinctively French - and not just in the Requiem. The un-Germanic combination of modal harmony and chromatic tonal fluidity in his writing is evident in the Requiem and increasingly throughout his compositional career (another notable example in the song cycle La Bonne Chanson).
When I was discovering classical music as an adolescent, the "l'apres-midi" literally changed my life. Once I heard it, I was attached to the composer forever, and it ruined all other composers for me. My classical CD collection was eventually augmented by large helpings of Stravinsky and Ravel, but Debussy has been my bar against which all music is measured - including every other genre.
Tension and Resolution… Indeed. Incomparable. It is simply: delicate. What it doesn’t mean fragile. Musics always goes in certain places of soul we never knew they exist. A canvas can do the same, if we have time enough to appreciate and to “translate” it. Good video. It has brought us an Interesting comparison of style.
"Johann Sebastian Bach defined the system of classical western tonality" Jean-Philippe Rameau, the French theorist and composer who ACTUALLY defined the system of classical western tonality: Am I a joke to you?
Yes but Rameau's treatise is markedly different from the voice-leading style of Bach. Rameau definitely important - but it is a more block chord way of thinking about music
Scarlatti, Handel, and Bach were all born in 1685. Vivaldi was born in 1678. Seems hard to believe that Bach invented the system. I'd always heard that Bach was not very well known in his day and not considered the dominant figure he is today, or was in the Romantic period. I never heard Bach called the father of harmony in music school. I suspect that misnomer may owe to his pedagogical value -- I imagine most modern harmony textbooks use his choral examples.
@@johnnidark6463 I would even go with voice-leading tonal system as far as Monteverdi to Palestrina to Josquin to Dunstable.. and so back to Machaut and Perotin... Frenchman again! :D
Thank you for this wonderful exposition on the artistic and political context of this revolutionary breaking of the “rules” of tonality. I am realizing that the French music profiled here predates the very earliest jazz music by a decade or so. The influence on the harmonic language of jazz must be huge. From a “dominant” chord being simply another chord, even the home chord, not requiring resolution, which is so essential to the tonality if the Blues. Then there is the complete parallelism of “planning” (such as Ellington’s The Mooche), chord extensions, the distinctive disorientation of the whole tone scale (which made it into the jazz language a bit later, notably with Monk). I’m sure it’s not a coincidence given the big cultural influence of French culture in New Orleans, birthplace of jazz. It was a former French territory after all (hence the name Louisiana), and French-speaking, classically trained creole musicians famously played a big part in the development of early jazz.
One thing about French music is the phrasing, which comes straight from the language. Listen to English or German music, and you get a lot of one-note pickups da-DA da-DA da-DA, this comes from many German or English words having their emphasis on the second syllable. French music on the other hand, seems to be full of two or three note pick-ups (da-da-DA da-da-DA-da), since usually the emphasis falls on the last syllable of a word. Czech music (Dvorak) also follows the language's emphasis of initial syllables. You never get a phrase starting before the bar line unless it's a strong accent (DA-da-da DA-da DA-da-da). These tendencies show up even in instrumental music.
Just thinking on this now, I think Italian is very flexible in this regard. Short pickups, long pickups and no pickups are all possible depending on the choice of words. You'll rarely find a strong beat at the end of a phrase in Italian, however, which is quite common in French.
Just as I never tire of listening to the music of Debussy, I can't get my fill of analysis of his works and his style. Thank you. This was enjoyable on its own and left me wanting more.
T his is life-changing for me, a 60s rock muso who loves Bach Mozart and Beethoven. I am going to listen t this music with new ears and incorporate it into my future compositions. Many many thanks
This video is so well made! Great to just listen to, like a calming podcast. You did a great job breaking down Debussy without taking the wonder away from his work. And while I agree that this is a sound that in the context of history we would call distinctly french, i’d argue that french composers before that, especially since the baroque period, had their own handwriting as well. Western music didn’t start with Bach. In the 16th and 17th century, Italy, France, England and Germany were all inventive in their own ways. And while they played by the same rules, which by the way were to a significant part progressed in Italy around 1600 with the seconda pratica by Monteverdi, regional variants occured everywhere. Just think oft he french Grande Opéra in later centuries, that was completely different in style, matter and sound. I think for the most part it’s most realistic to just view european music history as one big continuous evolution and not even only credit one country for it's invention, like you did with germany in this video (german composers were without a doubt very influential). The 20th century broke with tradition in many senses, but that’s not exclusive to France either. The „zweite Wiener Schule“ around Schönberg in Vienna did basically the same thing; breaking the rules for the sake of it and finding new ways to create interest. So again, i’d argue that it’s a pan-european development that has certain regional flavors that all influence each other. Music never existed in a vacuum. Exchange and reciprocal inspiration is a great thing! It’s almost sad to me how modern musicians try to always stress how unique and differnt they are. We all work with the same tools to create the same effect: touch people with sound. To me it’s more about who uses the given tools best, as opposed to who uses what tools. It’s a beautiful thing, and we shouldn’t waste our energies on insisting on differneces, but that’s a whole other discussion.
I've never have called that sound french... I would always just describe it as "dream like"... Perhaps it's because I came to classical music very late in life with a different set of biases. What ever it's called, great video 👍
Would have been more interesting to explain _why_ these sound composers decided to compose like that. Specifically, as in, not just in opposition to the German model. Are there components of the language that could explain the melodic lines, the phrasing? Culturally, you mentioned a desire for beauty, what does that have to do with France? The language can be quite poetic and metaphorical/philosophical, is there a French sense of beauty that had to be expressed through music in a different way?
I watched a documentary once where they had people (from an African tribe with no musical tradition at all, if my memory serves me right) listen to classical pieces and samples of spoken European languages; they accurately related musical pieces to languages in a clear majority of cases.
Here's the video that really needs to be made: Is it okay to label music with terms rejected by the composer? (e.g. Debussy and Impressionism, Schoenberg and atonal, etc.)
Just because they rejected these terms, it doesn't mean that they don't actually apply. Il not saying it is the case here, but rather that the opinion of these composers are not the only things we have to take into account. As an example, despite the fact that Charlie Parker rejected the word "jazz" to describe his music, it is clear that there are a lot more things in common between bebop and mainstream jazz from the 1930's than there are differences.
@@valentinpoulet3508 While I agree with that, in the case of Debussy, the only apect of his music which seems to intermingle with impressionism are the titles of some of his works. The fact is that Debussy was much more in contact - althought among the Mardistes there were impressionist painters - with the simbolist poets - like Verlaine and Mallarmé - than with the visual artists. Besides that there's the fact that at the time the term "impressionism" was not a favorite among critics and so Debussy tried to distance himself from it, while the painters stuck to and fought for it. Another evidence Debussy was not very attached to the movement. It's hard for people nowadays to listen to his music without impressionism in mind because it is very entrenched into the collective notion. Imagine if the renaissance artists somehow would suddenly discover that the roman and greek sculptures were actually all painted in vibrant colors. They'd probably have a seizure or something.
@@dezmilcoisas You're right :) I also think that there is a lack of understanting among the vast majority of people (myself included) on what impressionism actually is, which is often understood as nothing more than "blury painting" (i'm exagerating, but i think you get my point). As a jazz musician, i've heard more than once the term "impressionist" used to describe any interpretation of a tune that was vaguely atmospheric. Also, Debussy would rather emphasize the "frenchness" of his music (a litle too much ?) than its impressionist color.
I don't really agree with you when you say that the complex chords just aren't dissonant. I think they are dissonant, but that dissonance doesn't cause tension. Instead, it evokes color and emotion that consonance can't (or just doesn't in most cases)
I'm not so sure - it's redefining what a consonance is - in other words, notes that sound good together. This is something that's been redefined consistently in music history, and happened big time here. That is using standard definitions of dissonance and consonance. Major 7th chords, and 9th chords become the "default" consonance.
It doesn't make them less dissonant, it's using them as stable. If you establish a chord in a way that makes it sound unstable, then you resolve it. If it is established as stable, it isn't forced to go anywhere. For example, in "The Girl From Ipanema", the vamp uses a swaying between FΔ7 and GbΔ7. Both chords are the same quality, therefore same dissonance, but the FΔ7 is stable and the GbΔ7 is unstable and slides back down to the FΔ7. The FΔ7 is still dissonant, and we feel a bit of tension, but it comfortably sits there without needing to resolve to another chord because it has been established as stable.
I love the research put into these videos, they're so informative and entertaining...however I really wish the highlighted music samples weren't so quiet compared to the narrator! I had to adjust volume a lot in this one. I could also probably handle slightly more volume on the background music , but I'd really like the "listen to this..." parts to be a bit louder, specifically. Great video, regardless!
Listen embedded within Bach's mature Counterpoint are all kinds of harmonic surprises where he is reaching far into the future way beyond any of his contemporaries. See Glen Gould discuss WTC ll no22 in Bb minor it's floating around you tube.
Looking at the Monet paintings, I was reminded of the British Master J.M.W. Turner. He too reveled in indistinctness and the use of impressionistic imagery, particularly with light. Queen Victoria couldn't stand him. :)
You make some wonderful points. There is, however, a distinctly French aesthetic that predates both Satie and Debussy. It's in the spoken language, in the art (Boucher, Watteau)...in almost everything throughout France's history. You allude to the French emphasis on charm, and that's very important. There is also, in my view, a strong respect for humor in French music (Satie, Milhaud, Poulenc, Saint Saens). And, perhaps more than any of this, there is a certain detachment in French arts (visual, musical, literary, etc.). Even when Debussy's works are marked "sad" in the music (triste), it doesn't sound like Debussy's sadness. Instead, it sounds like the idea of sadness--as if sadness exists without someone to feel it. That detachment (when the work isn't about self expression, but wise observation) is--for me--the quality that allows all the other typically French qualities to live so vibrantly. Thank you for making a video about a subject I've thought abut my entire adult life.
Separating the feeling from the feeler seems to be a common them going forward in classical music from then on
But the ppl of Saties time hated his music so maybe not so french. I think most french sound is accordion musette.
Wow thank you for putting what I felt in words
@@maxalaintwo3578 I think with modern pop and even contemporary classical music is about expression and experiences
Thank you for making this comment, these were some fantastic observations that I agree with and there is a lot of evidence to back up what you are saying and where that may have emerged from. Feel free to keep in touch at theartismagistra@gmail.com as I'd like to access your commentary and ideas more regularly, and please let me know if you have written about these sorts of things more extensively anywhere, if not, feel free to write freely to me on any of these topics you may have thought about as you may feel like it, and to read these ideas would be an honor really and a great gift.
It's amazing how Satie played what we now know as Jazz chords back in the 19th century.
Jazz is one of the greatest invention in modern music.
Beethoven liked a bit of boogy-woogie too.
I think that music kept evolving and thus the feelings we all get when listening evolved as well. You can kinda feel the wind of change and progression in the artform when you hear something that sounds so modern but was made years and years ago.
Ravel used the Coltrane changes long before Coltrane was even born. Bach used harmony that wouldn’t bee seen again until Noel Rawsthorne. There’s always things hiding in classical music that you don’t expect to find there.
Yeah, but I don't really define extended harmony/chords as "jazz harmony" or "jazz chords". I know why they are often considered this way, but the definition of what jazz IS has everything to do with the COMBINATION of rhythmic syncopation/sometimes/often swung rhythms, improvisation sections, instrumentation, form and textures more unique to jazz music, and THEN the whole extended and/or (dep. on the piece) bluesy harmony kind of deal. And jazz isn't really supposed to be as "formal" as classical music.
So its kind of like Venn diagrams, or bubbles. The bubble of extended tertial harmony overlaps with the bubble of jazz, but they are not quite the same thing...
And yet Debussy rejected the idea that he was impressionistic. He didn't want to be called impressionist
As much as Philip glass who writes minimalist music doesn't want to be called a minimalist, and here we are
Impressionist used to be a term of derision by the French academies
Indeed, my music history teacher last year assigned me to write an paper about Debussy's connection to Symbolism, and how and why he wasn't an Impressionist.
I'm petty sure Picasso didn't want to be called an impressionist (or maybe he said this about cubism, I can't remember. You get the point though). Artists make the art. I don't think they really get to decide how they should be classified though
@@mattchu. Then that raises questions whether artists know themselves and their works. And again, doubts are raised whether critics know deeply what each characterism means. At least in my research I've found that Debussy was characterised as an Impressionist in his time, simply because "Impressionist" was the trendy term conservatives would apply to the progressive ones. (cf. also: doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.07353 )
Well, Bach was absolutely influenced by Italian style, as was usual in his time. In fact, before Bach, Italians and Frenchs dominated the European music scene
Yes, Corelli was in fact the one who made tonality popular. And he was the first one in having international success for instrumental music instead of vocal.
Yeah, the hyperboles said in the beginning of this video are way overblown and over the top. It's this sort of idolatry around composers that I dislike about the classical music fandom in general. For instance, Weber and Spohr should be more credited than Beethoven for bringing about Romantic chromaticism. Beethoven even criticized them for being too daring. He told Schindler that "Weber's Euryanthe is an accumulation of diminished sevenths; all little backdoors!" "Spohr is too rich in dissonances, and pleasure in his music is marred by chromatic harmony." Heck, Beethoven is even less chromatic than Mozart. Brahms said that "Dissonance, true dissonance as Mozart used it, is not to be found in Beethoven. Look at Idomeneo. Not only is it a marvel, but as Mozart was still quite young and brash when he wrote it, it was a completely new thing."
@@jackjack3320 Dissonance in Mozarts music is only used for expression ! Mozart is the supreme genius able to use musical tools ( dissonances, fugue, religious themes) for only ONE PURPOSE : EXPRESSION. Debussy doesnt use dissonances, he just makes a NEW language with them ! HUGE DIFFERENCE !
more so English style
If Debussy sounds like a Monet painting, why does Rachmaninov or Prokofiev sound like Dostoyevsky Novels ?
Maybe because russian pieces are often in minor keys which makes them sound heavier and more dramatic
As a Russian and a lover of late Russian classical music and literature I can’t fully agree with the parallel between Rachmaninov and Dostoyevsky, there definitely is a Deep relationship seen from the foreign eye, but the relevance triples and blooms if you compare Rachmaninov to Pasternak. You will literally hear Rachmaninov reading “Doctor Zhivago”. To me it’s not just minor or dark, it’s probably living on the edge or a marginal area and learning to love and sacrifice in the face of most tragic times. It’s a way of seeing a ray of light between the stormy clouds I guess, and it is transcendental (exceeding any life) channeled through Russians. It’s because they had to blend western and eastern cultures growing in between them for thousands of years.
Yes!
LOL maybe because there aren’t paintings by Dostojevski
The first time I heard Debussy's music, I was 7 years old. A friend of mine gave me a cassette telling me "it is electronic Bach". I went home and my soul was absolutely trapped and mesmerized. When my mother -a social anthropologist - came home, I ran to her to showed my new musical discovery; she listened to the tape for a few seconds and told me: "that's not Bach... that's Debussy". it happened to be "Snowflakes are Dancing" a record made by the japanese genius, Isao Tomita, with electronic versions of some of Debussy's more popular compositions... since that day, I don't think I have let one week pass by without listening to Debussy: orchestral arrangements, solo piano versions... all of the available versions. I later became a musician myself (for 31 years now... uf!), and understood the revolutionary harmonic treatments of the French impressionists... I still say it is and will be my very favorite of them all.
Not sure why, but I wonder if you have heard the Jacques Lussier versions of Bach. Perhaps you'd enjoy them
Tomita was the goat man god bless him 🙏
When Debussy took conservatory exams the big criticism against him was "he doesn't even sound French". That seems ridiculous now.
But it's true, he doesn't sound French at all. Debussy sounds like Debussy, that's it.
Or maybe the only thing ridiculous is to say that something sounds French.
I don’t know if Debussy sounds as french as Louis Vierne or César Franck. Debussy sounds very much, like Debussy.
Some nice analysis here. Another French composer whose work shares some features with Satie and Debussy, yet who had her own distinct style, was Lili Boulanger. Some beautiful use of parallelism and ambiguous tonality in her work, as well as exquisite orchestration.
I feel Erik Satie is the more French-sound one of them.
Thank you.
@@eriksatieofficiel yo Erik when your new track comin out??
ravel is too
Satie is French, Debussy is French + Asian - kind of, and Ravel is Spanish (Basque) + Swiss. 😁😁😁
@@BenjaminGessel Asian?
Talking about rule books, it was French composer Rameau the one who wrote the great harmony treatise focusing on the notion of "fundamental". Maybe the Germans were playing by the French rule book all along.
Hahaha true, true! To an extent. Rameau's treatise is quite different from the voice-leading style of Bach though, if you go through the rules he lays out
@@InsidetheScore But Bach's voice-leading style was 1) not the foundation for Haydn, Mozart Beethoven 2) dates back to late renaissance counterpoint: Palestrina of course and on the other route through Schütz and his huge influence on german protestant music back to Gabrieli and Lassus. And ultimately all that dates back to Josquin, Ockeghem, Du Fay... and from there to ars nova and ars antiqua, where we find French composers again.
Music history didn't start with Bach's generation, and what Bach did was in no way avantgarde or forward-looking in his time... he didn't do anything that composers before him didn't do already...
@@csabrendeki “What Bach did was in no way avant-garde or forward looking in his time” What a complete crock of shit
@@jasonschwartzmanstein9661 Bach was pretty conservative in his time. He wrote great music, but not avant-garde music. Telemann was more avant-garde as him. What I said is not about how good his music is, but how is it placed in his time.
And that's why they, especially Ravel, are my most beloved: The qualities that the composers influenced by germanic school have (the deep look into soul and sorrow) are things which a human being will face on earth often enough.
same! my escapism really showed… 😂
Same here, I’ve always loved the French style more than the Germanic style
French music is great for this! But i feel like germanic music has a bit of a wrong/bad image in this regard. Not all germanic music is depressed, serious Beethoven/Wagner. It's just that these two are the poster children for it somehow...
Haydn literally single-handedly invented the classical style of thematic variation, which is the foundation for literally everything composed after that. Listen to some Haydn Symphonies or piano sonatas. They are way lighter than Beethoven. I always feel like on a calm and sunny spring morning when listening to Haydn. Mozart too is very light-hearted.
I teared up when you played Debussy’s Rêverie at 5:50. I poured my heart and soul into that song and I can now play it to the best of my ability. I truly did tear up when you put it on. Thank you
Please, PLEASE, do a video on Prelude à laprès-midi d'un faune! It is an incredible piece with so much to uncover, to learn, and to experience. Its impact on the world of music cannot be understated, and would make for a perfect theme for one of your productions! Nonetheless, it is by far my favourite piece, and seeing you cover it in any way or form would be incredible!
Keep up your good work; your videos are works of art!
Yess pleasee!
“On those who overanalyze his music: When you tear the wings off a butterfly, it is no longer a butterfly.” - Debussy
There's a UA-cam video of a lecture by Leonard Bernstein, called "The Delights and Dangers of Ambiguity," one of six lectures delivered at Harvard in the early 1970s. The final part of it is an analysis of the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. You might find that worth a look.
@@stravinskyfan but when you learn how to fly like the butterfly, on your instrument, you gain the ability to step into this world of music yourself. I want to understand how to play with chords and improvise as though I'm in the same place as these amazing peices. Such amazing beauty.
@@Luke-ji5ws then you should check out Nahre Sol's UA-cam videos.
I believe a clue to Claude's uniqueness may be in spending his formative years in Russia studying Mussorgsky. He escaped the smothering dominance of Wagner. The older Saint Saens assumed the German school was the only path foreward. He coudn't 'get' Debussy. If you want some good chuckles from German love of polyphony versus French love of lyricism,read Strauss' commentary on Berlioz' Treatise On Instrumentation. Also,Mark DeVoto has a superb book out full of analysis of all of Debussy's major works. I found it very illuminating.
Mark DeVoto,"Debussy And The Veil Of Tonality"
I am unable to comprehend how anyone can like Wagner.
Although Wagner is phenomenal
Debussy doesn't sound French. There's literally not one single accordion in any of his pieces.
yes yes make your baguette jokes.
@@maxalaintwo3578 loooool
@Camarade Toff And German lol
@Camarade Toff do you wear a stripey t shirt, like Debussy
@Camarade Toff so no onions round the neck then? You disappoint me (he said removing his bowler hat)
I find it really interesting to connect Debussy to jazz. You talk about how consonance was re-defined and I think that is essential for jazz music as jazz uses almost every chord under the sun.
yeah debussy was a fucking jazzman he didn't give a fuck about using original chords
Satie saranbandes definitely sound like jazz to me
Thank you so much. I am French Canadian, but that is not why I am writing to you. I have already listened to some of your videos and it touched me deeply. I even shed tears because you were able to express on several occasions how I feel deep inside about music. I wanted to comment earlier, but now I am taking the time to do so. Your passion for music without any arrogance is admirable. I am now subscribed to your channel. I'm less than an amateur, but I've been trying to compose for over a year. I would do this 48 hours a day! Thanks again!
I remember the first time I heard my brother play Debussy - I spent many nights pleading for him to play while I was falling asleep. It is the music of dreams. Nice video 🙏
🎶💤
I agree. It is dreamy. The blogger says the music is sad. I disagree. It isn't sad as say Chopin is. For me its very soothing and spiritually fulfilling.
This is about as good an explanation of Debussy's "Franchiness" as one could make in 16 minutes -- historic, biographic, and analytic. Superb!
One of the best feelings is when something is explained to you in a way that makes it seem so simple and obvious that you wonder why you didn't already know this before. Thank you for this video
Faure is also really french sounding but in a different way; his early and mid period works are firmly in the romantic vein, but his later works also take some (not all, the perfect cadence remained in his vocabulary but he made them weaker) of the features of impressionism, with weird voice leading, lack of resolution to dissonances, parallelism, wholetone scales. he did teach ravel, so there's an element of Faure being a precursor to this soundworld too. recommend listening to his later piano works and song cycles, and the piano trio and string quartet
Chopin had a large influence on Debussy and Ravel. Although obviously Mazurkas are Polish pastiche, really Chopin was instrumental in developing a French sound. He was based in Paris, lived in France most of his life and father was French. You can see the link with the French chanson, Chopin, Faure, Poulence, Debussy and Ravel. Debussy edited an edition of Chopin's Ballades.
Debussy’s use of whole tone scales, eastern influenced scales, and him and Ravel being French, and possibly frenemies, has made their particular style famous. Here’s something interesting, when most people hear Morriconne, an Italian, they think of American cowboys from his music composed for spaghetti westerns.
Debussy and Satie should have been included in 'The Death of Melody' video for breaking the pattern of strong melodies.
The titles of the Debussy's Preludes are a setting for an amazing atmosphere.
Debussy wrote in 1893 "Chabrier, Moussorgsky, Palestrina, voilà ce que j'aime" - they are what I love.
Nice! I'd love a "what makes Isaac Albéniz sound Spanish" video.
I feel this is all very incomplete without the mention of Franz Liszt, a composer that pioneered many of the ideas of french impressionistic music in his last 20 years (well before Satie, mind you), and is well-documented to have been a major inspiration for composers such as Debussy and Ravel, that openly admired his work (and made references to it in their own).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_works_of_Franz_Liszt
Listen to the middle section, here, for example, 2:30 onward: ua-cam.com/video/CWN18ZoqzGs/v-deo.html
(Both Ravel and Debussy wrote their own Jeux D'eau, in reference to this piece)
He deserves his own feature-lengths documentary. What a character
Liszt certainly pioneered non-functional harmony. Where Beethoven pioneered the use of diminished modulation Liszt did the same with augmented modulation. He even wrote a "bagatelle sans tonalité". Liszt's water games at la Villa d'Este and even Chopin's barcarolle make use of colourful chord extensions (and not as suspensions) well before either of the composer's in this video.
To be honest folks, I think most people prefer the music of Debussy, etc. (also Satie somewhat, even) over Liszt. Its more of the reason why Liszt gets overlooked, time and time again, even though we all know his piano skill was unsurpassed in his day...
Liszt fans are mostly pianists, and tend to be more focused around classical music. Oh sure, you get a few hard rock folks, etc., but not many, with Liszt.
Debussy fans are into jazz, world music, easy listening, all KINDS of stuff outside of just classical music. Same deal with Satie (in the Debussy camp).
🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
@@BenjaminGessel It’s the same reason why everyone prefers impressionist painting to romantic and realist art. There’s nothing disturbing in Monet’s art, nothing that requires any historical knowledge or political perspective. One never has to ask “What does this mean?”. No strife, no conflict, no unpleasant emotions, no connection to any particular time, nothing mysterious. This is why it is so easy for so many different people to enjoy his painting.
@@geneklee7608 😊😊😊👌👌👌👌
Debussy is my favorite composer of all, I think. I love playing his music, and listening to it. Thank you for this video!
You have an immense culture. This is certainly the most interesting video on classical music I've seen on UA-cam.
Could you possibly make a video on a breakdown of romantic Russian classical music...? Like the great romantic russian composers - Balakirev, "The five", Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff. whether it be their use of the Lithurgy from the Russian Orthodox church, russian folk songs, orientalism - what makes their melodies sound distinctly russian?
I would really love that too!
If you wanna talk about Balakirev and “the five”, you need to talk about Glinka. He largely inspired all of them and laid the foundation for Russian classical music.
Medtner too and feinberg
@@jamesongaertner9416 oh i mean glinka and "the five" i always get him and balakirev mixed up xD
If you want to understand these sounds, remember that melancholy and nostalgia are originally French words, while sorrow and anger are Germanic saxon words
Storm und Drang
Well there is an equivalent of sorrow and anger on French too but I see the point
melancholy and nostalgia are Greek words.
@@reellezahl Greeings reelle Zahl, fancy meeting you here :) Indeed.
French music sounds a bit sad like a rainy afternoon on a weekend when you had plans to go out but the rain spoiled it.
That's weather in France most of the time.
It sounds lush and natural, with a hint of melancholy
@@Pfsif wtf? South of France is very sunny. There are many climates in France.
Les Feuilles Mortes supports your thesis. So many French songs use the same chord progression.
@@l-esprit_de_l-ouest Is the French equivalent of "wtf" written "cqcb"?
"Germanic composers were the rule-makers"
Palestrina: Am I a joke to you?
Well yes I was talking post-Bach
xD I've studied his music and it's ridiculous how strict it is but yet it sounds so good.
@@AEPMUSlC I think one day Palestrina will be really discovered and become something of a sensation.
Je suis tellement fière d'être française quand j'entends les merveilleuses oeuvres de Debussy !
Chuis étonné que je peux comprendre qu'est-ce que vous dites. Je pense que je deviens meilleur à ecrire et lire français. Ecouter à parlance rapide, sur l'autre main...
@aSCent_ICO 🤣 ce troll
@aSCent_ICO non
Et moi je suis fier d'être français quand je vois ce commentaire :)
Yes, so you should! 😊 Debussy has been my favourite since I was a young girl, and that was very many years ago. If I could play only his works on my piano, I would still be satisfied! I am also happy we share a birthday (August 22)
Great video! You did an amazing job explaining such complex and subtle pieces. I'd really enjoy watching more videos on early 20th century french composers. A video on Ravel would be great, as he was of course influenced by Debussy but also influenced him in return with pieces like Jeux d'eau (and also because he is my favourite composer ^^). There is so much to be said about his music, which varies from neo classicism (Pavane pour une infante défunte) and impressionism (Miroirs) to jazz (Piano concerto in G) and blues (Violin and Piano sonata no.2), and he would also be a good introduction to great orchestration!
I feel Liszt is missing here, first and foremost. He wrote the *first* Jeux D'eau, that inspired Ravel's, after all. His experimentation in his last years, in general, is known to have been a major and direct inspiration for impressionistic music. ua-cam.com/video/CWN18ZoqzGs/v-deo.html
I'm so grateful for 'les impressionistes' ! So full of grace and insight and reverence for this gift of being alive.
Fantastic video. Thank you. It's strange how the Debussy's radical (as perceived in the early 20th C) ideas and his influence on the development of modern "Classical" music has not perhaps been recognised to the same extent as the 2nd Viennese School. Yet his influence was profound (Ravel, Gershwin, early Bartok, Stravinsky, Messaien, De Falla etc. and some Jazz musicians such as Bill Evans and Eric Dolphy).As well as his novel use of harmony I think his (and Ravel's) timbral subtlety is influential particularly with the likes of Henri Dutilleux and the Spectralism composers. Wow; I've just listed many of my favourite composers,
I have realized that most of my favorite composers are French: Saint-Saëns, Berlioz, Fauré, Satie, Debussy. Maybe it's because I have been introduced to classical music with Le Carnaval des Animaux from Saint-Saëns and Le Boléro from Ravel? Éric Satie is an acquired taste though. When I was younger, I thought his Gymnopédie was boring. Now, I listen to it often. That and Gnossienne No1, one of his best, in my opinion.
Really a delight to listen to a narrator so in love with the subject he narrates. Thanks for the great video!
We need more channels like this one
One of the most pertinent and respectful “exposé” of French music of the beginning of the 20th century. 😍
I've never understood what the word 'beauty' meant until it was noted, here, in Satie - and onward. Great scholarship... rare level of comprehension... First time I want to thank the presenter. Will watch the rest of your work analysis.
Finally, avideo detailing the differences between French and German music, and easy to understamd. Many thanks!
I was not expecting a long video like this, but it certainly blew me away.
Great job!
Also, the Eric Satie drop is so funny!
Excellent breakdown! I really enjoyed hearing a bit more about the historical context these composers came from! It really helps show why this style is as vibrant as it is.
Btw, thumbnail looks great ;)
i really enjoyed this video. As a piano player that has played many of the preludes i loved exploring all the different modes and whole tone scales debussy used to create beautiful music. i'm showing this to my sons because it was very helpful in understanding the concepts. thanks
One of the more interesting UA-cam didactic musical posts.
As you say yourself, one can not present everything in 17 minutes, but one may find some of the remarks simplistic, others unjustified and some important omissions.
An enjoyable video and clear presentation.
- Bach is not at the origin of major/minor tonality or the use of perfect cadences. Nor did he arrive in a sort of virgin birth. We know his important antecedents.
- Does a perfect cadence need a dominant 7th? You have possibly treated the subject elsewhere, but one can't help feeling that the most important of its features is its conclusiveness, owing to the progression of the bass notes Dominant-Tonic.
- I don't think you make mention of harmonic progression, only the traditional need to resolve tension. If the nature of a 9th or 13th chord is dissonant, the "sound" of Debussy is to be found partly in harmonic progression.
- But also in his melodies, orchestration, as well as a French tendancy (which originated long before Debussy) to prefer repetition and variation to thematic and structural development.
- Not much is taught in our universities and conservatoires of the harmonic system of Gabriel Fauré (Born some 17 years before Debussy) . He was simultaneously a French 'Institution', but also a sensitive musician whose works are too infrequently performed (apart from the ubiquitous Requiem and a few of his Mélodies).
- I lost count of the times you associate "impressionistic" painting with music. It seems almost indoctrination. As if, for example 19th Century French authors and poets had not influenced composers. While Impressionism is generally taught to have been initiated on the Normandy coast, one should also look to John Turner's paintings and William Blake's coloured engravings. Was England too obsessed by nationalism to have many Impressionistic composers.
- The final defeat of Napoléon Bonaparte by the Allied European Nations was a stunning blow to every single French Citizen. Humiliation. Poverty. An out-of-work army, a denial of France's capacity to be a Great Nation. That Prussia alone could again defeat the French in 1871 (as you mention) was yet another cruel blow to national pride. Loss of French territory in the East until 1918!
Poets like Baudelaire worked in the mode "Spleen", a sadness generated by defeat. Composers sought refuge in the Bombastic Nationalism (Berlioz) or in writing light pieces for the theatre and opera.
- Very good point that Wagner in his search for through-composed operas avoided the 'full stop' of perfect cadences in his mature works.
- Robin Holloway's "Debussy and Wagner" publ. Eulenberg 1979 make a good case for the unexpected influence of the older composer on the younger. It is worth noting that Debussy attended the Bayreuth Festival with many of his young contemporaries, but later as music critic, Monsieur Croche) heavily criticised Wagner.
- Lastly, in Debussy's day, the orchestra sounded differently! Not only were there gut strings, but a French harp, flute, saxophone, horn were not only made differently from their European rivals, but was played differently. French "sound" comes from this fact coupled with degree of vibrato, emphasis on the production of special registers (the lower octave of the flute for example).
So you're quite right to want to amplify your remarks in other videos.
Other questions are raised as riders.
Does D. Scarlatti sound Italian? German? Spanish?
Saint-Saëns and Magnard wrote some marvellous and well-structured symphonies. Do they sound French? German? Impressionistic? Romantic? Nationalist?
Does Bach sound German ???
United Germany exists only since 1871. United Italy only since 1861. Could they be said to have composers with national sounds?
This video really gets the mind to be open to a different way of scoring music. It is so unique in it's structure. 🗼🗼🗼🎵🎼🎶
this was great, I really appreciated it, as a self-taught adult student of the piano I'm always wondering what the theory is behind what I'm trying to play (I know how chords are named, and things like circle of fifths, II-V-I, etc) but what you explained is something I could not have figured out by myself, many, many thanks. I do hope you do more.
Wow! This was really well done
I would love to see a video or a series of videos that explains what makes each nation's music unique.
Interestingly while influenced by Impressionism, and often called Impressionism in music, more and more I see these as connected to the Symbolist Movement. That languorous luxurious sound fits the world of Dorian Gray or Des Esseintes, with a trace of orchid and the strange paintings of Redon.
I tend to agree. Also I believe Debussy did not like being compared to the Impressionist painters.
Thank you! I was looking for the "Debussy was a symbolist, not impressionist" comments
Yes I agree. Particularly Debussy. He was very interested in eastern philosophy. It is more about 'being in the moment' rather than classical development and resolution. Ravel was quite different; he was more a classicist particularly in regard to structure. He said his music was "pure Mozart". A lot of his pieces for example are in Sonata or rondo form.
@@simonjarvis6542 He was a great admirer of Turner. But his music does evoke imagery and he was happy with that observation. He objected to the use of the term Impressionism as it was then used. People now say that his stated aims are very similar to impressionist painters.
Great vidéo ! I would ad i can feel a lot of japonise shamisen classical music in debussy's piano pieces too. Japan was so in fashion in arts in the turn of this century.
yo you just made me so interested in music, its so amazing how this single video can open up worlds you never knew you existed
Thank you, sir. Such a beautifully expressed and thoroughly researched topic. Well done.
When I was in high school (more than a half century ago now) I bought RCA Victrola records of Debussy’s Three Nocturnes for orchestra, Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite-essentially a French piece too. I listened to them countless times. “Nuages” from the Three Nocturnes is still the most evocative piece of orchestration that I’ve ever heard. The thing that strikes me now is how emotional my response was to this music. This music moved me way more than stuff that was supposed to be emotional like Schumann, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, etc. I felt that this music was written for me.
There is one pre-Satie work that has always struck me as French and that’s the Requiem by Gabriel Faure.
I'm glad to see someone at last mentioning Fauré (a graduate of the École Niedermeyer., not the Conservatoire), because he's another composer who to me has always sounded distinctively French - and not just in the Requiem. The un-Germanic combination of modal harmony and chromatic tonal fluidity in his writing is evident in the Requiem and increasingly throughout his compositional career (another notable example in the song cycle La Bonne Chanson).
ProperCool essay .. glad U brought the visual arts into the mix ! :]
This channel has some deep content, very good content to understant impressionism.
When I was discovering classical music as an adolescent, the "l'apres-midi" literally changed my life. Once I heard it, I was attached to the composer forever, and it ruined all other composers for me. My classical CD collection was eventually augmented by large helpings of Stravinsky and Ravel, but Debussy has been my bar against which all music is measured - including every other genre.
Tension and Resolution… Indeed.
Incomparable. It is simply: delicate.
What it doesn’t mean fragile.
Musics always goes in certain places of soul we never knew they exist.
A canvas can do the same, if we have time enough to appreciate and to “translate” it.
Good video. It has brought us an Interesting comparison of style.
I come back to this video every few months, truly a wonderful creation.
No piece sounds more french than Erik Satie’s Je Te Veux
A lot of music sounds more french when you know more french music
You are right my friend.
@@carlovazquez1586
Thanks for disqualifying my opinion with a condescendingly shit remark. Makes you look like a right arse.
@@FreakieFan stfu
@@FreakieFan And your response of his comment makes you look insecure and even more of an arse.
"Johann Sebastian Bach defined the system of classical western tonality"
Jean-Philippe Rameau, the French theorist and composer who ACTUALLY defined the system of classical western tonality: Am I a joke to you?
Yes but Rameau's treatise is markedly different from the voice-leading style of Bach. Rameau definitely important - but it is a more block chord way of thinking about music
@@InsidetheScore Bach's voice-leading functional-harmony tonal system had been established well before him; see Arcangelo Corelli.
Scarlatti, Handel, and Bach were all born in 1685. Vivaldi was born in 1678. Seems hard to believe that Bach invented the system. I'd always heard that Bach was not very well known in his day and not considered the dominant figure he is today, or was in the Romantic period. I never heard Bach called the father of harmony in music school. I suspect that misnomer may owe to his pedagogical value -- I imagine most modern harmony textbooks use his choral examples.
@@johnnidark6463 I would even go with voice-leading tonal system as far as Monteverdi to Palestrina to Josquin to Dunstable.. and so back to Machaut and Perotin... Frenchman again! :D
@@csabrendeki thanks for the suggestions !
Really happy to have found your channel, you really inspire true passion in what you're talking in each video, thank you !
Thank you for this wonderful exposition on the artistic and political context of this revolutionary breaking of the “rules” of tonality. I am realizing that the French music profiled here predates the very earliest jazz music by a decade or so. The influence on the harmonic language of jazz must be huge. From a “dominant” chord being simply another chord, even the home chord, not requiring resolution, which is so essential to the tonality if the Blues. Then there is the complete parallelism of “planning” (such as Ellington’s The Mooche), chord extensions, the distinctive disorientation of the whole tone scale (which made it into the jazz language a bit later, notably with Monk). I’m sure it’s not a coincidence given the big cultural influence of French culture in New Orleans, birthplace of jazz. It was a former French territory after all (hence the name Louisiana), and French-speaking, classically trained creole musicians famously played a big part in the development of early jazz.
* “planing” (not “planning”) 😝
We called this "non goal-oriented".
One thing about French music is the phrasing, which comes straight from the language. Listen to English or German music, and you get a lot of one-note pickups da-DA da-DA da-DA, this comes from many German or English words having their emphasis on the second syllable. French music on the other hand, seems to be full of two or three note pick-ups (da-da-DA da-da-DA-da), since usually the emphasis falls on the last syllable of a word. Czech music (Dvorak) also follows the language's emphasis of initial syllables. You never get a phrase starting before the bar line unless it's a strong accent (DA-da-da DA-da DA-da-da). These tendencies show up even in instrumental music.
Fantastic analysis. What about Italian music and its language?
@@justust4872 Great question! I haven't tried to apply this model to Italian music yet. I'll have to give it some thought.
@@justust4872 I think the very frequent use of the vowel-laden "amore" speaks for itself
Just thinking on this now, I think Italian is very flexible in this regard. Short pickups, long pickups and no pickups are all possible depending on the choice of words. You'll rarely find a strong beat at the end of a phrase in Italian, however, which is quite common in French.
Just as I never tire of listening to the music of Debussy, I can't get my fill of analysis of his works and his style. Thank you. This was enjoyable on its own and left me wanting more.
great video. enjoyed it greatly
I am amazed by how you managed to sync your speech in introduction and an introduction of Reflets dans l'eau. Loved your video👍
thanks for this video, i would love to hear more analysis as this one
That charming quirkiness one can still hear in scores such as Amélie. And the opening flute of L'apres that jumps up and down on the augmented 4th
Loved the explanation, makes me understand better why I feel such an affinity with french music
T his is life-changing for me, a 60s rock muso who loves Bach Mozart and Beethoven. I am going to listen t this music with new ears and incorporate it into my future compositions. Many many thanks
Needs more accordion.
To most Americans, musette sounds more French than anything else.
@@claytonr.young-music912 *rest of the world
I believe fellow europeans must know more than Americans
@@claytonr.young-music912 who care of what americans think.
@@claytonr.young-music912 To me, Franck Angelis sounds french
Your channel deserves a lot more followers. Excellent job. Thank you!
Thank you, this is eye and ear opening!
Man, your work here on UA-cam is of magnificent valor. Never stop it
I applaud to your work dear friend! Thank you!
This video is so well made! Great to just listen to, like a calming podcast.
You did a great job breaking down Debussy without taking the wonder away from his work. And while I agree that this is a sound that in the context of history we would call distinctly french, i’d argue that french composers before that, especially since the baroque period, had their own handwriting as well.
Western music didn’t start with Bach. In the 16th and 17th century, Italy, France, England and Germany were all inventive in their own ways. And while they played by the same rules, which by the way were to a significant part progressed in Italy around 1600 with the seconda pratica by Monteverdi, regional variants occured everywhere. Just think oft he french Grande Opéra in later centuries, that was completely different in style, matter and sound.
I think for the most part it’s most realistic to just view european music history as one big continuous evolution and not even only credit one country for it's invention, like you did with germany in this video (german composers were without a doubt very influential). The 20th century broke with tradition in many senses, but that’s not exclusive to France either. The „zweite Wiener Schule“ around Schönberg in Vienna did basically the same thing; breaking the rules for the sake of it and finding new ways to create interest. So again, i’d argue that it’s a pan-european development that has certain regional flavors that all influence each other. Music never existed in a vacuum. Exchange and reciprocal inspiration is a great thing! It’s almost sad to me how modern musicians try to always stress how unique and differnt they are. We all work with the same tools to create the same effect: touch people with sound. To me it’s more about who uses the given tools best, as opposed to who uses what tools. It’s a beautiful thing, and we shouldn’t waste our energies on insisting on differneces, but that’s a whole other discussion.
I've never have called that sound french... I would always just describe it as "dream like"... Perhaps it's because I came to classical music very late in life with a different set of biases. What ever it's called, great video 👍
Would have been more interesting to explain _why_ these sound composers decided to compose like that. Specifically, as in, not just in opposition to the German model.
Are there components of the language that could explain the melodic lines, the phrasing? Culturally, you mentioned a desire for beauty, what does that have to do with France? The language can be quite poetic and metaphorical/philosophical, is there a French sense of beauty that had to be expressed through music in a different way?
I watched a documentary once where they had people (from an African tribe with no musical tradition at all, if my memory serves me right) listen to classical pieces and samples of spoken European languages; they accurately related musical pieces to languages in a clear majority of cases.
One of the Best Clear Explanation Thank you for sharing your knowledge with everyone on UA-cam Thx Bravo!
Congratulations on 200,000 subscribers! Here’s to a million!
This was such a fascinating video. Love your work!
The short answer :
The Classe à la Française
So happy someone is making videos like this. Thank you! ❤
Here's the video that really needs to be made: Is it okay to label music with terms rejected by the composer?
(e.g. Debussy and Impressionism, Schoenberg and atonal, etc.)
exactly!
I'd say absolutely.
Just because they rejected these terms, it doesn't mean that they don't actually apply. Il not saying it is the case here, but rather that the opinion of these composers are not the only things we have to take into account. As an example, despite the fact that Charlie Parker rejected the word "jazz" to describe his music, it is clear that there are a lot more things in common between bebop and mainstream jazz from the 1930's than there are differences.
@@valentinpoulet3508 While I agree with that, in the case of Debussy, the only apect of his music which seems to intermingle with impressionism are the titles of some of his works. The fact is that Debussy was much more in contact - althought among the Mardistes there were impressionist painters - with the simbolist poets - like Verlaine and Mallarmé - than with the visual artists. Besides that there's the fact that at the time the term "impressionism" was not a favorite among critics and so Debussy tried to distance himself from it, while the painters stuck to and fought for it. Another evidence Debussy was not very attached to the movement.
It's hard for people nowadays to listen to his music without impressionism in mind because it is very entrenched into the collective notion. Imagine if the renaissance artists somehow would suddenly discover that the roman and greek sculptures were actually all painted in vibrant colors. They'd probably have a seizure or something.
@@dezmilcoisas You're right :) I also think that there is a lack of understanting among the vast majority of people (myself included) on what impressionism actually is, which is often understood as nothing more than "blury painting" (i'm exagerating, but i think you get my point). As a jazz musician, i've heard more than once the term "impressionist" used to describe any interpretation of a tune that was vaguely atmospheric. Also, Debussy would rather emphasize the "frenchness" of his music (a litle too much ?) than its impressionist color.
I don't really agree with you when you say that the complex chords just aren't dissonant. I think they are dissonant, but that dissonance doesn't cause tension. Instead, it evokes color and emotion that consonance can't (or just doesn't in most cases)
I'm not so sure - it's redefining what a consonance is - in other words, notes that sound good together. This is something that's been redefined consistently in music history, and happened big time here. That is using standard definitions of dissonance and consonance. Major 7th chords, and 9th chords become the "default" consonance.
It doesn't make them less dissonant, it's using them as stable. If you establish a chord in a way that makes it sound unstable, then you resolve it. If it is established as stable, it isn't forced to go anywhere. For example, in "The Girl From Ipanema", the vamp uses a swaying between FΔ7 and GbΔ7. Both chords are the same quality, therefore same dissonance, but the FΔ7 is stable and the GbΔ7 is unstable and slides back down to the FΔ7. The FΔ7 is still dissonant, and we feel a bit of tension, but it comfortably sits there without needing to resolve to another chord because it has been established as stable.
Dissonance is as dissonance does. It's all in the treatment, in the application and in what surrounds the harmony that could be considered dissonant.
_the perfect cadence_
*shows dominant in 2nd inversion*
This video taught me concepts I didn't even know existed! I will keep an ear out for impressionistic style music.
Thank you for the content, it is so thoroughly crafted I think I can sink in to each sentence.
Super impressive and a huge inspiration
I love the research put into these videos, they're so informative and entertaining...however I really wish the highlighted music samples weren't so quiet compared to the narrator! I had to adjust volume a lot in this one. I could also probably handle slightly more volume on the background music , but I'd really like the "listen to this..." parts to be a bit louder, specifically. Great video, regardless!
Listen embedded within Bach's mature Counterpoint are all kinds of harmonic surprises where he is reaching far into the future way beyond any of his contemporaries. See Glen Gould discuss WTC ll no22 in Bb minor it's floating around you tube.
Apart from the mild German-bashing, this is a phenomenal video. I'm a huge fan of your channel. Much love to you.
Looking at the Monet paintings, I was reminded of the British Master J.M.W. Turner. He too reveled in indistinctness and the use of impressionistic imagery, particularly with light. Queen Victoria couldn't stand him. :)
Wow. Music theory made clear. Thank you thank you.
Beautifully done.
Excellent lecture video!
Amazing video, thank you for this wonderful breakdown of one of my favourite composers!
I never knew I needed this video so much! Thanks man!