Wind in the Sails January 15, 2010

Debussy La MerLa 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 orchestral composition (L 109) by the French impressionist 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 has become more so in the ensuing century. The first recording was made by Piero Coppola in 1928. Instrumentation: La Mer is scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 cornets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tamtam, glockenspiel, 2 harps and strings.A typical performance of this piece lasts about 23 or 24 minutes. It is in three movements:-(~09:00) "De l'aube a midi sur la mer" - tres lent (si mineur)-(~06:30) "Jeux de vagues" - allegro (do diese mineur)-(~08:00) "Dialogue du vent et de la mer" - anime et tumultueux (do diese 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" or "Play 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) 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 Tresize, 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 Howatt 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.Some passages (the 3rd movement for example) may have inspired John Williams for the score he wrote for Jaws. Generally speaking, La Mer has been influential on many contemporary soundtrack composers because of its highly suggestive and moody atmosphere.Ibert EscalesEscales is one of Ibert's most popular works. Written in 1921-22, the title means "stopovers" or "ports of calls". The three movements, totalling about 16 minutes, depict Rome-Palerme, Tunis-Nefta and Valencia. The music is by turns atmospheric and langorous, very Debussy-Ravelian, or vibrant and colourful. The "cultural flavour" of the music is naturally Mediterranean - the 3-minute Tunis is based entirely on a slowly unfolding Arabic theme, while Valencia doesn't avoid castanets.

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