Portrait of Debussy.

6: Debussy and French Music

Rollo Myers
The Musical Times, Vol. 108, No. 1496. (Oct., 1967), pp. 899-901.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4666%28196710%29108%3A1496%3C899%3APOD6DA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V
The Musical Times is currently published by Musical Times Publications Ltd..

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained
prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in
the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/journals/mtpl.html.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic
journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,
and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take
advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

http://www.jstor.org
Thu Aug 16 18:27:23 2007

and many passing details will tend to be submerged.

For Howells, as for Elgar and Delius, the ecstatic
and the elegiac-the visionary glory and the sense of
loss-are
closely bound up together, and the
measure of this is to be found precisely in the harmonic texture. Bearing in mind Howells's roots in
the West Midlands, in the country of the Three
Choirs, one might expect to discover some clear
affinity with Elgar, but in fact the 'true light' in
Hymnus Paradisi has a distinctly Delian radiance
(ex 3-vocal score, pp.88-9). The harmonic inflexions in this passage for chorus,l especially at
'true light' and 'endured in the heat', are unmistakable. Not that this music could ever be attributed
to Delius-quite apart from the words! Compare
it with the choral writing in, say, Sea Drift and some
striking differences in style at once emerge. Even
here, at his most homophonic, Howells thinks
naturally in terms of line, and in general his chromaticism has a firmer diatonic background-diatonic
and modal. But the Delian affinity remains. The
final pages of Hymnus Paradisi are the sort of thing
that Delius might have written had he worked within
the framework of the English Church and its choral
tradition. Howells's vision is 'evermore', Delius's
'nevermore', but the music speaks of a similar yearning. There is no mistaking a sunset, whichever way
you happen to be facing. . . .
It says much for Howells's creative stature that
this comparison with Delius can be made unflinchingly. How far there is any real debt to Delius is
difficult to tell, for Howells has so thoroughly
absorbed his influences. He is not an original, as
Delius was; he is both more limited and more complex. Behind the fastidiousness and the precise
workmanship there is a retiring, self-effacing musical
personality, but at the same time an acute selfawareness. His style is a synthesis of most of the
2the orchestra enters at the end of the fourth bar but does not
modify the harmony.

Portrait of Debussv-6

things characteristic of the English revival in its

Georgian phase.3 As used here, the term Georgian
denotes an attitude of mind rather than a definite
period of time-a desire to take refuge in a n idealized
countryside and 'the pursuit of Beauty in her more
chaste and subtle guises'-but
the years of World
War I and its aftermath are, of course, the critical
ones. In embracing this attitude, Howells has given
it his own distinctive emphasis. Significantly, the
poet he has set most extensively is not Housman but
de la Mare: the two cycles from Peacock Pie contain
several of his best songs, and their dream-like feeling
is really quite different from the typically Georgian
'lost content'. Perhaps the main weakness of the
Georgians generally is not their escapism but their
complacency: they are content with their 'lost
content', and that is fatal. Howells, no doubt, has
written his share of this minor pastoral and elegiac
music, but in the main his sense of anguish and of
aspiration have raised him well above it. And implicit in his vision of the beautiful is a keen awareness of its transience and vulnerability. There is
nothing complacent in that.
By summing up, refining and intensifying-and
even transcending?-the Georgian phase, Howells
has acquired a unique place in the English revival;
and it is a far more distinguished place than the
present lack of performances would lead one to
suppose. A chance to hear the Concerto for Strings
and the second piano concerto, both composed in
1939, would be particularly welcome, and it is time
the controversial Missa Sabritzensis (1954) was
thoroughly reconsidered: I was one of the doubters
at the first performance, but those who say it is
Howells's greatest achievement could well be
right.
'most, not all: the hearty and the rollicking have passed him
by. and he is too good an artist to mistake mere whimsy for
significant feeling.
<,.Y

1 reprod~irrccri bv penriisrio!~ o l Boose) & HriwXr

Rollo Myers

DEBUSSY AND FRENCH MUSIC

In this series of articles we attempt to build a composite portrait of' Debussy the musician through
examination of the very diferetzt impressions he left
on the mlrsic of other composers: itz general, and also
in particular by documentatiotz of what works they
heard, and when, their statements, and the rejections
found in their own compositions.
As early as 1895, when the only major works he had
published as yet were the String Quartet and the
Prelude a I'aprPs-midi d'lm faune, Debussy, in a
letter to his friend Pierre Louys, made a highly
significant and revealing statement showing that he
was already fully aware that what he had set himself
to d o in music would have far-reaching results: 'I
am working', he wrote, 'on things that will only be
understood by our grandchildren in the 20th century.' (I take this to be the meaning of 'les petits-

enfants du XXe.siecle'.) And he goes on:' They alone

will see that fine feathers do not make a musician.
They will strip the idols of their veils, reveal~ngonly
a miserable skeleton beneath'.
What is interesting about this statement is ( a ) that
it can now be seen to be true; and ( b ) that it seems
to rule out the possibility that Debussy thought
himself likely to be an 'influence' on his immediate
successors. He was, of course, only too well and
scornfully aware that some of his methods were
being copied by the smaller fry among his contemporaries-did
he not exclaim in disgust: 'Les
debussystes me tuent'?-but the last thing he wanted
to be was, in any sense, a chefd'ecole.
The truth is that great artists do not so much have
a direct influence on other individual artists, as an
indirect influence on the whole future development

of their art. Thus, for example, music has never

been quite the same since Beethoven, although
there are few composers one can think of whose
music bears any direct resemblance to that of the
creator of the Missa Solemnis or the late string
quartets. The same could be said of Rembrandt,
Cezanne, or Picasso; and among the moderns I
think Debussy is an outstanding example of the
pioneer who stands alone, without any immediate
followers, yet destined to exert a tremendous influence on future developments. This, of course, implies
recognition of the fact that while technical idiosyncrasies and mannerisms can always be copied,
what is fundamental in the approach of any great
artist to his art will always be inimitable. And the
greatness of Debussy lay precisely in the fact that
his conception of what music ought to be and the
methods he envisaged to make his ideals come true
were so radically new that the composer of today is
confronted with an almost unlimited choice of
exploratory avenues to pursue. In a paper read at
the international seminar held in Paris in the
Debussy centenary year M Andre Souris made the
point that just as Mallarme 'was not merely concerned to write a sonnet but to re-invent poetry,
while Cezanne similarly aimed at re-inventing painting, so did Debussy also set out to change the very
nature of music and the rules and principles by
which it had hitherto been governed. His aim was,
in fact, to remould and reorganize musical thinking
from top to bottom'-and it is undeniably from this
angle that any modern critical assessment of
Debussy's influence on the music of his and our own
time must be undertaken.
Perhaps one of the most curious things in connexion with this particular aspect of the 'cas
Debussy' is the apparent failure of his contemporaries to realize, as musicians everywhere today have
done, the full extent of his importance as an innovator and 'founding father' of 20th-century music.
And this is true, not only of the generation that, so to
speak, grew up with him, or followed him immediately (a reaction to be expected), but also of French
musicians generally throughout the 30s and 40s
until the 'Back to Debussy' movement set in, largely
due to the perspicacity of Pierre Boulez and other
members of the avant-garde, not only in France but
all over the world. Now that we are accustomed to
seeing Debussy in this new perspective and hearing
h i n ~extolled above all as a master of form and inventor of all kinds of structural subtleties, it seems
strange that Cocteau, writing in 1918 in Cock and
Harlequin, should have been obsessed with one aspect
only of Debussy's music-its
so-called 'impressionism' and atmospheric vagueness. Thus, for
example: 'Debussy missed his way because he fell
from the German frying-pan into the Russian fire.
Once again the pedal blurs rhythm and creates a
kind of fluid atmosphere congenial to shortsighted
ears'. Or again: 'The impressionist school substitutes sunshine for light and sonority for rhythm.
Debussy played in French but used the Russian
pedal. . . one cannot get lost in a Debussy mist as
one can in a Wagner fog, but it is not good for one.
. . . Enough of hammocks, garlands, and gondolas;
I want someone to build me music I can live in, like

900

a house.' Admittedly all this was part of Cocteau's

propaganda campaign in favour of Satie and to
prepare the way for Les Six and a down-to-earth
new music 'where there will be no caressing strings,
only a rich choir of wood, brass and percussion',
but it did represent, all the same, an attitude towards Debussy and pre-1914-war French music
which was pretty common at the time. It is only fair
to say here that Cocteau in later life revised his
opinion of Debussy whose greatness he fully acknowledged.
And yet, even the staunchest admirers of Debussy
among practising musicians were not necessarily
influenced by him. Charles Koechlin, for example,
wrote: 'Certainly I benefited from the innovations
embodied in PeNtas et M&lisande. . . but in spite
of my admiration for Debussy, it cannot be said
that I was a Debussyist. My style of writing and
thought were different.. they showed a feeling-a
need for rhythm in contrast [my italics] to the admirable Prihide d I'apr&s-midi d'un .fame and a
contrapuntal style of writing in which the spirit of
the fugue is never far away. By this time I had
heard The Rite of Spring, and Darius Milhaud had
introduced me to his first works, which reflected the
need I felt for polytonal writing.' It was from these
directions, then, that the wind of change was
blowing at that time; yet despite Milhaud's own
strong disapproval of the 'impressionist' school with
which Debussy, rightly or wrongly, had been associated, he made it clear, in a broadcast some ten
years ago, that ever since his first meeting with
Debussy around 1905: 'my admiration for him
always grew and grew and never stopped', and that
although the Six at that time were strongly against
Impressionism 'and all the complications of the
followers of Debussy met with rather complete
disapproval, we had only love for Debussy. . . .
First of all, he had found a new language; . . . in his
followers, of course, that is a conventionality of
language which we don't like. . . very often the
Impressionist music seems to be scattered in pieces
and go away like smoke or fireworks. . . .'
In the end, then, the reaction against Debussy
soon after his death and during the 1930s and 40s
always turns out to be in reality a reaction against
his imitators, the so-called 'Debussystes'. But who,
in fact, were they? Apart from the small fry, whose
very names today are forgotten, one might perhaps
include in this category composers like Pierne and
Andre Caplet, though this perhaps would be hardly
fair to two excellent musicians in their own right.
And among the very few who could be said to have
felt the influence of the real Debussy in a real sense
-that is to say those who learned something from
the tough conciseness and inventive subtleties of the
late works which have left any suggestion of impressionism far behind-one might perhaps cite the
names of Albert Roussel and even Olivier Messiaen.
Then there is Paul Dukas, whose Ariane et BarbeBleue inevitably reveals a certain indebtedness,
however involuntary, to Pelleas, though on a rather
different aesthetic plane; and last, but not least
among those upon whose shoulders, if only for a
moment and however lightly, the Master's mantle
may have descended-Maurice Ravel himself.

Here we are on controversial ground. It was no

doubt inevitable that the co-existence and contemporaneity of two such outstanding musicians should
have led to misunderstandings and rivalries, although these were fomented not so much (if at all)
by the protagonists themselves as by their respective
partisans in the musical maquis of those days, when
rival schools of musical thought were always sniping
at one another and carrying on guerrilla warfare in
the Press. In this particular controversy Pierre Lalo,
the music critic of Le Temps, played a leading part,
and brought matters to a head by publishing in his
paper on March 19, 1907, an article entitled 'Ravel
et le Debussysme' in which he attacked Ravel's
Histoires t~aturellesand Une barque sur I'octan (in its
orchestral version) and added salt to the wound by
asserting: 'In both these works one hears continually
a very distinct echo of the music of M Debussy. You
are. of course, aware that M Ravel is not the only
one of his kind: it is an indisputable fact that a very
large number of young French composers are
writing "Debussyist" music.' He then proceeded to
demolish the theory by which those accused of
'Debussyism' sought to defend themselves by arguing that Debussy was merely one among many of a
whole generation of composers who all shared the
same ideals-a line of defence which Lalo quite
rightly dismissed as an 'impudent joke' which cannot be supported on either aesthetic or historical
grounds. Ravel for his part objected to being, by
in~plication,classed among the 'young composers'
in question, and said so in no uncertain terms in a
dignified letter to Le Temps in which he paid tribute
to 'an artist of genius, Claude Debussy', and challenged Lalo 'to produce a single witness who has
heard me utter any such absurdities. It is a matter of
indifference to me if I am looked upon, by those who
only know my works through the critics, as an
impudent plagiarist; but I object to being made to
appear, even in their eyes, as an imbecile'.
So far as the charge of plagiarism is concerned,
the boot may even have been on the other foot; for
was not Debussy accused of having 'borrowed'
rather freely in his Soiries duns Grenade (published
in 1903) from Ravel's early Habanera (composed in
1895)?-and did not Ravel on another occasion,
when a critic had given Debussy credit for having
inaugurated an entirely new pianistic style in his
L'ile joyeuse and Reflets duns I'eau (dated respectively 1904 and 1905) feel bound to point out
that whereas his own Jeux d'eau had appeared in
1902. Debussy had by then written nothing for the
instrument more important than Pour le piano-'a
work which'. said Ravel, 'I need hardly say I
passionately admire, but which, from a purely
pianistic viewpoint, conveyed nothing really new.'
In any attempt to assess the extent to which either
composer can be said to have 'influenced' the other,
it is important to remember that Ravel, though 13
years Debussy's junior, had matured far more
rapidly, which explains, for example, why some of
his earlier piano music may seem to be more 'advanced' than Debussy's; but by the time Debussy
had got into his stride he had begun to forge ahead,
while Ravel's style was already crystallized and set
firmly in its mould. Therefore if the question of

influence arises at all, it could only in the long run

have been one way. Yet that Ravel, despite his
enormous admiration for Debussy (an admiration
which he never sought to hide) was ever influenced
by him would be very difficult to prove. Superficial
similarities there may have been: and that Ravel
was conscious of this is shown in a remark he once
made to a critic to the effect that any likeness between his music and Debussy's was due, not to any
influence, but to what he called an 'innate resemblance' (similitude innie).
But the fact remains that in methods, technique
and above all temperament they had very little in
common, Debussy being a pantheist and a devotee
of Nature, while Ravel delighted in artifice and preferred his emotions second-hand. T o quote Milhaud
again: 'The quality of Debussy is different. . .
everything came from his heart really, and also his
human qualities are always in his music. . . . Ravel
was far away from me, because his music has this
sort of preciosity which I don't personally like very
much. . .' A subjective reaction, admittedly, but
one which underlines the essential difference between the two composers. The 'innate resemblance'
of which Ravel spoke was, I suggest, far more discernible in their general aesthetic outlook and literary tastes-both for example admired Mallarme,
Baudelaire, and E. A. Poe, and both had a taste for
rare and precious sensations-than in their methods
and style of composition. The classicism of Ravel's
form and his clearly defined and precise outlines
are in marked contrast with Debussy's far more
fluid structures and atmospheric harmonies; and
while Ravel did not mind if his scaffolding was
visible, Debussy was always anxious that his music
should sound like an improvisation. Debussy, in
fact, inhabited a different world, a world into which
Ravel did not seek to penetrate, and the label that
best fits his music, if label there must be, is that of
'symbolism' rather than 'impressionism', in so far
as the term expresses the symbolists' ideal of an art
which, in the words of Paul Valery, 'unites the world
in which we live to the world by which we are
haunted.'
We seem, then, forced to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that Debussy has not been a
major influence on French music specifically, however great his influence on music in general has been.
He would have hated to be called a 'revolutionary'.
yet the revolution for which he was responsiblewhat Henri Sauguet has called 'a permanent
revolution' because music since Debussy has enjoyed a freedom it never knew before-is
still
having a profound effect on the evolution of the art.

The Educational Group ol the ,Musical Instrument Association

oPiers 100 for an original organ composition lasting 4 to 6
minutes. N o age limlt. Entries by Dec 31 to EGMTA, 25 Oxford
St, London W I .
The New Philharmonia Orchestra announces the setting up of
the Martin Musical Scholarship Fund t o aid the post-graduate
studies of young musicians.
Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowships are available in 1968
for those actively engaged in the creative arts. Only UK
citizens may apply. N o age limit. Enquiries by Nov 15 to 37
Charles St, London WI