Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Claude Debussy
b. St. Germaine-en-Laye, France / August 22, 1862
d. Paris, France / March 25, 1918
Debussy composed the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun between 1892 and 1894. Gustave Doret conducted the premiere, in Paris, on December 22, 1894.
This masterpiece of musical atmosphere heralded the emergence of Debussy’s mature style. Stéphane Mallarmé wrote the poem that inspired it in 1876. When Debussy encountered it some 10 years later, he recognized in it a style similar to his view of music.
The words of the poem are those of a faun or satyr, a lazy, pleasure-loving half-man, half-goat creature from Classical mythology. Debussy described his musical reflection as “a very free rendering of Stéphane Mallarmé’s beautiful poem. It does not purport to contain everything that is in the poem. It is rather a succession of scenes in which the desires and dreams of the faun pass through in the heat of the afternoon. Then, tired of chasing the frightened nymphs and naiads, he gives in to intoxicating sleep.”
Music as free and as sensuous as this had never been heard before. Its improvisational quality would become a Debussy trademark. Conjured out of silence by the unaccompanied call of the faun’s flute, it evokes Mallarmé’s hazy, dream-like ideas with effortless tonal magic. Short phrases melt one into the other; solo winds take the spotlight in turn; coolness alternates with passion.
The grateful Mallarmé gave Debussy a copy of the poem, inscribed with a verse which may be translated as:
Oh forest god of breath primeval
If your flute be true,
Listen now to all the light
Debussy will breathe through you.
Symphony No. 2, “The Age of Anxiety”
Leonard Bernstein
b. Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA / August 25, 1918
d. New York, New York, USA / October 14, 1990
Bernstein read W.H. Auden’s poem The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue, in 1947. It immediately inspired him to compose a musical response to it, which took the form of a symphony for piano and orchestra. He performed the solo part himself at the first complete performance, on April 8, 1949, joined by conductor Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The following is a synopsis of the composer’s own introduction.
"I imagine that the conception of a symphony with piano solo emerges from the extremely personal identification of myself with the poem. In this sense, the pianist provides almost an autobiographical protagonist, set against the orchestral mirror in which he sees himself, analytically, in the modern ambience. The work is therefore no “concerto” in the virtuosic sense, although I regard Auden’s poem as one of the most shattering examples of pure virtuosity in the history of English poetry.
The essential line of the poem (and of the music) is the record of our difficult and problematical search for faith. In the end, two of the characters enunciate the recognition of this faith – even a passive submission to it – at the same time revealing an inability to relate to it personally in their daily lives, except through blind acceptance.
I have divided Auden’s six sections into two large parts, each containing three sections played without pause.
Part One
(a) The Prologue finds four lonely characters, a girl and three men, in a Third Avenue bar, all of them insecure and trying, through drink, to detach themselves from their conflicts, or, at best, to resolve them. They are drawn together by this common urge and begin a kind of symposium on the state of man.
(b) The Seven Ages. The life of man is reviewed from the four personal points of view. This is a set of variations which differ from conventional variations in that they do not vary from any one common theme. Each variation seizes upon some feature of the preceding one and develops it.
(c) The Seven Stages. The variation form continues for another set of seven, in which the characters go on an inner and highly symbolic journey according to a geographical plan leading back to a point of comfort and security. The four try every means, going singly and in pairs, exchanging partners, and always missing the objective. When they awaken from this dream-odyssey, they are closely united through a common experience (and through alcohol), and begin to function as one organism.
Part Two
(a) The Dirge is sung by the four as they sit in a cab en route to the girl’s apartment for a nightcap. They mourn the loss of the “colossal Dad,” the great leader who can always give the right orders, find the right solution, shoulder the mass responsibility, and satisfy the universal need for a father-symbol.
(b) The Masque finds the group in the girl’s apartment, weary, guilty, and determined to have a party, each one afraid of spoiling the others’ fun by admitting that he should be home in bed. This is a scherzo for piano and percussion alone, in which a kind of fantastic piano-jazz is employed, by turns nervous, sentimental, self-satisfied, vociferous. The party ends in anti-climax and the dispersal of the actors. When the orchestra stops, as abruptly as it began, a pianino in the orchestra is continuing the Masque, as the Epilogue begins. Thus a kind of separation of the self from the guilt of escapist living has been affected, and the protagonist is free again to examine what is left beneath the emptiness.
(c) The Epilogue. What is left, it turns out, is faith. The trumpet intrudes its statement of “something pure” upon the dying pianino; the strings answer in a melancholy reminiscent of the Prologue; again and again the strings re-iterate “something pure” against the mounting tension of the strings’ loneliness. All at once the strings accept the situation, in a sudden radiant pianissimo, and begin to build, with the rest of the orchestra, to a positive statement of the newly recognized faith."
Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92
Ludwig van Beethoven
b. Bonn, Germany / December 15, 1770
d. Vienna, Austria / March 26, 1827
Beethoven composed the principal sketches for the Seventh Symphony during the autumn of 1811, and completed it in May of the following year. He conducted the premiere himself in Vienna on December 8, 1813. The range of moods that it covers is striking; Three movements overflow with energy and high spirits. The first begins with an introduction in slow tempo that is bold and teasing in its forecast of what is to follow: an exhilarating romp. In the third movement, the restrained trio section appears repeatedly in alteration with the bustling opening section. The finale is a headlong perpetual motion engine. It hurtles along joyously with scarcely a pause to catch its breath between first bar and last. On the other hand, the second movement communicates one of the most profound expression of grief and despair that had been heard in symphonic music up to that time. Moving forward upon an implacable rhythm, it bears the air of a melancholy, even funeral procession.
© 2010 Don Anderson. All rights reserved.
