In 1901, Claude Debussy premiered Nocturnes, his first work for orchestra in three sections. Although the work was well received by his fellow musicians, it did not elicit much enthusiasm from the public. But the composer was satisfied with the spirit of his peers to attempt a new project in a similar format two years later.
Completed in 1905, the orchestral work La Mer had its premiere in October of that year. This time, the composer's work was not well received by either the public or the critics. Two circumstances had conspired. To the clumsy performance of that evening (according to reviews of the time) was added the bitterness generated among Parisians by Debussy's relationship with Emma Bardac, which had led his abandoned wife, his "green-eyed Gaby", to attempt suicide two days before the premiere.
First sketches
The first sketches of La Mer were elaborated in August 1903 in the Burgundy region. Its three movements intended to illustrate musically the magnificent force of the sea, its tumultuous swell, and also its seductive calm, were completed in March 1905, but not in front of a majestic ocean but before the simple shores of the English Channel, in the south of England, where the sea, in the words of the master, "folds and unfolds with British correctness".
The Great Wave
Debussy (1862 - 1918)
As he later pointed out, Debussy took more inspiration from pictures and paintings depicting the sea than from the circumstance of being located in its vicinity. The master was smitten by "The Great Wave", Hokusai's famous engraving, and did not hesitate to ask his publisher to reproduce it on the cover of the printed score.
Three Symphonic Sketches - Trois Esquisses Symphoniques
Although the work contains three symphonic movements that would properly qualify it as a symphony, Debussy added to its descriptive title the subtitle "Three Symphonic Sketches" precisely so that the work would not be known as an orthodox symphony, nor as a symphonic poem. In line with the rejection of all formalism, it is speculated that the composer thus managed to emphasize the originality of the work while avoiding association with any other genre.
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| Satie (1866 - 1925) |
However, as we noted initially, the reviews were not favorable at the premiere. There were even admirers of Debussy's work who were disappointed on the occasion. The commentator of the newspaper Le Temps even noted that he could not hear the sea. Nor did he see or smell it, he said - which was certainly too much to ask.
Erik Satie, a friend of Debussy, best expressed the audience's feelings, though in his particular style. At the end of the evening, he would have said to the master: "My dear friend, there is a particular moment that I found impressive: between half past ten and a quarter to eleven".
Significance
But the disenchantment did not last long. It only took a couple of years for the Parisian public to become enchanted, and later, for the rest of the world, until today. More than a hundred years later, La Mer is considered one of the great orchestral works of the twentieth century, proving the master right. The work does not describe the sea (if it did, we would be before a symphonic poem, without appeal), it "portrays" it symbolically, we are before a piece of music "invented in the image of the sea, a mobile, unpredictable, and free element".
The three sketches:
00:00 De l'aube à midi sur la mer - evokes the awakening of the sea and the welcoming of the sun.
10:06 Jeux de vagues - on the gentle and permanent swaying of the waves.
17:44 Dialogue du vent et de la mer - two antagonistic forces in continuous struggle, the sea and the wind.
Paavo Järvi conducts the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.
