Paris Mon Amour

Program notları:

Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)

Nocturnes

A symphonic work with three movements, Nocturnes was influenced by James McNeill Whistler’s homonymous paintings. Debussy noted that he did not use this title to denote the musical form that goes under the same title, but to make use of the images associated with the word. The motifs in Fetes (2nd movement, Festivals) remind Gustave Charpentier’s opera Louise, while those in Nuages (1st movement, Clouds) are reminiscent of Mussorgsky’s song Sunless. In the last movement, the composer presents the song of the sirens through nonverbal melodies sang by a female choir.

In his music, Debussy seeks to reveal what lies deep beneath these imaginary associations. In his own words, “Fêtes' gives us the vibrating, dancing rhythm of the atmosphere with sudden flashes of light.” The tone in his music forms the texture, from which motifs and themes suddenly appear. Time is not built upon the change and transformation of motifs, as it is in other romantic composers’ works. In Debussy’s music, what is transformed is the atmosphere, the texture itself. In other words, the texture is the entire musical universe that is presented. It is not a structure where the atmosphere is the same and only the figures are transformed. That is how the concept described by Boulez as “irreversible time” manifests itself.

Assist.Prof. Onur Türkmen