Music Review: Pagodes, Claude Debussy
By Otto Do
Pagodes by Claude Debussy is part of his larger collection, Estampes, which has often been described as “three exotic soundscapes.” The word exotic is rather loaded, so there is a great deal to parse here both musically and culturally.
Enstampes translates to print engravings or etchings, but after scanning the piece, “sketch” better describes the breadth of this collection. The two companion pieces for Pagodes (Pagodas) are La soirée dans Grenade (Evening in Granada) and Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain). The three were inspired by Indonesian Gamelan music; Arabic scales and Spanish strumming; and his own home of France, respectively. Thus, I considered the soundscapes found in Estampes to be sketched from memory.
To evaluate Pagodes, I will use the model of Robert Cogan and Pozzi Escot, which analyzes “sonic design” using five frames: musical space, musical language, time and rhythm, color and gesture. Debussy did not always follow the then-prevailing taste of harmony, preferring to focus on tonal centers, modes, gesture and experiment with polyrhythm, but Cogan and Escot’s model accounts for this.
The Javanese Gamelan ensemble, which inspired Pagodes, consists largely of a variety of gongs and various sets of tuned metal instruments that are struck with mallets. Some other instruments include percussive melodic instruments like the bonang, the xylophone (gambang kayu) and various metallophones. Additionally, a sustained melody is played either by the bamboo flute (suling) or by a bowed stringed instrument (rebab). When the Gamelan accompanies theatrical performances, often the melody is sung instead. Especially for the larger instruments, a single player of the ensemble will take on a specific role, outlining distinct voices.
The basic Javanese structure is often referred to as musical sentences, and each member of the ensembles plays a repeated pattern, creating repeated sentences. Highly important are the colotomic punctuations, played by large and low-toned gongs, which divide musical sentences by marking the commas, semicolons and periods.
At the Paris World Exhibition of 1889, Debussy experienced for the first time a Javanese-Indonesian Gamelan ensemble, and the musical space of Pagodes very closely follows the basic Javanese structure. Musical space is defined as the “motion, display, or design unfolding in time and acoustical space.”
Example 1.0 Claude Debussy: Pagodes (m. 1-3)
In the first three measures of Pagodes, Debussy outlines the Javanese Gamelan structure with a colotomic base which repeats at the first beat of each measure. The notes B and F♯ make up this repeated sonority, but later the F♯ disappears. In other passages, the B disappears as well, but it is reiterated in the final passage and measure; Debussy places B as the tonal center of Pagodes:
Example 1.1 Claude Debussy: Pagodes (m. 80), restatement of tonal center
Example 1.2 Claude Debussy: Pagodes (m. 97, 98), restatement of tonal center
Beyond the tonal center of Pagodes, what is the collection of pitches, tones, colors that Debussy highlights in this great tapestry? In the words of Cogan and Escot, “musical language has two aspects: The collection of pitches used, which contains various relationship potentials [and] the interval relations actually manifested and chosen for emphasis.”
Although Debussy notates Pagodes to be in the key of B Major or g♯ minor, the musical key is better described with an eastern scale. In measure 3 (Figure 1.1), Debussy suggests a pentatonic scale: F♯, G♯, C♯, D♯. Rearranged, these notes make up a part of the g♯ minor pentatonic scale.
Example 1.3 g♯ minor pentatonic scale: G♯, B, C♯, D♯, F♯, G♯
The B-F♯ sonority, previously mentioned in tandem with this the g♯ minor pentatonic mode, together form a musical language. But how do we account for the A♯, which lies out of both of these frameworks? I ruled out B Major as the key of the piece, but perhaps there is a form of hybridizing a modal (g♯ minor pentatonic), a nodal (B-F#) and a tonal (B major). Together they better describe the musical language of the piece than any one alone.
Another distinctive characteristic of the Javanese Gamelan ensemble is the use of polyrhythms to create texture. Rhythm is defined as “[the] duration of individual notes and silences; duration of note groupings into modules, measures and phrases; duration of sections and movements.” In measure 78, Debussy sets triplets against octets:
Example 1.4 Claude Debussy: Pagodes (m. 78), polyrhythms
This polyrhythm creates a shimmering wash of sound, giving semblance to a frequented Javanese module. This rippling ostinato figure starts at a high tessitura in the right hand, while a repeating figure of a lower sonority in the left hand shapes the right hand’s rippling. Together, they almost unwind time, making the “measure” unit almost insignificant.
Example 1.5 Claude Debussy: Pagodes (m. 84), expansion of register
Despite the diminuendo, the arcs of the right hand become larger still, and the left hand expands to multiple registers in octave intervals.
At the beginning of the score, Debussy marked that Pagodes should be played délicatement et presque sans nuance or “delicately and almost without nuance.” For English speakers, nuance in French does not only mean subtle in manner. It can also mean shade, hue or refer to the shaping of dynamics. Thus, presque sans nuance can also be translated as “almost without shade, hue or dynamic.” But colorless and dynamicless music or even near colorless and dynamicless music seems paradoxical.
This paradox only exists, however, because we attempt to understand this piece with a Western lens. For Javanese musicians, their aim is not to express their own selves but perform their collective interpretations of the tradition. Javanese music is an oral tradition and Javanese musicians make little effort to notate their musical compositions. Contrasting the instruction to follow tradition, in rehearsal, groups are expected to alter pieces and make “improvements.”
Additionally, Gamelan music is ensemble. Traditionally, improvisation is encouraged, but wild rhythmic improvisation from performance to performance may not be possible. Many Javanese pieces use intricate figurations and conflicting polyrhythms, and for these to be apparent—which is not always the aim—I assume they would have to preserve moments where manipulation of time is minimal.
Most important in Debussy’s instruction is the word presque, “almost.” I believe that Debussy wrote this instruction not to say that Pagodes is a colorless piece but to define the color of the piece with the Javanese criterion in mind—a color which leaves listeners in a state which lies between the realm of sleep and awakeness. Considering this, the musician should not sift through Pagodes looking for passages to over-embellish; the musician should follow the natural swelling and quelling that is more congruent with the Javanese tradition.
Debussy has taken great care to employ the technical constructions of the Javanese Gamelan tradition, but what does this cultural borrowing say more largely?
Many music students know Debussy as one of the first French, impressionist pianists, but he didn’t like affiliating himself with the movement. Impressionism began with the painter Claude Monet, however during his time, the term “impressionist” was a derogatory label. Critics called Monet’s paintings “unfinished” and even compared his work to wallpaper. As an artist trying to establish a career, Debussy distanced himself from this, but much of his work exhibited impressionistic qualities—blurred textures, conflicting rhythms, amorphous atmospheres, etc.
In 1908, Debussy wrote to his publisher, “I’m attempting ‘something different,’ realities in some sense, what imbeciles call impressionism, just about the least appropriate term possible.” Debussy never aimed for authenticity, but in respect to the Javanese Gamelan tradition, Debussy may be following the practice in a very honest manner; he utilized many Javanese figurations and added his own “improvements,” like many authentic ensembles were expected to.
Besides Jardins sous la pluie, Debussy did not spend much time immersed in the soundscapes which he drew from, but he somehow was able to capture the general musical space, musical language, time and rhythm, color and gesture of these foreign music traditions.
I mentioned early on that I consider Estampes to be sketches or perhaps dreams. How does my defining them as dream-sketches, so to speak, resituate or desituatue the appropriation question? If we simply look at Estampes as sketches, I would argue that this is neither a culturally appropriative or even an appreciative work.
Dream-sketches are in a realm of their own. Debussy famously said, “When you can’t afford to travel, you have to use your imagination instead.” This is exactly what he did. From only hearing the gamelan once or maybe twice, Debussy not only captured the distinct colotomic structure of the Gamelan, he painted an atmosphere—not one of the Javanese ensemble but of his own ethereal imagination, projection. Pagodes is a beautiful dream-sketch.
However, I would also like to acknowledge that Debussy has shared some unfortunate sentiments. In 1903, Debussy wrote in a letter, “I’ve also written a piano piece which bears the title Une Soirée dans Grenade… If this isn’t exactly the music they play in Granada, so much the worse for Granada.” This supposition of superiority complicates how I view Debussy and Pagodes, but it does not change my regard for them as dream-sketches. Because I view them in this way, I still do not ask the question of appropriation or appreciation.