On the twenty in eng_演奏家賴麗君Lai Li Chin 官方網站

On the twenty in eng

On the twenty-seventh of September 1915, Claude Debussy was relieved to write to his publisher and one of his two remaining friends Jacques Durand, "I must confess that I am glad to have successfully completed a work which, I may say without vanity, will occupy a special place of its own." The work would come to be known as Études.

Amidst the bloodshed of World War I and his worsening cancer, Debussy saw that the once vibrant streets of Paris were now plagued with misery. The forlorn condition of France filled him with unspeakable grief but also with the burning desire to save his beloved country. Depression gave way to determination as he vowed to aid his people not through fighting but through enriching its musical treasure, and so in the summer of 1915, Debussy fervently devoted himself to composing, "not so much for my own sake as to prove, in a small way, that not thirty million [Germans] could destroy French thought."

Debussy, swept in a raging flood of creativity, began to examine "special experiments in sonorities." These forays into new ground were fused with Debussy's characteristic harmonic and rhythmic processes, thus transforming seemingly plain technical exercises (seen in each piece's mechanical naming convention) into truly imaginative compositions that unmistakably bespeak Debussy's rich personality.

The Études were, however, becoming dangerously difficult. It was not made demanding for its own sake but was instead the result of Debussy's excitement in creating "effects you have never heard before, despite the fact that your ears are inured to all sorts of strange sounds." Debussy warned that the mere sight would "terrify your fingers," conceding that even his own fingers "sometimes halt at certain passages [...] to stop and recover my breath as after a stiff climb." The extreme virtuosity required was no unintended side effect; rather, Debussy boasted quite contentedly that "these 'Études' will be a useful warning to pianists not to take up the musical profession unless they have remarkable hands."

Debussy did not exaggerate when he proudly proclaimed that, "truly, this music soars, to the summit of execution." And yet, it is not the great skill needed that makes the composition exceptional, nor is it the stream of moods evoked that can be at one moment tragic and then sunny that makes the pieces significant. Études was composed during an era of hardship and suffering by an ill man battling his rapidly declining health who struggled with melancholia brought about by loneliness. The work is no mere piano piece; it is the legacy of his anguish and his attempt to bring a ray of light, no matter how feeble, to the land and people he loved so dearly. And though we can never truly understand his woes, for as Debussy believed, "when you have seen and heard the war, it cannot be reproduced; it would be so small by the side of reality," in scaling，the arduous summit necessary to learn Études, we are afforded a cursory glimpse into his world, and for a brief moment, we experience sorrow as he did, we encounter adversity as he did, we face tribulations, as he did, and together, we prevail.

Update2014-05-23 Hits 2439

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