When Claude Debussy composed his piece, La Mer (Movement II, Play of the Waves) between 1903 and 1905, he found inspiration in Katsushika Hokusai’s artwork, The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Because the song is based off of artwork, one with expect for it to be programmatic, and it meets those expectations. The title, La Mer, is customary for absolute music because it is telling of the idea that will be produced in the music. The music then follows through with the title by audibly depicting the sea in the artwork and real life. In the color woodblock print, one can see a very tall wave that is about to crash in the left side of the print. The wave is comprised of three different shades of blue, in addition to the white at the crest of the wave
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The movement starts with a very mysterious tone with the instruments playing ascending and descending conjunct scales very quickly. Additionally, the instruments gradually layer on top of one another and then return to a single instrument over and over again to audibly depict the rising and falling of the waves. This layering and very strong sound can correlate to the sharp dark blue color of the waves in the woodblock print As the piece continues, the mood changes back and forth between mysterious, pleasant, and franticly distressed, which are different emotions that one can experience while at sea. These shifts in mood are sudden and random, just as the weather at sea often rapidly changes and causes those on ships, perhaps the ships in the woodblock artwork, to quickly change their attitudes towards being at sea. Around two minutes and ten seconds, higher pitched instrument take over and evoke a very airy feel that can be related to the wind swirling around. The lightness and airy feel can be seen in the lightness of the sky in the print, which contrasts from the waves just as this section contrasts from the rest of the movement. Throughout the entire work, there is a lot of back and forth between different instruments that can depict a sense of swaying on the boat with the waves underneath you, which is seen in the print where the boats are all over the place and in and out of the
The movement starts with a very mysterious tone with the instruments playing ascending and descending conjunct scales very quickly. Additionally, the instruments gradually layer on top of one another and then return to a single instrument over and over again to audibly depict the rising and falling of the waves. This layering and very strong sound can correlate to the sharp dark blue color of the waves in the woodblock print As the piece continues, the mood changes back and forth between mysterious, pleasant, and franticly distressed, which are different emotions that one can experience while at sea. These shifts in mood are sudden and random, just as the weather at sea often rapidly changes and causes those on ships, perhaps the ships in the woodblock artwork, to quickly change their attitudes towards being at sea. Around two minutes and ten seconds, higher pitched instrument take over and evoke a very airy feel that can be related to the wind swirling around. The lightness and airy feel can be seen in the lightness of the sky in the print, which contrasts from the waves just as this section contrasts from the rest of the movement. Throughout the entire work, there is a lot of back and forth between different instruments that can depict a sense of swaying on the boat with the waves underneath you, which is seen in the print where the boats are all over the place and in and out of the