ARABESQUE no. 1
Title & opus/catalogue no.:
Arabesque No.1.
Andantino con moto
Composer background:
Achille-Claude Debussy was a French composer. Him, along with Maurice Ravel were the most outstanding people related to Impressionist music. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
His music is noted for its sensory and sonic content and the use of nontraditional tonalities. The French literary technique of his period was known as Symbolism. This movement inspired Debussy a lot as a composer.
Debussy’s influences were universal and wide-ranging. He captured parallel motion in fourths, fifths and octaves from medieval music. In figurations and arabesques, he acknowledges the Baroque styles. …show more content…
The left hand has 8 quavers in a bar while the right hand has 4 groups of triplet, to create a 3-2 polyrhythm. This will be the main technical issue in the work.
Overall Structure:
Arabesque No. 1 is in ternary (A-B-A) form.
This piece begins in E major with triads in first inversion to tell us the first theme. This technique is often used by Debussy and other Impressionists which contains elements of fauxbourdon, which is a musical texture used during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, producing three voices in parallel motion in intervals corresponding to the first inversion of the triad. It then leads to a bigger section which begins with a left hand arpeggio in E major and a descending right hand E major pentatonic progression.
The second section (the B section) is in A major, starting with the notes ‘E-D-E-C♯’, then slightly passing through E major, returning back to A major and ending with a bold repeat of the ‘E-D-E-C’ melody, transposed to C major and played forte.
In the middle of the repeating A section, the melody moves to higher notes and then descends, followed by a large pentatonic scale ascending and descending, and moving back to E
Title & opus/catalogue no.:
Arabesque No.1.
Andantino con moto
Composer background:
Achille-Claude Debussy was a French composer. Him, along with Maurice Ravel were the most outstanding people related to Impressionist music. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
His music is noted for its sensory and sonic content and the use of nontraditional tonalities. The French literary technique of his period was known as Symbolism. This movement inspired Debussy a lot as a composer.
Debussy’s influences were universal and wide-ranging. He captured parallel motion in fourths, fifths and octaves from medieval music. In figurations and arabesques, he acknowledges the Baroque styles. …show more content…
The left hand has 8 quavers in a bar while the right hand has 4 groups of triplet, to create a 3-2 polyrhythm. This will be the main technical issue in the work.
Overall Structure:
Arabesque No. 1 is in ternary (A-B-A) form.
This piece begins in E major with triads in first inversion to tell us the first theme. This technique is often used by Debussy and other Impressionists which contains elements of fauxbourdon, which is a musical texture used during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, producing three voices in parallel motion in intervals corresponding to the first inversion of the triad. It then leads to a bigger section which begins with a left hand arpeggio in E major and a descending right hand E major pentatonic progression.
The second section (the B section) is in A major, starting with the notes ‘E-D-E-C♯’, then slightly passing through E major, returning back to A major and ending with a bold repeat of the ‘E-D-E-C’ melody, transposed to C major and played forte.
In the middle of the repeating A section, the melody moves to higher notes and then descends, followed by a large pentatonic scale ascending and descending, and moving back to E