Music home work unit 5 1

Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVV0jkZC4jI

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In this short piano piece, Debussy exploits the blurred and tonally vague quality of the whole-tone scale to suggest the gentle rocking of sails in the wind. (However, Debussy’s title may also refer to veils, a second meaning of the French word voiles.) Voiles is subdued in dynamics, moderate in tempo, and the composer indicates that it should be played “in a rhythm that is caressing and not strict.” Debussy uses the piano’s damper pedal to create lingering vibrations that suggest a misty atmosphere. Contributing to the impression of motion in place is a low repeated tone, B flat, that serves as a pedal point in all three sections of the piece.

Opening section

0:00

The opening section, which is longest, uses the whole-tone scale almost exclusively. It is based on three main ideas. One is a short melodic figure, the sails motive, in parallel thirds that is first presented alone, and then with accompaniment.

Second idea

0:15

The second idea is a stepwise melody that is heard first in soft octaves in a low register.

Third idea

1:00

The third idea of the opening section is a figure that turns around a single tone.

1:38

Later, the stepwise melody reappears in a higher register doubled by parallel chords.

This use of chords moving in parallel motion—with the same chord structure shifted to different pitch levels—is characteristic of impressionist style.

Middle section

2:06

In the brief but animated middle section, contrast is created by a shift from the whole-tone to the pentatonic (five-tone) scale: E♭–G ♭–A ♭–B ♭–D ♭. This scale is used for rapid upward rushes.

Concluding section

2:44

The concluding section brings a return of the whole-tone scale, the stepwise melody, and the sails motive. But now the upward melody is presented in a high register, in single notes—rather than in octaves or chords—and accompanied by gliding upward whole-tone-scale figures. At the end of Voiles there is no sense of harmonic resolution; we are left drifting in a sonorous haze.

 DEBUSSY, Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune

At a very moderate tempo, A B A′ form, E major

3 flutes, 2 oboes, 1 English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 French horns, 2 harps, antique cymbals, 1st violins, 2d violins, violas, cellos, double basses

(Duration, 9:40)