DEBUSSY

Prelude a l'apres midi d'un faune

Project Pack
Key Stage 3
 Introduction

This pack is designed to help you use Debussy’s Prelude a l’apres midi d’un faune (The Afternoon
of a Faun) in the classroom as a creative tool via LSO Play.

Written in 1894 and inspired by the symbolist poem of the same name, Debussy’s piece was
immediately hailed as a new direction in music. Later, composers such as Leonard Bernstein and
Pierre Boulez pinpointed its premiere as the exact moment that modern music began. Watching
the performance of this piece on LSO Play will give your class the opportunity to see this sublime
piece played up-close in a wonderfully rich performance filmed at the Barbican Centre in April 2017,
under the baton of Francois-Xavier Roth.

We’ve included below a full guide to Debussy’s unique musical world, a detalied analysis of his
prelude which cross-references to the performance and a step-by-step creative project will help
your students to re-create some of the famous moments from the score using Debussy’s ideas as
a starting point

Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)

Claude Debussy grew up in Paris. He was born in 1862 to humble, ordinary non-musical parents.
His father was a shopkeeper and his mother a seamstress. At just 10 years old he entered the Paris
Conservatoire studying piano and composition. At that time, he was their youngest student and
he remained there for 11 years.

Debussy’s time at the conservatoire wasn’t always a happy one however. He was impatient and
temperamental. He often confessed to being bored in his composition lessons and he rebelled
against the rules of both the college and of harmony and counterpoint. By 1885 he had decided to
‘go his own way’ regardless of what his teachers thought and his music began to grow more
dissonant (clashy) and extreme as he struggle to find a new sound.

Finally, in 1889 he visited the Paris exhibition and it was here that he found the inspiration and the
unique soundworld that changed his music forever.

The rules of harmony move aside for ‘Impressionism’

Since the days of Haydn and Mozart in the 1700s all composers, regardless of how revolutionary
they were, stuck closely to the rules of classical harmony. Music was written in a key and the

1
harmonic journey it took was all about establishing this key, moving away from it and then cleverly
back again. The keynote was all important and the notes of the scale had a hierarchy applied to
them which enabled composers to slip in and out of related tonal areas.

Debussy simply couldn’t see why this had to be the case and so he started to experiment with
different scales and modes as his starting point rarely thinking about being in a key at all. He used
scales from Javanese Gamelan and tried to make his instruments mimic their percussive sounds.
He also became briefly fascinated by Japan and started to write exclusively on the pentatonic
scale, a 5-note scale created from the black notes of the piano. By writing without a key he didn’t
have to follow the rules dictated by that key and rather than move from one expected chord to the
next finishing with a perfect cadence, he could slip sideways blurring this ever-present feeling of
an all-important ‘home’ note.

Add to this Debussy’s use of instruments; in this prelude, the strings are required to use a variety
of techniques including mutes, playing over the fingerboard, pizzicato and tremolando, his blurred
rhythms, he often uses many different divisions of the beat at once, and the extra-musical
inspiration behind many of his pieces and you do have a completely new take on music. The critics
called it Impressionism. Debussy, ever the rebel, called the critics ‘imbeciles’

Prelude a l’apres midi d’un faune (1894)

In 1894 Debussy was out of education and trying to make a living as a composer. He regularly
attended a meeting of intellectuals called the Tuesday Club and had made friends with a poet
there called Stephane Mallarme.

Mallarme was a major voice in the French symbolist movement but he spent most of his life in
near poverty, teaching English and attending soirees with likeminded artistic intellectuals in the
heart of Paris. His poem ‘L’apres midi d’un faune’ was published in 1876 and it quickly became a
landmark in French literature and regarded as one of the greatest poems of its type. It describes
the lazy, dream-like visions of a faun who has just woken up and is watching a group of nymphs
from afar. His dreams are unrequited. Maybe the whole thing is imagined? At the close he wishes
the nymphs farewell and slowly drifts back to sleep.

When Mallarme heard of his friend’s plan to set the poem to music, he was unimpressed. He felt
that the whole point of poetry was to create music with words. But Debussy’s aim in setting these
words was to create a very free illustration; it is a musical response rather than a complete re-
telling. To quote Debussy himself, ‘It is an evocation of the feelings of the poem as a whole’. It isn’t
a tone poem; it is a slow, meditative melody and a layered orchestration that aims to reflect the
feelings described within Mallarme’s work

2
After the first performance, Mallarme was completely won over and declared the work a ‘marvel’.
Debussy had created his first true masterpiece and had changed the course of music history
forever.

3
 Analysis

Here’s a simple analysis of the work, alongside links to the performance on LSO Play.

Bars 1 - 54 Section A
Bar 1 Main theme (a): flute solo

This opening swoop downwards stretches a tritone. It is completely

unaccompanied and therefore its key is ambiguous.

Bar 4 Theme (a) is harmonised at the very end by a Bb7 chord. This is a very unstable
dominant seventh chord which doesn’t resolve of form a perfect cadence as it
would’ve done in Mozart’s day

Bar 6 Debussy places a bar of silence here to give his ideas space. After this the Bb7 chord
repeats and the little horn dialogue raises up to introduce…

Bar 11 …Theme (a) for the second time now with D major harmony and parallel chords
from the strings

Bar 15 The theme fragments to a little 3 note motif (b) that creates the first mini climax
of the piece

Bar 20 Solo clarinet remains and raises up to introduce…

Bar 21 …Theme (a) for the 3rd time, finally harmonised in the ‘home key’ of E major but
now with extended 1st note and new 2nd theme

4
Bar 24 4th version of Theme (a), harmonised in E (with added 9th). This time, the theme
fragments to create another mini climax

Bars 31 - 33 Music becomes more agitated, clarinet has a variation of Theme (a) which includes
whole tone scale

Bars 34 – 36 Bars 31-33 transposed

Bar 37 New Idea (c) based on the shape of Theme (a) played by oboe

Bar 40 Idea (c) is developed and imitated on violin

Bars 44 - 54 Idea (c) fragments and develops, with ideas reminiscent of Theme (a) to create a
climax and a fade which includes a 4-bar pedal note of Ab at bar 51

Bars 55 - 78 Section B
Bar 55 New Theme (d) on woodwind with syncopated (blurred) accompaniment from the
strings. Bassline alternates between Db and G – a tritone.

Bar 63 Strings take Theme (d). The accompaniment here features many different rhythms
so that the sense of pulse is ‘blurred’. The end of Theme (d) this time is borrowed
from (c) and (a) combined

Bar 72 These ideas fragment down to solos for horn, clarinet, oboe and violin. The violin
raises up to introduce….

Bars 79 - 105 Section A

Bar 79 …Theme (a) again on flute and the return to Section A. The theme is now in 4/4, it
is much slower, the downward swoop stretches just a 4th rather than a tritone and
it is accompanied by E major chords from the harp and gorgeous bass notes outside
of what is expected
Bar 83 Oboe theme based on the shape of (a) agitatedly interrupts the mood
Bar 85 A cascade down throughout the orchestra, with string ‘shiver’

5
Bars 86 – 93 A loose repeat of 79 – 85 with new orchestration; oboe has Theme (a), interrupted
by cor anglais

Bar 94 Theme (a) on flute for 6th time again in E major in duet with solo violin playing
the end of Idea (c)

Percussionists add B and E (V – I) on antique cymbals for most conventional

harmony so far. Ideas swell and then fragment and flutes raise up to introduce…

Bar 100 … Theme (a) for final (7th) time.

Bar 103 Oboe finishes the theme and harmony moves to B7 which resolves to…

Bars 106 - 110 Coda

Bar 106 … E major via a perfect cadence! Debussy adds chromatic movement in the harps,
a clever harmonisation of the beginning of (a) and A# to spice up the final chord

Bar 108 Final flute entry ends with C# falling to G# - a final reference to Theme (a)

6
 Classroom Project

Debussy’s piece features one iconic theme that is used in many different ways and one classic
shape – Ternary Form. The project below explains how to create a similar tune which can then be
manipulated using some of Debussy’s techniques. Collaborative creative composition in the
classroom like this can help your students to understand this masterpiece in a hands-on way

Please feel free to adapt the following tasks to suit the needs, ability and resources of your
students.

Step 1: Create an iconic tune

1. Prelude a l’apres midi d’un faune is really all about that opening flute solo. It features the
following ideas:

• A shape that is like breathing i.e. a long sigh downwards followed by a slow intake of
breath:

• The interval of a tritone:

• Chromatic movement

2. Challenge your students to create their own short solo theme. This part of the task can be done
individually with each student creating a theme for their own instrument, whatever it may be. If
the concept of a tritone or chromaticism is new or difficult for them, simply ask them to make a
wandering tune that sounds like gentle breathing

3. Put your students into small composing groups of 5 or 6 players. Ask them to perform their solo
themes to one another and select the one that is most interesting and that they think will
create the most possibilities. Point out that this might be the simplest of the selection rather

7
 than the most complex and that the other tunes might be used later so mustn’t be discarded
completely.

4. Ask each group to experiment with their chosen tune creating several different
accompaniments, orchestrations and versions. Refer them to the list below of Debussy’s
techniques

Step 2: Borrow from Debussy’s techniques

Here is a list of techniques Debussy uses to develop and manipulate his theme.

• Changing harmony – every time we hear Debussy’s theme it has a different chord beneath
it. His chords include standard major and minor chords, chords with dissonant extensions
(7ths, 9ths etc.) and unclassified chords made up from clusters of notes. Sometimes he uses
no chord (as at the opening), sometimes one chord for the whole theme and sometimes two
chords alternating

• To find which chord fits, begin by using a chord that has at least one note in
common with the tune. The easiest way to do this is to use the piano and try out
lots of options until you get the sound you’re looking for.

• After experimenting with major and minor chords, try out some ‘instant chords’.
I.e. one player sticks to the theme, the other players in the group choose one note
each without discussion. Move these notes around until you get the sound you
want regardless of what chord you are or aren’t hitting

• Orchestration – Debussy passes the theme onto to other instruments but he usually gives
them only part of it or changes its direction halfway through. The flute is the only
instrument to have the theme in full.

• Experiment with making a simple line drawing of the shape of your chosen
theme and give sections of this line to each player encouraging each one to
improvise rather than try to copy the original tune exactly. This way, everyone is
creating their own response rather than just copying

• Extended playing techniques – Debussy asks his string players to use a variety of techniques
such as tremolando, mutes, sul tasto (bowing over the finger board), pizzicato. Can you find
new ways to play your instruments to create a constantly changing soundworld for the tune?

• You can be as wild as you want with this! Try blowing through brass instruments
without making a note, tapping the keys of a woodwind instrument or playing a
completely different part of a percussion instrument than usual. The piano

8
 pedals can also create a lot of unexpected sounds and will instantly sound
‘Debussian’

• Fragmentation – Debussy breaks his theme up into smaller chunks and then uses these
ideas as accompaniment, to extended his theme further or in linking passages between
variations

• You can use your line drawing again here. Take a small section and make
something new, it could become an ostinato or you could extend your section to
make a countermelody to the main idea

• Time signature and rhythmic blurring – Debussy changes his theme from 9/8 to 4/4 so that
he can change the rhythms of the accompaniment and the ‘feel’ of his theme. He also uses
lots of different rhythms at the same time to blur the feeling of the pulse.

• Try alternating two notes back and forth as quavers, then triplets, then
semiquavers. Then try all of these together!

• Augmentation – Debussy stretches out the note lengths of his piece and changes the speed
and therefore the mood

• Repetition – there is quite a lot of repetition in Debussy’s music but never exact repetition.
Debussy always changes or develops something. Even when a block of bars repeat, Debussy
usually shifts everyone’s role around so that the music sounds different or begins the repeat
on a different note or chord

• Often Debussy’s use of repetition leads to a mini climax

• Parallel harmony – Debussy moves his chords around in parallel (i.e. they slip up and down
with the theme) he also harmonises the theme in parallel towards the end of the piece.

• To do this, simply ask several players to play the theme together all starting on
different notes but keeping the same shape.

• Exotic scales such as the Whole Tone scale:

and the Pentatonic scale:

9
 • Can you make one version of your theme using only the notes of one of these
scales or a scale of your own invention?

Step 3: Link your themes

Debussy links his versions of Theme (a) together by creating short transitions that are largely
made up from ideas drawn from his theme. Encourage your students to do the same thing.

Step 4: Create a Ternary Form piece

Debussy’s piece is in Ternary Form (ABA) with a short, contrasting middle section.

1. Explain Ternary form to your class and remind them that, like 100s of composers from across
the history of music, Debussy uses this shape for his piece.

2. Challenge each group to create a short middle section for their piece and place it somewhere
between occurrences of the theme. To do this, simply encourage them to choose another of
their solo themes and create at least two versions of it using some of the ideas listed above.

And finally – encourage your composing teams to perform their final pieces to each other.

Taking it further – poetry?

Debussy’s piece, and in fact a lot of his music, is inspired by external stimulus. In this case, it is a
poem of the same name. It might help your students begin their composing if they have a poem,
place or story to pin their ideas on. You might want to provide this stimulus so they are all working
from the same starting point. This will greatly help the group work and will provide a nice compare
and contrast task when each group plays to each other at the end of the process.

10