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Precisely! (Have you been studying the Rimsky-Korsakov PRINCIPLES. . . . again? )


I do not wish, in any way, to detract from this excellent Debussy discussion and analysis, so I shall mention a couple, and leave it at that. Dear Old Jack did not write much for the piano, unfortunately, so it will probably be of minimal interest here. Even if he had, the exceptional phenomena about which I am writing would not really apply to a well-tempered clavir, all key centers being created equal.

La Boheme - Act I - Che gelida manina (What a cold little hand . . .) From here through to the end of the Act.
(Originally, the very ending was written in Db major, for the reasons I mentioned. Several modern productions have transposed it down to C , because the high Db in the soprano is pianissimo, and off stage = too shrill!)

Act III - O mia vita! plus the quartet - Dunque è proprio finita. (Well this is really the end.)
(Every immaginable key, ending in Gb major, as I recall.)

Tosca - Act I - Ah, que gli occhi (Oh, those eyes!) (Wandering modulations, including through Gb, Db, and Ab. )

Act II - Vissi d’arte (Tosca laments having lived for her art, a gentle, chaste life. And now she must choose between seeing her lover put to death, or she, herself, killing his captor! Her prayer ends, “And now you leave me this?”) Primarily Eb minor! (what else?)

Act IV - E lucevane le stelle (Mario, on death row, recites a childhood poem, and muses that with death so near, he has never before loved life so much!) Stay with it: B minor, B major, F major, and the inevitable Gb major, ending in Eb minor!

Madam Butterfly - Act I – Cio Cio San’s grand entrance. Ab major to Db major, as I recall. Note liberal use of pentatonic scale (not TOO stereotyped!)

Turandot - Act I - Non piangere, Liu - (Do not weep, Liu) - (Duet, becoming a trio, becoming a sextet, building to a cast of thousands) In Ab minor if I recall correctly (Yes! Count those flats!) Stay with it through the end of the Act - Eb minor.

WARNING: This stuff is highly addictive! DO NOT use with wine, or when you have anything else to do.

Well, I started out teaching brass. I was lead euphonium player, long ago, in the FSU Wind Ensemble. This is the wrong place to talk about it, but I LOVE the primitive sound of valveless horns in Beethoven's symphonies. With the hand stopping (bell) and dangerous overtones that have to be played with precision, it is like watching a high-wire act with no net.

It's raw, primivite, and in something like the Eroica, it is hair-raising. I'll let you draw your own conclusions of what it does to put the strings in Eb. It's great for the brass!

No, but Debussy wrote some pretty fine music for orchestra. Ed, I don't care where discussions wander. No one owns a thread. It's most fun when we weave from one interesting thing to the next. If anyone feels that his or her point is being ignored, it is an easy matter to jump in with new points or new questions. Sincere people are never ignored for long, and your PADS point plays into what I have long felt: if someone is not part of the discussion, we get to decide where it goes.

I don't want to completely derail everything, but the quality of sound leads inevitably to tuning, and that goes off into a MILLION directions, all of which are interesting to me.

I have one more interesting spot to throw out in the Debussy, but I am in no hurry. Most of all I regret the fact that it is so hard to link to pictures that show the music we talk about. Talking about music, when we can neither see nor hear it, is almost unbearably frustrating!

Gary,

You did not, by any chance, play a double-bell, did you? One of the most facinating, and beautiful instruments ever!

My great-grandfather, before becoming a conductor, majored in BOMBARDINO! I, too, love the Eroica, but it is hard to find played with natural horns.

I also appreciate the invitation to change subjects, but like Claude, Giacomo deserves a thread of his very own. And probably no surprise, but La Mer is my favorite Debussy.
Ed

I have a set of recordings with Norrington, all the Beethoven symphonies.

You can hear the horn players practically shoving their fists into the bells as they play notes that do not exist on an un-stopped horn. It is SO different in sound. For something like the 6th I prefer a modern orchestra, but the 3rd, 4th and 7th symphonies are very cool to listen to that way.

I heard John Eliott Gardiner conducting one of those recently - on the radio driving home. It was from a live concert. I think it was the 7th. The energy was indescribable.

And I have a double-balled eublonium. As a student I played a Besson, but I have never been blessed with much money, so when I bought my own instrument, I found one of those double-belled instruments for what was a "song". When I gigged I did not get much chance to play brass - no one else to play keyboard for me - but if I got someone who could play, I used the small bore, small bell for playing. It's a fun instrument.

Just a short note - I'm not doing a PADS - thanks for the list of music. I'm heading the warning:

Waiting to get my work squared away and then it's on to some heavy duty listening.

No suspicion of P.A.D.S. here. You have a clean bill of health with us!

One additional thought about listening to EXCERPTS - one does not fully experience the valleys before being rocketed to the top of the mountain, and visa-versa. Nevertheless, highlights are highlights, with or without the "preparation".