Portrait of Debussy.

2: Debussy and Bartk

Anthony Cross
The Musical Times, Vol. 108, No. 1488. (Feb., 1967), pp. 125-127+129-131.
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The melody undoubtedly remained the same for

the following stanzas, in which the author's assonant
verses recount the entire career of the Duke of
Normandy, his conquests, and the 1066 coronation.
The poet makes much of the contrast between
living conditions in the time when William exercised
his authority to ensure the preservation of individual
rights and the period of instability after his death;
nowadays, he complains-not without bitternessthere is no longer any security guaranteed by rights,
for everyone fights for his own interests (stanza 8).
Perhaps we can see in this passage an allusion to the
troubles which broke out after William's death and
which were faithfully recorded by Orderic Vitalis.
It was certainly during those troubled years
which preceded the accession in 1106 of Henry I
that these elegiac stanzas came to be written. They
may well have been the work of a senior member of
the Norman clergy, such as Guillaume Bonne-Ame,
an old monk of le Bec, later Archbishop of Rouen,
or Gilbert Maminot, Bishop of Lisieux, who was
present at William's last moments, or perhaps a
learned monk of Saint-~tiennede Caen. In any
case, Orderic Vitalis must have read these lines and
similar ones, of which quantities were written after
William's death: 'Egregii versificatores de tali viro
unde tam copiosum thema versificandi repererunt,
multa concinna et praeclara poemata protulerunt'.
Most of these texts were doubtless intended simply
for reading or declamation. The present planctus
includes notation, and must have been sung at nonliturgical gatherings, if not at the court of the

Dukes of Normandy. Although its melodic lines

make some departures from the forms of ecclesiastical plainchant, it is in these that, for several
reasons, it has its roots.
Clearly, as is the case in the majority of such
laments, the mode used is the Dorian-at the time
considered most expressive of sorrow-but
the
composer has palpably departed from the customary
bounds of Gregorian composition. Whereas in true
Gregorian music-sometimes known as Gregorian
'classic chant' ('vieux fonds')-the typical structure
of the protus authente (the mode's basic form)
would be based on the fifth D-A, and would be surmounted by the third A-C, here the compass is
based on the same fifth, but extended upwards by a
fourth, A-D. Finally, as a last comment, the return
to the final is effected by the use of a lower note
(C-D-D), as in certain pieces, especially sequences,
of the early Middle Ages. These few observations
serve to demonstrate that the melody may well date
from the same period as the text.
Certainly this planctus, luckily preserved in a
fragment of manuscript, is no masterpiece of versification or of composition; neither does it constitute
a document of great value for the historian. But the
text brings us an echo of popular sentiments of the
time, and the music contributes to our files on
secular music at the end of the l lth century.
-translated

b y G. W. Hopkins

Sorne of the malerial in this article has already appeared in the

'Revue de Musicologie', Vol L, 2, 1964, p.225-8; it is reproduced
by courtesy of the editor.

Anthony Cross

Portrait of Debussy-2
/

DEBUSSY AND BARTOK

In this ~ e r i e sof articles (started last month by Jeremy

Noble's on Debussy and Stravinsky) we attempt to
build a composite portrait of Debussy the musician
through examination of the very different impressions
he left on the music ofother composers: in general, and
also in particular by documentation of what works
they heord, and when, their statements, and the reflections found in their own compositions.

On several occasions Bart6k referred to his debt to

Debussy. It is however unwise to accept a composer's thoughts on his own work at their face value,
and the circumstances which call forth such statements must always be taken into account. Only in
connection with a close study of the music itself can
they be evaluated at their full worth.
In his contribution to the Ravel memorial issue
of La revue musicale (1938), Bartok-for obvious
reasons-lays great emphasis on the reorientation
of Hungarian cultural life towards that of France
after three centuries of German domination:
It was then that a change of direction was
effected. Debussy appeared and henceforth the

musical hegemony of France replaced that of

Germany. The young Hungarian musicians who
were working at the beginning of this century,
among whom I counted myself, were already
orientated in other fields towards French culture.
One can easily imagine the significance for then1
of Debussy's appearance on the musical scene;
the revelation of this art permitting them at last
to turn towards the musical culture of France.
Yet for Bartok there was never to be more than a
momentary turning away from the essentially German tradition within which his early style had been
formed, and which represents all that Debussy
opposed in music. Rather we find in Bart6k's
mature work a radical extension and reformulation
of certain aspects of this tradition, as the composer
himself confirmed in an interview accorded to
Serge Moreux in 1939:'
Debussy's great service to music was to reawaken among all musicians an awareness of
harmony and its possibilities. In that he was just
as important as Beethoven who revealed to us the
'Reprinted in S. Moreux, Bartdk, London 1953

Piano Works

Images, Series 1
Images, Series 2
Children's Corner
Prtludes, Book 1
PrCludes, Book 2
Etudes, Book 1
Etudes, Book 2

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Vocal Works
Ariettes OubliCes
FCtes Galantes 1
FCtes Galantes I1
Proses Lyriques

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Trois Pohmes de Sttphane

MallarmC . .
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Chamber Works
String Quartet

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Sonata for Flute, Viola and

All the music of Debussy is
available from

UNITED MUSIC

PUBLISHERS LT

meaning of progressive form, and as Bach who

showed us the transcendent significance of
counterpoint . . . Now, what I a m always asking
myself is this: is it possible to make a synthesis
of these three great masters, a living synthesis
that will be valid for our own time?
This, however, is certainly an exaggeration of the
significance of Debussy's harmonic innovations for
Bartok's development. A truer picture is given by
Bartok's Autobiographical Sketch (1921)2 upon
which by its very nature we might place niost
reliance:
In 1907, at the instigation of Kodaly, I becanie
acquainted with Debussy's work, studied it
through thoroughly and was greatly surprised to
find in his work pentatonic phrases similar in
character to those contained in our peasant
music. I was sure these could be attributed to the
influence of folk music from Eastern Europe,
very likely from Russia. Similar influences can
be traced in Stravinsky's work. It seems therefore that in our age modern music has developed
along similar lines in countries geographically
remote from each other. It has becoille rejuvenated through the influence of a kind of peasant
music that has remained untouched by the
musical development of the last centuries. My
work. . . from Opus 4 onwards tried to conyey
something of the development just described.
(It is incidentally clear from this passage that he
first became acquainted with Debussy's music in
1907 and not in 1905, when he visited Paris to compete for the Prix Rubinstein, as some commentators have made out.)
Bartok clearly regarded his work (with that of
Kodaly) as an essentially independent development.
though retrospectively it could no doubt be seen to
form part of a coherent tradition with the music of
Debussy and Stravinsky. This is borne out by the
chronology of events. Bartok's first folksong expedition was made in 1905, the first collection of
arrangements, made in collaboration with Kodaly,
was published in December 1906, and Bartok himself refers to his Second Orchestral Suite o p 4
(1905-7)--completed before he knew a note of
Debussy's music-as constituting the first step in the
creation of a new musical language, through the
influence of genuine folk music. Seen in this light
the significance of Debussy for Bartok's development
tends to fade into the background.
After 1907, Bartbk apparently made a close study
of Debussy's music. Kodaly had returned from
Paris in the autumn of that year bringing back with
him a few pieces by Debussy including the Trois
chansons de France which he remembers particularly
interested B a r t t ~ k . ~In Budapest he is known t o
have purchased copies of several works by Debussy :
the Quartet (in October 1907) and between 1907 and
1911 much of the piano music including Pour Ie
piano, L'isle joyeuse, Images I and ZI, and Preludes
I.4 He also included works by Debussy in his piano
recitals. All the more surprising then that the music
lReprinted in Tempo, London 1949150. Also in Bdln BarroAAusgcwiihlte Briefe, Budapest 1963
81nformation conveyed to the present writer by Professor
Denijs Dille, Bartok Archivnm, Budapest
'Evidence obtained from invoices and the surviving contents of
Rartok's library now in the Bartok Archivum, Budapest

126

Bartok wrote during the years 1907-11 (when his

style was still far from achieving coherence and
unity) should reveal, with the exception of the first
of the Deux Images op 10 (1910), no unequivocal
sign of Debussy's influence. It is true that there are
many points of contact between the musical languages of both composers: pentatonicism, modality
and occasional whole-tone passages. But these devices are used by Bartok in an entirely personal
manner and are not at all infused with Debussy's
style as one would expect if they had been primarily
the outcome of a study of his music. This is certainly true of the First Quartet (1909) which is often
regarded as revealing signs of a Debussyan influence. It would seem more logical however to
explain such similarities as the result of an influence
common to both composers. The first movement of
this Quartet, like that of the First Violin Concerto
( 1907-8), shows Bartok in a situation akin in many
ways to that of the young Schoenberg. Folksong
provided a means of escape from what he considered to be the irnpasse of atonality on the one
hand, and the constrictions of an exhausted,
Straussian (tonal) chromaticisn~on the other.
Debussy's problem (though not posed so acutely
for a composer in the French tradition) was similar.
Although he never shared Bartok's ethnomusicolog~calattitude, there is ample evidence that he was
fascinated by music outside the immediate European heritage: folk music (not merely Russian as
Bnrtok supposed5), p l a i n ~ h a n t ,the
~ music of the
Renaissance masters and the Javanese music which
he heard at the Paris Exhibition of 1899. No doubt
the most profound stimulus of these sources was in
the creation of a new musical poetic, but from a
purely technical point of view they reveal a concept
of tonality very different from that which had prevailed in Europe since the 17th century. Instead of
the precise hierarchy of functional relationships
kkhich define 'classical' tonality we find a relative
indirierence as to function to be seen most clearly in
the music by both composers which is based exclusively on whole-tone or pentatonic scales. It is
dangerous to speak of modality since this implies a
closed system to which the music of Debussy and
Bartok cannot be confined. Nevertheless, as is almays the case with modality, there is a strong tendency in their music for tonality to be empirically
defined by a self-sufficient melody, often with the
support of long-held pedal points. Melody is n o
longer 'the surface of harmony' since the latter is
often determined by melodic structure as Bartbk
describes: 'The strange turnings of melodies in our
East European Peasant Music showed us new ways
of harmonization. . . The frequent use of the interva! of the fourth in our old melodies suggested to us
the use of chords of the fourth. . . W h a t we heard
in succession we tried to build up in a simultaneous
chord'.' Essentially there is a new freedom in the
relationship of the vertical and horizontal dimen,Sse. for instance. Lockspeiser: D e b u ~ ~ . tv l: i ~
Li/e and.WindVol
2 , p. 132 and p.259 footnote 2
OJulla d'Almendra: Les modes ~rdgoriens duns l'oeuvre de
C!:~udeDebussy, Paris 1947
-Tire Influence ofpeasant .Mu~icon Mcdern Music. Reprinted in
Tcrnpo 1949150 and in S. Moreux c p rit

Bela Bartok
PIANO MUSIC
Bartok Albums I & I1 each I 5 Four plano pleces I g/Fourteen bagatelles, opus 6 I o I l'lano method (Ed. Reschofskc ) I 5 Rhapsody, opus I ( T w o pianos) I 7 b
Scherzo ( T w o pianos) 25:Seten sketches, opus 9b 716
Ten eas) plano pleces 7 I6
The toung Rartok (orr. Dllle) Book I1 I 7 '6
Ioung people at the plan0 Kooks 1 & 11
each 7 , 6

INSTRUMENTAL
MUSIC
Bagpiper, Oboe and piano

616

An e\ening in the tillage

51Clarlnet (or 17101a) and plano

An etening in the \illage

( irr. J ~ r d d n j ~ )

Harp 4 6

For children, Violin and piano

I2

'6

(.hi.. L a t h u r c r ~ k ~ . )

For children, Cello

and piano

I 2

:b

(.lrr. Liebner)

For chiltlren, Guitar

01-

Three popular Hungarian songs

Flute and piano

6 6

Three popular Hungarian songs

6 6

Oboe and piano

POCKET SCORES
1)ances of Transyl\ania HPS 596 7
Ilungar~anplctures HPS 595 I 5 Kosruth-sqrnphonlc poem HPS 79 2
T\zo portraltu HPS 599 I 5 -

Complete cataJogues are avorlabJeJrom the

address below

Boosey & Hawkes

295 Regent Street

London W I

5 -

sions and n o longer a functional opposition as in

traditional thought.
In December 1909 Bartok made another visit to
Paris where he tried unsuccessfully to meet Debussys
(nor did the two composers meet-apparentlywhen Debussy visited Budapest in December the
following year). It is tempting to see more than
mere coincidence in the fact that immediately after
Bartok's return he should compose in the first linage
op lO--even the title is significant-a h o r k in hhich
he seems to have been momentarily captivated by
Debussy's intangible poetic horld. In certain harmonic progressions (Ex 1) and especially in the
employment of whole-tone scales (Ex 2) purely for
purposes of colour (very different from their use in
earlier works), we find the only instance in Bartok's
ceuvre of a direct adoption of Debussyan harmony.
A feature of the orchestral writing is the delicate,
blurring superimposition of orchestral effects
(tremolando. harmonics) and ornamentation (Ex 2),
' R e c o u n t e d I n S t e ~ e n s :Barroh.

rev e d 1964. p.44 /T

Hetfbn, 1910. december 5-611 este '/,a Brakor

a Vigad6 nagytermeben

Debussy Claude

FEART ROSE
hangversenyenekesn6 6s a

WALDBAUER-KERPELY
vonbsnegves larsas6s k8zrernlik6dcsevei.

MOSOR
1.

Childrens Corner.
I. Doctor gradus ad ~arnarsuan
$1.Jlmbo'6 Lullaby
111.Serenade lor the doll.
IV. The S n o w i s dancing
V. The 1110e ihephcrd.
? I . Ooll~uogp', rake-urlk.

3. Vonosnegyes.
I . Anln~ecl t r t ~decld4

Ii A s l r r v t i r ! blcn ryfhn~e.

111. ~ n d a n t liovrcmen~
l ~ ~
rxpreir.i
IW. Ti13 nloderr

Elladia r

Waldbauer-K~vpely ~ e n e ~ n , , ~ : ~ ~
Irrraib? l i n a l ~ r ~ i l li d a 9, lapom

2. Fetes galantes. (Verlaine

P. koltemenyei.)

D,

b, Fantochei.
dc lune

i~ clalr

d,

oreen

Srevrd

zungoiak~icrekerneilcf!

anchi, peart

DP. roii

Szvrra zongorak~rercten,ei~:t,
i,lokll F4zn Rose.

il En sourdlnc

I1

5. a) Pagodes.
b) Romrnage b Rameau.
c) Jardins sous la pluie.

A O o i c n d d r h r . r o n g e r l CHA$iL Pr f i b r i , r r k . . . ~ ~ d c ls?i:liid
li
2ongor#lrrrne'bdt

~aid.

Programme of a concert given by Debussy in Budapest.

The young Waldbauer-Kerpely Qunrtet were close
friends of Barfdk's; they had given the premisre o f his
First Quartet in March 1910

a method which Debussy was to develop increasingly

through the years, culminating in the extremely refined scoring of Jeux, but which is already present
in PellPas and La mer. Whether Bartok was at this
time consciously inspired by Debussy's orchestral
works (he had had a score of La mer in his possession
since February 1908): or whether he was simply
attempting to transpose into orchestral terms Debussy's impressionistic piano writing, is hard to tell.
The originality of such orchestration lies in its
exploitation of timbre: what Boulez has aptly
termed orchestration-invention; more than ever before invention and its orchestral realization are reduced to a single act of creation.
Although in later works Bartok returns in the
main to more traditional methods, examples of this
impressionistic orchestration are not wanting:
Bluebeard (some of the descriptive music following
the opening of the seven doors), Four Orchestral
Pieces op 12 (Prelude), Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (third movement), Concerto for
Orchestra (Elegy), and the Third Piano Concerto
(second movement). A more continuous application of this technique, however, occurs in The
Miraculous Mandarin which shows signs of a close
study of Debussy's orchestration. Bartok's orchestral impressionism in these works often goes even
beyond that of Debussy in its subjection of the

The Life and

Music of
Bela Bartok
by H A L S E Y S T E V E N S
2nd ed 561'It should be in every self-respecting general
library and in the hands of anyone who wants
an understanding guide to the immense riches
of Bartbk's works.' N O T E S

OXFORD
UNIVERSITY
PRESS

primary elements of music to the demands of instrumental colour. It is however important to

realize that although Bart6k is using Debussyan
principles, the harmonic flavour and timbres
actually employed (celesta, harp and piano being
frequently prominent) result in the creation of a
poetic world entirely personal to Bartok.
It is particularly strange that during the years
1907-11, when Bartok was making himself acquainted with Debussy's piano music, the sets of piano
pieces he composed (Op 6, Op 8, Op 9, the Four
Dirges, 1910 and the Allegro barbaro, 1911) reveal
almost no trace of the French composer's highly
original piano writing. These pieces tend to be
either unenterprising pianistically or to foreshadow
closely the bare, percussive writing of the later

Bartok. One might possibly detect a French influence in the second of the Two Elegies (1909) but
if so it is that of Ravel rather than Debussy. Bartok
had apparent!^ bought a copy of Gaspard shortly
before composing this piece. Occasional features of
the later piano works, such as the bravura writing
of the Studies op 18, are also slightly reminiscent of
Ravel. In his maturity Bartok created, in pieces like
the Night Music from the collection Out of Doors
and Melody in the Mist (Mikrokosmos),anequivalent
to Debussy's impressionism, but this is untypical of
Bartok's piano music as a whole. With Debussy
rhythm is frequently reduced to a continual vibration (Mouvement) or to a uniform pulse as in the
opening bars of La carh6drale engloutie, to permit,
as it were, the realization of timbre effects9 (a
favourite performance direction of Debussy is
doucemenf timbre). The opposite however is true of
Bartok, the timbre-quality of a particular chord
being placed at the service of rhythm. It is fruitful
in this respect to compare Bartok's Study in Alternating Thirds (Mikrokosmos V) with that of Debussy (Preludes 11) (Ex 3).

*
'Debussy hat mir viele Einsichte gegeben', Bartok
once remarked. Such insights especially in matters
of harmonic and tonal organization no doubt enabled Bart6k to clarify his ideas at a time when his
own language had already begun to evolve in a
similar direction. It is doubtful whether, unlike the
influence of folksong however, these insights were
decisive and there is no reason to suppose, dangerous though such speculation is, that his later development would have been essentially different had
Debussy never lived. On the other hand, Bartok's
individual impressionistic vein was almost certainly
initially inspired by Debussy's example, and the
very fact that his first adoption of this technique
coincides with his only excursion into Debussy's
harmonic territory supports this view. Nevertheless,
any attempt to define precisely the extent of Debussy's influence is clearly fraught with difficulties
since Bartok-like Debussy-showed an astonishing
ability to make entirely his own whatever he
*For a detailed appraisal of this aspect of Debussy's language
see Quelques a s p c t s de l3unii.erssonor de Debussy b y S . Jarocinski in Debussy et I'Pvolution de la nlusique au XXienle sibcle,
CNRS Paris 1965

borrowed from external sources, through the

medium of an extremely personal style. Style in this
sense is not merely a collection of technical procedures but rather a unique manner of formulation,
a way of thinking in musical terms which impinges
on the musical language as a totality.
It is in this light that we can begin to glimpse the
profound differences which underlie all the numerous correspondences we find in their work. Bartok
intensifies certain traditional procedures (though he
avoids those Paradis artiJciels of neo-classicism).
The emphasis on motivic working (which becomes
more and more thorough even to the extent of suggesting the all-pervading nature of serial technique)
and the use of pre-established formal structures
(arch forms) may be seen as an attempt to guarantee
communication in the traditional sense and as compensation for the almost complete disappearance of
a generalized system of tonal relationships existing
prior to the act of composition. The internal relationships of pitch, rhythm and timbre remain
fundamentally those of the past.
Debussy, though still apparently preserving a
traditional syntax, transforms its significance by
modifying these internal relationships; the emphasis
on sonority and timbre and the consequent weakness of harmonic function leads to an abandonment
of traditional phraseology and 'administrative'
forms which are replaced by a process of continual
renewal, mitigated only by the often remarked device of immediate repetition of short phrases. 'La
forme se compose par petites touches successives,
reliees par un lien mysterieux . . .' What Debussy
wrote of Mussorgsky is even truer of his own art. It
is of course no accident that until recently academic
analysis should have concentrated on composers like
Bartok and Hindemith for whom traditional
methods of analysis are still tenable; Debussy, on
the other hand, has been virtually ignored, since
analytical concepts derived from 19th-century music
are impotent to reveal the true nature of his innovations. Unlike Bartok, Debussy, though inaugurating a new tradition, stands outside previous tradition.
In his own words: 'J'ai travaille a eliminer tout ce
que I'on m'a appris'.

Bluebeard's Castle
(complete opera) o c t a v o score

The Wonderful Mandarin

Piano Concerto N o I
(miniature score)

Piano Concerto N o 2
(miniature score)

String Quartets Nos 2 and 3

(miniature score) e a c h

String Quartet N o 5
(miniature score)

Catalogues and further deta~lsfrom

UNIVERSAL
2 , 3 F A R E H A M S T R E E T (DEAN S T R E E T )
LONDON PI 1

Mme Ditta BartOk-Pasztory and Szigeti are among the professors at the Bartok Seminar, July 20-August 4; details.
Budapest Bureau of International Music Competitions, Budapest VI, Liszt Ferenc ter 8, Hungary.
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra comes of age on Sept 15.
An anonymous birthday gift of500 will be used to commission
a piano concerto from Richard Arnell.
Priaulx Rainier's new work for the Cheltenham Festival,
commissioned by the BBC, is Aequora Lunae (Srar of rAe
.Moon), for orchestra, percussion, and wind solos.
Elisaheth Lutyens's new work, commissioned by the BBC to
open their first Chamber Music Concert in the Elizabeth Hall,
is called and suddenly ir's evening for tenor (Robert Tear) and
members of the BBC Symphony.

WHY FLORESTAN A N D EUSEBIUS ?

by Eric Sams
And twenty more such names and men as these
Which never were. nor no man ever saw.
(Shakespeare)
What's in a name? (ibid)

For Schumann, everything was in a name, and his

own was legion. Most famous of all are Florestan
and Eusebius, the active and the passive aspects of
his own personality.
No very compelling reason for this notion, let
alone those names, has ever been suggested. A
useful device for the writing of music criticism,
perhaps? A confession of schizophrenia? Well,

Schumann's was certainly a dual nature (which may

have influenced his choice of twos as pseudonyms1);
but on the plainest evidence his duality was cycloid
rather than s c h i z o i d . V n any event it is not just
Schumann but human nature to have both introvert
and extrovert character traits. That is why the
device of related but contrasting characters is found
in fiction-which is where Schumann found it. 'In
all his works Jean-Paul3projects his own personality,
Roberf Schumann's Leben (1887) vol ii 233 et seq
& A . MEYER. Confinia psycitiatrica (1959) vol2 no 2
the novelist J. P. F. Richter (1763-1825)

'ERLER, H.

%LATER, F .