Études

Context

In the years leading up to World War I and the composition of his Études, Debussy faced numerous challenges despite widespread recognition of his work across Europe and the United States: Pelléas et Mélisande was performed in Brussels, Berlin, Frankfurt, Milan, Munich, and New York City. Although theater directors and concert organizers invited him to present his works from 1907, his career encountered new difficulties.

The premiere of Le Martyre de saint Sébastien on 22 May 1911 was a failure. According to Jean Barraqué, "the reception was mixed" due to the "pretentiously mystical poem" by Gabriele D'Annunzio. Jeux, premiered by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes on May 15, 1913, met with "a lukewarm, even indifferent public: some applause, some boos". This same public elevated Igor Stravinsky to prominence with the scandal of The Rite of Spring, premiered two weeks after Jeux.

Critics and audiences perceived Debussy as "declining", while Maurice Ravel and Stravinsky were "rising". Although Vladimir Jankélévitch argues that "it would be wrong to think Ravel surpassed Debussy in a kind of arms race where Stravinsky then outdid him" in exploring new harmonies, the rivalry between the two French composers peaked in 1913, when Ravel composed his Trois poèmes de Mallarmé simultaneously with Debussy's Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé. Stravinsky recalled that "in 1913, Debussy and Ravel were not speaking". Jankélévitch acknowledges that "it is possible that the hardening of Debussy's late works was largely due to Ravel's influence". Debussy's personal and financial situation deteriorated sharply after the death in February 1907 of a wealthy uncle of his wife Emma Bardac, who was disinherited. The uncle, who "always disapproved of his niece's relationship with a composer who, unlike Richard Strauss, could not earn a living, let alone support his wife and daughter", bequeathed his fortune to the Pasteur Institute. Consequently, Debussy accepted all concert invitations despite his aversion to public appearances and lack of experience as a conductor.

World War I

The declaration of war on 3 August 1914 caught Debussy off guard, as he had spent the first half of the year travelling and performing incessantly to meet financial obligations. During the July Crisis, his mood swung between exaltation and despair. In a letter to a friend, he wrote of "hours when one sees little but suicide as an escape", revealing his seemingly depressive state:

For a long time – I must admit! – I am lost, I feel utterly diminished! Ah! The magician you loved in me, where is he? He's now just a sullen conjurer who will soon break his back in a final, graceless pirouette.

The outbreak of hostilities silenced his musical activities. In a letter to his publisher Durand on August 8, he described himself as "a poor atom swept up in this terrible cataclysm. What I do seems so miserably small! I end up envying Erik Satie, who is seriously preparing to defend Paris as a corporal". Until the end of 1914, Debussy remained inactive. His depression worsened as the war continued, contrary to his hopes for a resolution by Christmas. His correspondence reflects a chauvinism criticized by biographers. On March 11, 1915, he published a patriotic article in L'Intransigeant titled "Enfin, seuls !..." comparing France and the German Empire musically:

Since Rameau, we have had no distinctly French tradition. His death broke the thread of Ariadne guiding us through the labyrinth of the past. Since then, we stopped tending our garden but shook hands with traveling salesmen from around the world. We listened respectfully to their pitches and bought their wares. We were ashamed of our most precious qualities when they smirked at them. We apologized to the universe for our taste for light clarity and sang a chorale to the glory of depth. We adopted writing techniques contrary to our spirit, excesses of language least compatible with our thought; we endured orchestral overloads, tortured forms, gross luxury, and garish colors ...

1915

In early 1915, Debussy worked on a new edition of Chopin's works for Éditions Durand, letter from Debussy to Jacques Durand, January 27, 1915. With German editions withdrawn due to the war, he contributed to an original publication, consulting the manuscript of Chopin's Second Ballade in F major, Op. 38, owned by Camille Saint-Saëns.

This editorial work prompted deep reflection on pianistic technique, distracting him from his progressing rectal cancer, diagnosed in 1909, which worsened to the point where doctors recommended surgery while acknowledging its terminal nature.

The death of his mother on 23 March 1915 deeply affected him. He discussed the meaning of death in letters to friends, including Paul Dukas, Gabriel Fauré, Gabriel Pierné, and the young composer Edgard Varèse, mobilized to the École de guerre in April.

Amid external and internal struggles, Debussy emerged from silence with bold aesthetic choices. Signed "Claude Debussy, French musician", his upcoming works were, per Gilles Macassar and Benoit Mérigaud, "war works in every sense: wartime compositions, economical, rationed, concentrating their means and condensing their effects", fulfilling a vision from 1908, when he told Harper's Weekly:

I have never understood why all music students and countries seeking original schools should rely on a German foundation. It will take France countless years to escape this influence, and when looking at original French composers like Rameau, Couperin, Daquin, and others of their time, one can only regret that foreign spirit imposed itself on what could have been a great school.

Composition

The twelve Études are among Debussy's final works, composed in 1915. Ill and staying in Pourville, Normandy, letter from Debussy to Jacques Durand, 14 July 1915., he found temporary vitality. Marguerite Long, in her memoir Au piano avec Claude Debussy, recalls how

after a dreadful period of depression and "nothingness", the summer of 1915 revitalized him in what he called his vital element, the sea. He added, "I mean the infinite sea." He regained the ability to think and work. The Études were born, becoming his final message to his instrument.

Debussy composed the two-piano suite En blanc et noir in June–July, the Sonata for Cello and Piano in late July–early August, and the Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp in late September–early October. These works share, per Harry Halbreich, "a similar inspiration and aesthetic". The Études were composed between the two Sonatas, at the explicit request of Jacques Durand, who provided a pension and sought new music in return, from 5 August to 29 September 1915. Composer and pianist André Boucourechliev reflects:

Reading the score, playing it (however imperfectly), listening endlessly, one tries to imagine this ailing man, at the end of his strength, dreaming and creating these sounds at some wretched table in Pourville... Herculean strength of that other self soaring above the daily self.

Debussy's correspondence dates specific pieces, such as the étude Pour les agréments (August 12) and Pour les sixtes (August 22, his fifty-third birthday). Musicologist Heinrich Strobel describes him as "seized by a true creative frenzy". On September 30, Debussy wrote to Durand:

Last night at midnight, I copied the final note of the Études... Phew! The most meticulous Japanese print is child's play compared to the graphics of some pages, but I'm pleased, it's good work.

On 7 December 1915, Debussy underwent surgery for his cancer, severely weakening him, letter from Debussy to Jacques Durand, 26 December 1915. Jean Barraqué notes that "it is symptomatic of his patriotic fervor that his rare public appearances in his final years were at concerts for war charities". Durand published the two books of Études in 1916, letter from Debussy to Jacques Durand, 9 February 1916.

Overview

According to Jean Barraqué, the two books address distinct aspects of pianistic technique: "The first book focuses on digital mechanics. The second volume proposes – and this represents an original contribution to the literature of this form – a study of sonorities and timbres", resulting, in his words, in a "true auditory anthology". André Boucourechliev offers a more nuanced perspective:

The first six Études are less about a true pianistic problem, presumed to be already mastered, than about a freely chosen principle or framework, ensuring a certain unity to their fragmented forms. One might even wonder if the title Études is not a ruse de guerre: it neutralizes the risk of excessive fragmentation under the pretext of a technical purpose.

Book I

"Pour les cinq doigts" (For the five fingers), after Mr. Czerny

"Pour les tierces" (For thirds)

"Pour les quartes" (For fourths)

"Pour les sixtes" (For sixths)

"Pour les octaves" (For octaves)

"Pour les huit doigts" (For eight fingers)

Book II

"Pour les degrés chromatiques" (For chromatic steps)

"Pour les agréments" (For ornaments)

"Pour les notes répétées" (For repeated notes)

"Pour les sonorités opposées" (For opposing sonorities)

"Pour les arpèges composés" (For composite arpeggios)

"Pour les accords" (For chords)

References and form

Debussy's Études are firmly rooted in a musical tradition shaped by considerations of pianistic technique. According to Jean Barraqué, "the studies intended for student practice could intimidate when composed by the finger gymnasts of the 19th century. But Chopin and Liszt lent admirable musical nobility to a genre meant for pedagogy. Debussy embraces this lineage".

Closer to Chopin's Twenty-four Études than Liszt's Transcendental Études in their effort to "soften the hammers of the piano", Debussy's Études present formidable technical challenges while remaining thoroughly musical. In letters to his publisher, the composer stated that "these Études conceal rigorous technique beneath harmonic blossoms". On September 27, 1915, he added that "beyond technique, these Études will usefully prepare pianists to better understand that one should not approach music solely with formidable hands".

However, musicologists agree that "Debussy adheres to the rules of the game". Like his predecessors, he assigns each étude a specific challenge: "this purpose is upheld, explored, and executed with supreme acrobatics", with the second book addressing "not an interval or pianistic case, but a broader situation. More risk, more invention, more genius. Less pedagogy, more freedom". According to pianist Paul Crossley, Debussy "almost rediscovers, reinvents: the character, emotion, and sonority of these pieces are unlike any other in the pianistic literature, including, curiously, Debussy's other works".

Antoine Goléa suggests that "upon reflection, this approach seems curious and, in reality, adheres little to pianistic technique considerations". However, for Alfred Cortot,

from each of these dry academic arguments, Debussy extracts such a diversity of effects, so ingeniously employs the musicality of these interval sequences or deliberately identical formulas, and develops them with such independent writing and a keen sense of the piano's natural poetry that, far from seeming to solve a specific problem, these études, one after another, give the impression of translating, without rigidity, an inspiration that could find no more natural mode of expression.

Around the Études

Dedication

The Études are dedicated to the memory of Frédéric Chopin – "at least theoretically", notes André Boucourechliev, as "the dedication to the Pole was omitted in the published edition". Debussy initially considered François Couperin, finding in these Études "the spirit of Baroque dance", according to pianist Philippe Cassard. On August 15, he shared his hesitation with his publisher: "I have as much respectful gratitude for one as for the other of these two admirable masters, such marvelous diviners". Thus, it was, according to the composer, "not without some apprehension" that the twelve pieces were published in homage to Chopin, with Debussy fearing unfavorable comparisons.

According to Émile Vuillermoz, "these are pages of high technical and pedagogical value, but, like Chopin's Études, they are masterpieces of absolute music". André Boucourechliev argues that these twelve Études "have little to do with the famous Twenty-four, for while each is devoted to a specific pianistic situation, they do not provide practice material for pianists. As much as Chopin's are essential for progress, Debussy's are aimed at an accomplished musician, summarizing all they know or are presumed to know". Heinrich Strobel emphasizes that the technical aspect of the challenges posed by the Études "stands out more clearly than in Chopin. Despite their shared nature, this reflects the difference in eras and generations".

In her memoirs, Marguerite Long attests to Debussy's great admiration for Chopin's music and confirms that, rather than Couperin, he chose to dedicate the work to him:

Chopin is the greatest of all, he repeated, for with a single piano, he discovered everything !

Comparing the Études of Chopin and Debussy, Philippe Cassard identifies "technical difficulties just as numerous and sadistic, revolving around instrumental idioms (thirds, octaves, repeated notes, etc.) but never ostentatious, requiring more agility and reflexes than power and exhibitionism".

Philosopher and musicologist Vladimir Jankélévitch views the necessity of the Études project differently, responding to "the essentially innovative vocation of Debussy's music. There is in Debussy a desire not to retrace his steps, never to rely on the past, to avoid precisely the expected or predictable": "This resolve never to imitate himself and to defy expectations undoubtedly explains the disconcerting and profoundly nonconformist language of Ibéria and the Douze Études".

Preface

The printed edition is preceded by an "amusing foreword, where Debussy, with his usual irony and taste for paradox, justifies – per Harry Halbreich – not including fingerings":

A few words...

Intentionally, these Études contain no fingering, and here is briefly the reason:

Imposing a fingering cannot logically adapt to the different conformations of the hand. Modern pianistic practice has sought to resolve this by superimposing several fingerings; this only creates confusion... The music takes on the appearance of a strange operation where, by an inexplicable phenomenon, the fingers would need to multiply...

The case of Mozart, a precocious harpsichordist who, unable to reach the notes of a chord, reportedly used the tip of his nose, does not resolve the issue and may be due to the imagination of an overzealous compilerThe anecdote about Mozart's nose is recounted differently by Nicolas Slonimsky in his Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes, while acknowledging it lacks precise corroboration:

Our old Masters, – I mean "our" admirable harpsichordists – never indicated fingerings, likely trusting in the ingenuity of their contemporaries. To doubt that of modern virtuosos would be improper.

In conclusion: the absence of fingering is an excellent exercise, it curbs the contrarian spirit that drives us to ignore the composer's fingering, and it verifies the eternal saying: "One is never better served than by oneself."

Let us find our own fingerings!

C.D.

These final words inspire Vladimir Jankélévitch to comment:

Let us find our own fingerings! writes Debussy at the start of his Douze Études for piano. This amounts to saying: figure it out! Do what you can. There are no taboos... Everything is permitted, as long as a new music is at stake, as a new message is delivered.

Commented Études

According to Jean Barraqué, "in terms of pianistic technique, the Préludes and Images innovate far less than the Études". This final collection has prompted numerous commentaries, beyond biographies or monographs dedicated to Claude Debussy, before becoming the subject of more in-depth studies.

Book I

Vladimir Jankélévitch comments on the "abruptness" of these opening measures: "an explosion of violence". The first étude, Pour les cinq doigts, begins "quite properly, as if 'at 9 o'clock in the morning', as Erik Satie might say, the hour when model little girls practice their scales on the white keys.

"What is this impertinent and indiscreet A-flat that suddenly jars and insists brazenly, impatiently, beneath the five notes in C major? It's the genius of the spelling mistake and the inkblot that derailed the pensum". Marguerite Long, working on this étude with the composer, notes the "mockery" of the opening measures where the right hand plucks the A-flat "like a fingernail, like a guitar pick, a way of 'plucking' that made the Master say, with a glint of amusement in his eyes: – Gotcha!"

Thus, Harry Halbreich considers that

this ironic homage to the old master of piano mechanics – written without leaps or thumb passages – possesses the carefree humor of Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum. In the first piece of the collection titled Children's Corner (1908), Debussy alludes to the Gradus ad Parnassum (Stairway to Parnassus) by Muzio Clementi, another classic master for beginner pianists.. The five initial notes of the C major scale are "pricked" with irreverent dissonances. Czerny keeps trying to reassert himself, only to be disrupted by Debussy's capricious sarcasms: we quickly abandon the proper and bland school exercise for a dazzling scherzo (animé, gigue movement, 616), whose nonchalance does not exclude the hint of bitterness characteristic of the late Debussy

Christian Goubault first notes the "continuous writing of thirds, predominantly in the right hand, very different from that of the prelude Les Tierces alternées", which in 1912 was "an étude in all but name". In this renewed context, André Boucourechliev admires "the rigor of the writing: not a single sound in the main voice that isn't or doesn't contain a third". The third, representing, in his view, "the quintessential tonal interval", this étude reveals "a nostalgic and languorous Debussy, the soft consonances of thirds in D-flat major lending themselves to these romantic effusions":

The expression gradually intensifies, reaching "a passionate outburst, almost Brahmsian, con fuoco, abruptly cut off by the merciless conclusion in B-flat minor". Harry Halbreich also notes that "the uncompromising requirement of legato e sostenuto makes the piece particularly demanding for the performer". Vladimir Jankélévitch comments on this progression:

Book II

This étude, "technically and musically quite close to the previous one", according to Harry Halbreich, combines "a stubborn, well-defined theme with a swirling swarm of triplet sixteenth notes in chromatic groups, in a totally free, fairy-like universe, neither tonal, nor modal, nor atonal. The questioning ending is a 'perhaps' open to infinite possibilities". Roland de Candé suggests "it can be described as 'pantonale', where the ear should not distinguish each note but perceive a continuous sonic movement without tonal polarity".

Vladimir Jankélévitch links the "chromaticism of this seventh étude to the Épigraphes antiques: does it not, in its way, give thanks to the morning rain?" – the melody "emerging from a kind of sonic silence":

For Guy Sacre, "it anticipates the impalpable rustlings, wing flutters, and elytra sounds that Bartók would fill his night music". André Boucourechliev emphasizes the extreme difficulty of performing this étude. When the left hand "ventures to play triplet sixteenth notes itself, it creates a rupture and problems for the pianist":

Of this étude, Debussy said it "borrows the form of a barcarolle on a somewhat Italian sea". André Boucourechliev sees it as

one of the most complex attempts at compartmentalized and discontinuous forms: nothing lasts here, neither a sound (broken, mimicking an ornament), nor the types of structures, nor the rhythms – it is one of Debussy's richest works in this regard.

Harry Halbreich also notes "the rhythmic and agogic structure, of extraordinary flexibility, within a very slow 68, while the tonality of F major remains fairly perceptible" at the beginning and end of the piece. Among the enchantments of a writing where melody and rhythm "are instantly replaced by a new idea", André Boucourechliev highlights two measures where "bursts of timbral perfumes emerge, with superimposed irrational rhythms":

For Harry Halbreich, the technical difficulties peak in the two following measures in 58, with their rapid parallel chords in the right hand:

Premiere

Uncertainty surrounds the premiere of the Études: when and in what context were they first performed publicly? Works dedicated to Debussy state that the Douze Études were premiered on 14 December 1916 in Paris, by the pianist Walter Rummel. André Boucourechliev is highly critical of this performer, stating: "to know that the work was premiered by Walter Rummel in 1916 is to evoke a massacre...". Edward Lockspeiser disagrees, attributing to this pianist, from a lineage of German musicians, "a sense of French piano music comparable to that of Gieseking". Debussy himself held Rummel in high esteem, considering him a "prince of virtuosos". However, due to the war, the Guide du Concert was not printed, and the details of this concert's program remain unknown.

The uncertainty is compounded by confusion, as in his comprehensive chronological work Music since 1900, the meticulous musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky omits mention of Walter Rummel's concert and suggests 10 November 1915 as the premiere date for the Études, performed by Marguerite Long at the Société nationale de musique.

However, in her memoirs, Marguerite Long states that she only worked on the Études with Debussy in 1917 and mentions regarding this concert:

As the S.M.I. had done in the spring, the S.N.M. reopened its doors. On November 10, alongside another great French work, I performed in premiere a group of Debussy's Études (in this order: No. 11 Pour les arpèges composés, No. 10 Pour les sonorités opposées, No. 1 Pour les cinq doigts).

There should be no doubt about the year – though not explicitly stated – of this concert, as the pianist refers to this event after mentioning "the tragic October 1917" when the composer's condition worsened abruptly.

Marguerite Long nonetheless writes that she performed these three études "in premiere" on November 10, 1917, and Nicolas Slonimsky reports this concert as a complete presentation of the Études. However, études Nos. 10 and 11 had already been publicly performed by the American pianist George Copeland on November 21, 1916, at Aeolian Hall in New York.

The composer's correspondence resolves in favor of the concert on December 14, 1916, providing a detail overlooked by his biographers: on November 26, 1916, Debussy congratulated Walter Rummel for his initiative in presenting Four Études in a concert benefiting the Aide affectueuse aux musiciens, an association the pianist had founded in October 1915 with his wife, daughter of the Barbizon school painter Ferdinand Chaigneau. This would thus be another partial premiere of the Études, in the fashionable setting of the Parisian salon of Countess Orlowski.

Performance

In a letter dated 1 September 1915 to his publisher, Debussy declares:

I could play you these Études that frighten your fingers. Be assured that mine sometimes pause before certain passages. I need to catch my breath as if after a climb... In truth, this music soars at the peaks of performance – there will be fine records to set.

However, his health deteriorated rapidly. On April 29, 1917, in a letter to Gabriel Fauré, the composer admitted that he gave up performing this score because he no longer knew "how to play the piano well enough to risk performing my Études. In public, I'm struck by a peculiar phobia: there are too many keys; I don't have enough fingers; and suddenly, I no longer know where the pedals are! It's sad and utterly distressing."

According to Harry Halbreich, "despite its robustness", particularly aggressive in the étude Pour les accords, "this music demands from the performer a particular elegance and an elasticity that is very difficult to achieve". Marie Duchêne-Thégarid and Diane Fanjul have explored this aspect of the composer's legacy:

At his death, Debussy left his pianistic oeuvre in the hands of renowned performers who, on stage, could convey to audiences an interpretation authorized – at least in part – by the composer. But neither Walter Rummel, nor George Copeland, nor Ricardo Viñes, nor Élie Robert Schmitz, nor Maurice Dumesnil were led to teach their expertise at the Conservatoire.

Thus, "Marguerite Long, whose relationship with Debussy is now viewed with circumspection, was for a long time one of the few performers and pedagogues" bridging the concert hall and the classroom. She recounts in her memoirs the audience's astonishment:

At the concert, as soon as I began the do-re-mi-fa-sol-fa-mi-re-do of the piece Pour les cinq doigts, a lady in the audience, resistant to its spirit and perhaps recalling the tedious 'scales' of her youth, exclaimed in shock:

– Really! If it weren't signed Debussy!

Legacy

In concluding his correspondence with Jacques Durand about the Études, Debussy confides briefly:

I put a lot of love and a lot of faith in the future of the Études. I hope they will please you, both for the music and for their purpose.

According to Émile Vuillermoz,

Debussy, always inclined to modestly conceal his intimate feelings behind a mask of irony, said of these dazzling achievements: "They represent the thousand ways to treat pianists as they deserve!" But, in reality, he was secretly satisfied with them.

The pianist Jan Michiels regrets that "the Études remain even today in the shadow of the Préludes and Images, which are far more frequently performed: even Alfred Cortot, in his comprehensive work on French Piano Music, devotes only a few paragraphs to the cycle. Yet these twelve pieces constitute a pivotal moment in the history of music" and the culmination of his piano oeuvre, according to Antoine Goléa, who considers them "masterpieces of new music due to their complete formal freedom, rhythmic fantasy, and prodigious harmonic invention at every moment".

In his article for the special issue of La Revue musicale dedicated to Debussy in 1920, Alfred Cortot devotes barely a page to the Études, compared to five pages of commentary on the Préludes. Recognizing in the composer's final piano collection, "with combinations already familiar from earlier works and where Debussy's personality is so characteristically inscribed, an unsuspected range of pianistic sensations all the more striking and original because the succession of a literary idea no longer explains or mitigates their audacious novelty", the pianist suggests that the musical and technical quality of the work, "where the principles of modern virtuosity are affirmed under the aegis of a great name, may suffice to earn Debussy, in the gratitude of tomorrow's piano teachers, a place whose exceptional didactic importance his finest and most ironic humor would surely not have anticipated".

Criticism

According to Harry Halbreich, "like all of Debussy's late works, the Études were long considered products of a declining imagination, where pure cerebral abstraction failed to compensate for the impoverishment due to age and illness". The correspondence of Maurice Emmanuel sheds light on the disaffection toward the 1915 piano pieces with a diametrically opposed argument, where it is not the drying up of imagination but its overflow that is at issue. Committed to defending the work and memory of the composer of Pelléas et Mélisande against Saint-Saëns, who argued that "the pursuit of originality leads only to the baroque"; the old classical master adding that "one gets used to everything, to filth, even to crime, but there are precisely things one must not get used to" and concluding that "Debussy did not create a style: he cultivated the absence of style, logic, and common sense. But he had a harmonious name. If he had been called Martin, no one would have ever spoken of him, letter from Camille Saint-Saëns to Maurice Emmanuel, August 4, 1920."

Maurice Emmanuel acknowledges in his response: I do not claim that his language or style are beyond all criticism. I immensely enjoy many of his subtle works, but there are some, especially among the last ones, where the composer, perhaps fearing to be outdone, pushes himself to extremes and overshoots his original aim: those, I do not like; I do not understand them. And I concede to you, among others, the duos Blanc et Noir.

Annette Becker analyzes the mutual animosity between Saint-Saëns and Debussy during the war:

Saint-Saëns calls him a cubist "capable of atrocities" upon the publication of En blanc et noir. If this music is unbearable to Saint-Saëns, it can only be of German Kultur, responsible for cultural atrocities, kubist in a word, based on the belief that the pictorial invention of the Spaniard Picasso and the Frenchman Braque bore the abject nationality of their dealer Kahnweiler. In reality, Saint-Saëns had long been tracking modernist tendencies in Debussy, and the war reignited this front despite a façade of sacred union for pure French music.

André Suarès justifies this misunderstanding by contemporaries: "they saw in it a game of rare form. The extreme boldness of the harmony misled them about the sentiments: here, the cruel perfume of the flower misleads the musician who breathes it. He no longer discerns the nature of the plant, and its beauty escapes him." However, a new critical orientation emerged in 1915.

Recognition

Of the three hypotheses proposed by Antoine Goléa – formless music, incoherent music, music of a sick man – hypotheses:

that, with their air of certainty, take on the appearance of accusations, only the third is accurate – but accurate not in the primary sense that would deny the sick Debussy any power of invention and composition, but in the subtler and only true sense, where complete freedom, the total and constant unpredictability of form, are, in all of Debussy's late works, the sign of the inner liberation of the man and the creator from the contingencies of a life from which he feels himself irrevocably slipping away.

Vladimir Jankélévitch also considers that "Debussy is so great, so ingenious that he was able to anticipate anti-Debussyism: the marvelous and harsh steel mechanisms of the Épigraphes antiques and the Douze Études react, before Les Six did, against impressionism". Anthony Girard is similarly struck: "With the Douze Études, one measures the distance Debussy took from Debussy himself". The final piano collection, "by renouncing the Images, the Estampes, all that intensely poetic figuration that served as the framework for many works, from Jeux de vagues to Parfums de la nuit", embodies "this victory over Debussyism, over the weight of an originality too strong, generating epigones".

"Debussy enters his era of effacement", in the words of Jean Barraqué, at least in France – for "the odious musical milieu of the interwar period", which André Boucourechliev criticizes as the "pseudo-avant-garde of the Six, with their remarkably impoverished language, led by that trickster called Cocteau"; "as the situation was quite different in Europe". In Germany, the musicologist Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt, a specialist in Schönberg, presents Debussy as "the first radical composer of the new musical era". In Hungary, Béla Bartók, who performed the entirety of Debussy's Préludes in a single concert, declared that "Debussy is the greatest musician of the 20th century". In France, however, Paul Landormy only briefly mentions the Études without listing their titles or commenting on them in his history of French Music (from Franck to Debussy) in 1943.

After World War II, in his analysis of the introduction to Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps for his composition course at the Conservatoire, Olivier Messiaen specifies that "Debussy, who was its champion, extends rhythmic irrationality to a new conception of form in scores such as the piano Études or Jeux". In 1948, Guy Ferchault offers a positive judgment on the work:

Influence

In a radio interview on 13 December 1953, titled Mind over Music, Edgard Varèse notes, starting with Jeux, "a certain surface hardness, a more austere atmosphere, a higher tension than in any of his previous works". He believes that "Debussy sensed the changing pulse of his era, and I am sure that, had he not been incurably ill, we would have witnessed a new orientation in his music". Heinrich Strobel confirms this new direction regarding the Études: "Whether approached from the perspective of technique or composition, one is astonished by the novelty of spirit that reigns in them".

Vladimir Jankélévitch specifies that "Debussy is not alone", mentioning the études composed around the same time by Roger-Ducasse, whose titles recall those of Debussy: Étude en sol dièse mineur with repeated notes (1914), Quatre études (1915), Étude en la bémol majeur and Étude en sixtes (1916), Rythmes (1917), Sonorités (1918). This composer, "the cherished student of Fauré", was a close friend of Debussy and an excellent pianist, to the point of premiering the suite En blanc et noir in a duet with him on December 21, 1916. The Études he composed were premiered by Marguerite Long on May 7, 1917, and enthusiastically praised by Debussy: "I heard your Études, so difficult, for which Marguerite Long's fingers multiplied!" Guy Sacre notes, however, that "unlike Debussy's contemporary étude in G-flat major, for sixths, it chooses the brilliance of color and the radiance of sonority".

According to Edward Lockspeiser, "the prelude of Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin evokes the first of the Douze Études". Jan Michiels notes that Paul Dukas alludes to the étude Pour les sixtes and to the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune in La plainte, au loin, du faune... from the Tombeau de Claude Debussy commissioned by La Revue musicale in 1920. Among French composers of the second half of the 20th century, Olivier Messiaen focuses "as much on instrumental writing as on compositional theory" in his Quatre études de rythme (1950) and André Boucourechliev pays homage to the étude Pour les quartes in his Six Études d'après Piranèse (1975). For this generation of musicians, Debussy's Études represent "a laboratory of composition, a place of exploration".

Roland de Candé highlights in "this visionary masterpiece" of the Études "an extraordinary subtlety of rhythms and timbres, with gradations of intensities and attacks, far ahead of its time. Debussy invents everything: this music is foreign to any pre-existing principle. Tonal harmony is surpassed: only its shadow, its symbol, remains. The pianistic technique creates a new world, anticipating the research after 1950 and even serving as its inaugural step".

Analysis

Pierre Boulez seeks to analyze the Études in great detail, without separating them from Debussy's piano oeuvre and highlighting their connections with his other works:

There was much to say; the Études were neglected and underestimated, and I wanted to give them their full value: they are, in my eyes, very important, not only for piano writing but for musical conception. And it is one of the works Debussy cared about most.

Antoine Goléa believes that,

for Debussy, technical questions were mere pretexts. What interested him were three orders of purely musical structural problems:

the problem of certain harmonic structures, completely foreign to tonal structures, of which the étude Pour les quartes offers the most accomplished example;

the problem of timbres, particularly evident in the étude Pour les sonorités opposées;

finally, the problem of the freedom of form, the greatest of Debussy's musical concerns.

Harmonic structures

André Boucourechliev considers that the first étude, Pour les cinq doigts, "immediately reveals the technique of ruptures. All the material derives from the five notes of the diatonic scale. It becomes clear that do-ré-mi-fa-sol is not 'the theme' – there is no theme – but the program of the work, which gives it its coherence. As for tonality, it is severely tested, and this, far from any chromaticism. Barely is a tonality stated before we find ourselves in another, in none, or in a recall. Harmonically, it's a game of cat and mouse":

Edward Lockspeiser emphasizes the importance of "the diminished seventh chord, which has the particular property of being a pivotal, modulating chord, capable of branching into one of eight tonalities (four major and four minor). However, if this chord is not used to modulate to another key but is linked to other seventh chords in succession, it creates a sense of continuous suspense":

Across the Études, Vladimir Jankélévitch marvels at "this magical power to evoke immensity through an infinitesimal fracture of harmony":

Here, bitonality grates and dissonates fiercely; here, the false note wounds and tears; here, the violence is a bite and a scratch!

Analyzing the relationships between chords in greater detail, the musicologist observes an "alternation, in the étude Pour les sonorités opposées, between the two keys of A-flat major and E major. Yet, this étude reveals clearings in C major that unexpectedly pierce the general tonality":

From a dual musicological and philosophical perspective, this polytonality "poetically expresses the coexistence and copresence of all creatures and creates a harmonic atmosphere where chords, captured in their evanescent state, vibrate and shimmer with divine ambiguity".

Sonorities

According to Jan Michiels, the titles of the Études "confirm that Debussy does not use catalysts external to pure music, as in La Mer, the Images, or even the Préludes, where descriptive titles only appear after the final double bar. Pure sound, a single interval, a particular texture, a specific pianistic gesture are the only references on which the composer builds his Études".

In the étude Pour les quartes, Frank Dowe associates the piano's sonorities with "effects of gamelan". Guy Sacre sees in this piece "the most harmonious of sonic objects, carrying a thousand reminiscences that blend seamlessly: Javanese gamelan, Andalusian scale, medieval modes..". For Christian Goubault, "the music fades into silence and the sky, not without having plumbed the depths of muted chords of stacked fourths on which fragments of the arabesque are articulated". In the étude Pour les agréments, "there are no trills, no grupetto. The interest lies elsewhere, in vibrant sonorities, in timbres". From the first étude, Pour les cinq doigts, "Debussy offers a kaleidoscope of colors through flats (C-flat major, E-flat major, A-flat major) within the general key of C major". And, by "a taste for paradox, the tonality of C major is boldly affirmed (mes.53)" in the étude Pour les degrés chromatiques.

According to Didier Guigue, "more than a chord in C-sharp minor", the final chord of the étude Pour les sonorités opposées constitutes "a sonic object endowed with essential functional qualities inherent to its final position, within the framework of a closed form": "more than ever before in his work or in the history of music, Debussy experiments here with the formal power of sound against that of the note".

Edward Lockspeiser considers the "distant" effects in Debussy's work: "this idea of a scene played at a distance is found at the end of Une soirée dans Grenade, and again in the central part of the last piano étude, Pour les accords. Distance, space, and light are suggested in the broad textures of Brouillards and La Terrasse des audiences du clair de lune (Nos. 1 and 7 of the second book of Préludes) and the étude Pour les sonorités opposées."

Vladimir Jankélévitch devoted significant work to Debussy's musical aesthetic, where "everywhere the distant beckons to the distant" – from the "languid distances of the étude ''Pour les quartes'"" to the "mysterious distances of the étude ''Pour les degrés chromatiques''" or, in the étude Pour les accords, the "furtive and anxious staccatos in the low register" evoking "the shadow of Golaud lurking in the distance like a threat". The philosopher and musicologist suggests that "sometimes, the effect of distance results from the harmony itself and the relationship of tonalities. Naturals, generating contrasting illuminations, naturalize the flattened traits of the étude Pour les huit doigts and alternate the glissando on the black keys with the glissando on the white keys":

Free forms

Christian Goubault has taken a particular interest in the form of Debussy's Études. Considering only their structure, the twelve pieces initially evoke the spirit of the toccata, with a freedom in development close to improvisation. The most common formal model can be noted as A–B–A′, clearly identifiable in the études Pour les tierces, Pour les sixtes, Pour les octaves, Pour les notes répétées, Pour les arpèges composés, and Pour les accords, even if this pattern is "treated differently each time" and sometimes "in a more veiled or ambiguous form".

Anthony Girard interprets this general A–B–A′ structure as a "varied strophic form, but the idea of a form proceeding by successive waves seems more pertinent", especially if one aims to "highlight the dynamic plan in relation to the tonal and thematic plan". It is then possible to consider a true "dynamic form" where the forte and fortissimo represent the culmination of tension beyond mere color effects. The following table provides, as examples, the structure of the ninth and eleventh études:

According to Roy Howat, "from a formal perspective", the "rediscovered" version of the étude Pour les arpèges composés "From a formal point of view, this etude has virtually nothing in common with the published version; the latter is in clear ternary form with a coda recalling the central episode (the most characteristic form found in Debussy's piano works), while the earlier version is more difficult to define in conventional terms".

Pierre Boulez identifies a "circular form, or more precisely that of a scherzo with two trios", in the étude Pour les notes répétées: while recalling "the thematic introduction of certain sonatas by Beethoven, the first eight measures evoke the progressive focusing of a primary figure. The elements appear in the order that will be fixed in the figure but are incomplete, unstable, interspersed with pauses, and lacking clear direction". The following table delineates "the segments where the true processes occur":

Musicologists agree on defining this form as A–B–A′ rather than the traditional A–B–A. Sylveline Bourion analyzes in greater detail the technique developed by Debussy in his Études "to gradually but surely slide the material toward the breaking point" through a process of duplication, far removed from classical or Franckist principles. In the étude Pour les sixtes, for example, duplication occurs from one measure to the next "by rhythmic modification of the second beat, which leads to a slowing down, a softening of the articulation":

Aesthetic perspectives

In his Études – "the supreme culmination of Debussy's piano writing" according to Harry Halbreich – the composer, "who sublimates his own language into a classicism broadly open to the future, achieves, despite this spareness, or rather because of it, the most sovereign freedom of language and expression. Here we find his most brilliantly revolutionary intuitions, the ones most pregnant with the future. The subsequent evolution of piano music is unthinkable without their example".

The Études belong to this tradition, which, according to Marguerite Long, "sum up twenty years of research and all of Debussy's characteristic technique?". In light of the pianistic tradition "of the great masters he deeply admired, Bach, Liszt, and Chopin", the formal language of this work appears all the more original as each piece is composed "of continuity in constant ruptures".

In his analysis of the Études, André Boucourechliev emphasizes this point: "Chopin is contradicted at every moment. Looking back through history, one stops at Beethoven, and even more at Gesualdo, that prince of continuous discontinuity...". According to him, Debussy's antecedents "are not Franck or Mussorgsky, but the anonymous composers of the Middle Ages, Monteverdi, and Gesualdo".

Harry Halbreich adopts the same perspective, seeing in Debussy "a liberator, as only Claudio Monteverdi had been before him". Marguerite Long confirms this link forged by Debussy between the Baroque aesthetic and the postmodern perspectives of the 20th century, based on her personal recollections:

Like Monteverdi, the musician employs the special alchemy invoked for the Études. It is now up to him to direct the beacons of intelligence and sensuality toward the mysteries of an art he adores.

Didier Guigue considers:

in this extremely singular and innovative project that is the Douze Études, whose musical interest took time to be recognized, Debussy ventures into then-unexplored territory, the importance of which we now know for the evolution of musical aesthetics in our century.

Editions

Claude Debussy, Études – Book I, Durand & Cie Publishers, Paris, 1916 (D.&F. 9406)

Claude Debussy, Études – Book II, Durand & Cie Publishers, Paris, 1916 (D.&F. 9407)

Non-French editions

Claude Debussy, Études, Peters, Leipzig, 1970, (ed. E. Klemm)

Claude Debussy, Études, Peters, London-Frankfurt, 1975, (ed. H. Swarsenski)

Debussy, Claude (1998). Kocses, Zoltán (ed.). 12 Études. K 247. Budapest: Könemann. OCLC 43047898.

Claude Debussy, Étude retrouvée, Theodore Presser, Bryn Mawr, New York, 1980 (ed. R. Howat)

Claude Debussy, Études, Schott, 2016 OCLC 949951220