CHAMBER AND VOCAL WORKS OF CLAUDE DEBUSSY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A COMPOSING STYLE

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to reveal the compositional features of C. Debussy’s vocal work; determine the importance of chamber and vocal work in the formation of the composer’s individual style. The methodological basis. The methodology is based on a complex of methods, which includes historical-cultural (establishment of cause-and-effect connections of the evolution of C. Debussy’s work), structural-functional (assessment of the importance of chamber-vocal art in the formation of the composer’s style) and musical-performance (identification of specific features of musical statements) approaches. Other methods used include: historical-structural, comparative analysis, systematization, generalization, etc. Scientific novelty lies in the fact that the chamber-vocal work of C. Debussy, as a defining genre in the formation of the composer’s style, has not yet been the subject of a separate study, which determines the novelty of the proposed topic. Conclusions. The chamber-vocal genre played a decisive role in the formation of C. Debussy’s compositional style. All vocal works, which make up almost half of the work (more than 80 works), are written to the texts of French poets. This led to C. Debussy’s search for suitable musical means for their “voicing”. In different periods, the composer turned to the work of poets of the Parnassus school (T. Banville, P. Bourget, S. Lecomte-de-Lille, T. Gauthier, etc.), poems by symbolist poets (S. Baudelaire, S. Mallarmé, P. Louis, P. Verlaine), even French poets of the 15th century (Fr. Villon, S. Orleans, T. L’Hermita). The inconsistency of literary works in relation to his musical aspirations prompted C. Debussy to write romances based on his own prose texts (the cycle “Lyrical pros”, “Christmas of children who were left without a roof over their heads”). A special role in the formation of the individual style of C. Debussy the musician was played by the poetry of Paul Verlaine, to the texts of which the composer wrote more than 20 miniatures (including the cycles “Gallant Holidays”, “Three Verlaine Poems”, “Forgotten Ariettas”, etc.). Verlaine’s poems prompted Debussy to look for something similar for the opera libretto, which became the plot of “Pelleas and Mélisande” (based on the drama by M. Maeterlinck). The songs and romances of C. Debussy’s early period define the unusual poetics of the composer’s work and French vocal music in general, which followed the path outlined by his discoveries in the transmission of Symbolist texts. Given the innovations in the form and musical language of C. Debussy’s vocal miniatures, it was he who created a special type of national vocal recitation, opening a completely new era in the field of chamber-vocal art, and developed it in other (symphonic, operatic, instrumental) genres that he mastered in his work, starting from the 1890s.