Soundtracks:
Portrait of Jennie
Nijinsky
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Prélude à l'après-midi d'un
faune Orchestral piece in one movement
Background
In 1892, Debussy began working on piece inspired by the pastoral poem
"Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun", published 15 years earlier
by Stephane Mallarme. The poem was written for a reading, and Debussy thought
about writing music that will accompany the reading. After the official
premiere was postponed, due to composer's will to improve the piece and
amend it, the work was finally performed in December 1894, in the poet's
presence. According to Debussy, the faun's flute dictated the atmosphere
of the whole piece, which he perceived as a free musical representation
of the poetry - representation affected by poetry's own vagueness and airy
nature.
Description
Faun, the mythical creature - half man, half beast (goat's horns, tail
and legs) - at dawn deep in the forest, recalls yesterday's afternoon rest.
Was he visited by Nymphs, the bright skin goddesses whose hair is golden?
Or were those mere visions of his imagination and sounds coming from his
own mind? He could not tell reality from dreams. The sun's rays caress
him with their warmth, and pleasant is also the touch of the grass underneath
him. Faun goes back to his rest, clouded by the summer heat and the noises
of the woods, he keeps weaving his dream.
About the work
The prelude (opening) begins with a musical theme played by a single
flute. This is faun. Later, the woodwinds and violins will describe, probably,
the image of the luring nymphs, desires and visions, a figment of the faun's
imagination. Throughout the entire piece, the harp gives the sensation
of hallucination and dream, as Debussy and his impressionist counterparts
did a lot, when they incorporated the harp in their work.
The poet's reaction
Debussy once described Stephane Mallarme's (the writer whose poem was
the work's basis) reaction: "after listening, he remained still for
a while, and then said: 'I didn't expect something like this. The music
stretches the emotion in the poem and presents what happens in the poem
in greater vividness than a painting would have done". On the work's
score, on the copy he received, Mallarme wrote "when the flute's melody
is played correctly, you hear all the light, when Debussy's first breath
is blown into the woods".
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