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How do you explain this development?
P. B.
: I gradually became aware of Debussy’s dark side, something I didn’t see when I
was younger. An underlying angst is always present. In
Ce qu’à vu le vent d’ouest
, this
anxiety is trulyexplosive.Masques is alsoaverydarkwork.Despas sur laneigeoffers
another striking example. But I realized that the much more luminous works also
have an underlying distress that sometimes just surfaces, like a bubble rising from
the depths that ripples over the surface of the water. I started to question myself,
to try to understand why it affected me so much, and I understood that Debussy’s
marvelous vision of nature, light, wind and themovement of clouds contained this
anxiety, as it held an awareness of the fleeting nature and impermanence of things.
All is fragile, everything ends; and each one of us is only an ephemeral witness to
the beauty of the world.
What impact did this perception have on Debussy’s language?
P. B.
: It is one of the keys to his work on tempo. It helps to understand the
composer’s need for freedom, his way of breaking molds and freeing himself from
the constraints of the tonal system—which he did not, however, reject flat out.
Debussy’s writing is a way of expressing this viewpoint in relation to passing time.
In the traditional tonal system (I’m thinking of the harmonic rules as well as their
impact on forms), we find chronological references, comfortable landmarks for
the listener, which create the feeling of being somewhat anchored, somewhat in
control of what’s happening. With Debussy, we lose this completely, and we find
ourselves confrontedwith our situation: time, slipping through our fingers, unable
to do anything about it. We are only passing through, just a small parentheses
within infinity. More and more, I feel this sense of the ephemeral with Debussy.
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