Analysis of Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

Gain a deeper understanding of the musical language of this marvellous composer

by Clemens Kemme

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Analysis of Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

Gain a deeper understanding of the musical language of this marvellous composer 

Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (1894), often considered as the first ‘20th-century’ piece, is a good starting point for a course entitled ‘Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky’, that explores the new musical language that was developed in the two decades before the outbreak of first World War.
 
This short period produced an unnumerable amount of masterpieces that seem to fascinate us now more then ever. Somehow these three composers managed to create an ideal new mixture of the Western classical musical language and a number of new devices like extended and parallel harmonies, patterns based on equal division of the octave (whole-tone and octatonic series, minor- and major-third circles), and all kinds of modalities that had lived on for centuries in folk musics from around the world. These composers created this new style in Paris simultaneously with the earliest developments of another highly successful new fusion of different musical cultures, one that took place in the USA: jazz. They were also among the first composers to be influenced by early jazz styles. A little later, in the 1920s and -30s, the inspiration became reciprocal, when Ellington and Strayhorn started to enrich early jazz styles with the new harmonic findings of Debussy and Ravel (e.g. in Strayhorn's Chelsea Bridge).
 
The level of complexitiy of the music requires that participants have at least two years of ear training, harmony and analysis behind them.
 
Video's: 3 hours

Skill Level: Intermediate-Advanced

Language: English

How it works:

The course is a series of related video lessons, each structured around a specific topic or topics. By the end of this course, you will have developed a strong sense of direction in your daily study routine.

Weekly video lessons
After joining the course, you will be able to view a new video lesson weekly. Each video lesson consists of:

Examples that musically define the sound of the topic you are studying in each video.


A study routine section in which we first discuss how to study the specific topic of each lesson. We will then play several exercises specially written to show you how to structure your daily study routine.


Assignments that will help you consolidate and practice what you have learned in each video.

Weekly assignments
After each lesson, you will be asked to study, practice and then video record yourself playing an assignment which may consist of several exercises. When ready, you submit the video of your assignment. The process of having to record yourself every week, significantly helps to internalise the material discussed in this course - quickly and naturally.

 

Weekly feedback: This function is only available in the "course" mode.

 

Certificate: This function is only available in the "course" mode.

 

Content of this course:

Lesson 1 – Analysis of the first theme (first 30 bars) Part 1 

Lesson 2 – Analysis of the first theme (first 30 bars) Part 2 

Lesson 3 – Analysis of the first theme (first 30 bars) Part 3 

Lesson 4 – Analysis of the first theme (first 30 bars) Part 4 

Lesson 5 – Analysis of the 2nd subdivision (bars 31-55) Part 1 

Lesson 6 – Analysis of the 2nd subdivision (bars 31-55) Part 2 

Lesson 7 – Analysis of the 3nd subdivision (B section) Part 1 

Lesson 8 – Analysis of the 3rd subdivision (B section) Part 2 

Lesson 9 – Analysis of the Last section, main theme