A Study of Claude Debussy’s “Images”

• Main Authors: Yu-ting Huang, 黃于庭
• Other Authors: Mei-Na Yang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/31268826339287689204

碩士 === 國立臺南大學 === 音樂學系碩士班 === 100 === Taking an overview of European art history in the middle of late 19th and early 20th century, we can obviously find out that there are varies of artists were inspired by revolutionary atmosphere and changing society which were most led by Industrial Revolution. These facts affect contemporary artists among literal, visual, as well as musical to dedicate themselves into sparking the sky of art with their creativity and inspiration. In this period of time, they tended to develop their works by launching aggressive experiments and ignoring the limitation of reason frame. Under such time background, Debussy in France was one of them. Deeply influenced by literal symbolism and impressionism of drawing, He created brand new piano timbres and sound colors. The tonalities of his compositions are ambiguous and are like misty poetry. His works contain both far eastern and exotic tastes; the way of how it describes tiny changes of natural in Debussy’s music is vivid. Moreover, they surprisingly have crystal clear and smoky timbres simultaneously. This kind of characters will recall audiences’ imagination of misty scenery and in the meanwhile leave an empty place of canvas for them to fill themselves. "Images", is one of those masterpieces composed by Debussy in his golden period of developing new piano timbres. The main idea of this is to use natural elements as its sources; with proper music topic, Debussy used notes as its dyes, melodies and harmonies as its colors, to compose a fantasy view of music. He used themes and motives in compositions of Images, constructed the harmonies with parallel chords, arpeggio, tremolo, distinct scales like church modes from the West and pentatonic scale, whole tone scales from the Far East. Being so abundant in characters, Debussy’s music is remarkable for its ambiguity and special colors, remains its dynamic in pianissimo. Basic idea of this research is to realize Debussy’s time and learning background, music ideas, as well as his works. Moreover, this research narrows down to his Images with its background, analysis of his compositions and playing techniques. Through this process, we expect to improve our piano techniques also the ability of interpretation, which can enable us to express Debussy’s music in a correct and through all way.