Claude Debussy and Kamasi Washington: "Clair de Lune", Summaries of Music

Download Claude Debussy and Kamasi Washington: "Clair de Lune" and more Summaries Music in PDF only on Docsity! Claude Debussy and Kamasi Washington: “Clair de Lune” Madeleine Brawley, senior Faculty advisor: Dr. Benjamin Binder, Mary Pappert School of Music Duquesne University April 21, 2020 Claude Debussy and Kamasi Washington: “Clair de Lune” 1 In spring of 1905, Claude Debussy published his Suite Bergamasque, a collection of four pieces for solo piano. The most famous piece of this work is the third, titled “Clair de Lune,” a piece that is instantly recognizable to a wide audience. In 2015, Kamasi Washington, a popular jazz musician, released his interpretation of “Clair de Lune” on his album The Epic. By taking into account the context of Debussy’s original piece in the 1900s and comparing the context of Washington’s modern reinterpretation, we may begin to understand the meaning of Washington’s performance and how his interpretation expresses who he is as an artist. Claude Debussy idealized an approach to music that did not necessarily need to involve careful listening; rather, the music could be the inspiration to a person’s imagination or impression, which is considered one reason that the “Clair de Lune” has been reimagined countless times1. Ultimately, Kamasi Washington reimagines Debussy’s original composition to carefully express himself and send a message about how he sees himself as compared to Debussy in the context of music and history. First, Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” can be characterized by a few main musical elements: simple textures, slowly shifting harmony, and a rolling melody2. These features come together to form a piece that is characteristic of Impressionism, encouraging the listener’s mind to wander, and also allowing for the piece to be easily interpreted by listeners and adapted by other musical artists. “Clair de Lune” and the entire Suite Bergamasque were not particularly popular when they were first published; however, shortly after the piece’s publication, Andre Caplet, a French composer and conductor, transcribed “Clair de Lune” for orchestra3. Soon after, “Clair de Lune” was quickly commercialized in popular culture in the United States, especially 1 Gurminder Kaur Bhogal, Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018) 1-10. 2 Bhogal, Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune, 15. 3 Matthew Brown, Debussy Redux: The Impact of his Music on Popular Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012) 14-15. Claude Debussy and Kamasi Washington: “Clair de Lune” 4 Once this section finishes, there are a few seconds in which the piano is allowed to fade before a walking bass line leads back into the beginning of the original A section, where the horns, including Washington, take the melody, and the harmonization is mostly kept to the tonic in the keyboard, organ, and choir. Claude Debussy and Kamasi Washington: “Clair de Lune” 5 While Debussy’s original composition is rhythmically notated in the time signature 9/8, Washington’s version is heavily felt in 12/8 time due to the strong downbeats, swung rhythms, rhythmic displacements of the melody, and 4-bar phrasing. After now playing the first half of the original A section, this arrangement then moves straight into the B section of the original score, skipping over the second half of the original A section that was used as an introduction. The piano plays the arpeggios that are found in the original score while the saxophone takes the melody13. A repeat of the main melody from the first half of the original A section follows the first occurrence of the B section. Washington seems to use this melody from the A section as the 13 Washington, “Clair de Lune”. Claude Debussy and Kamasi Washington: “Clair de Lune” 6 “head,” which is standard practice for jazz musicians, demonstrating Washington’s clear musical background. This tradition is continued in a series of improvised solos in the piece over the harmony for the first half of the A section. Toward the end of the piece, the main melody from the first half of the A section is repeated for a final time, but with a significant decrescendo, and the instruments drop out until finally only the piano is playing, which abruptly shifts into a repeat of the introduction. The listener is left with a final chord from the piano, a clear connection between the beginning of the piece and the end, as well as a clear connection between this arrangement and Claude Debussy’s original composition.14 Immediately, the listener’s attention can be drawn to this clear line between Debussy and Washington that occurs in the introduction and conclusion of the piece, the second half of the original A section. These two sections seem to be acting as bookends to the piece, keeping Washington’s expression contained within the walls of Debussy, almost as if Washington is having a sort of jazz reimagination of “Clair de Lune” in the middle of these two sections. Silence, or musical space, is also utilized in the moments in between sections, which is directly representative of Debussy’s compositional style of expression15. Debussy described his own use of silence in his opera Pelléas et Mélisande: “Silence is a beautiful thing . . . The empty bars in Pelléas are evidence of my love of this sort of musical expression.”16 By using silence in his arrangement, Washington demonstrates a keen understanding of Debussy’s compositional style as well as a desire to use Debussy’s style of expression in this arrangement. Furthermore, Washington’s “Clair de Lune” seems to be an intentional juxtaposition of past and present, a historical fusion of genres. The album The Epic contains three volumes; 14 Washington, “Clair de Lune”. 15 Washington, “Clair de Lune”. 16 Bhogal, Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune, 4