Page 176 - HandbookMarch1

Debussy indicates the performance style as délicatement et presque sans nuances (delicately and almost
without nuance). The levelness evokes Javanese restraint rather than Western expressiveness. Those dynamic
shadings marked with hairpins in the smooth melodies of mm. 15-18 and 33-36 simulate only the subtle
inflections in volume that, for example, the rebab might naturally make. The balance among layers is equal, with
no single part brought out over the rest of the texture. The level blending contrasts with Western performance
practice, and requires careful attention on the part of the pianist not to play with an expressiveness or
prominence inappropriate to the gamelan.
On the other hand, Debussy does mark differing dynamic levels at phrase boundaries throughout the score. For
example, the opening ten-measure portion is pianissimo; the change to piano in m. 11 coincides with a new bass
note and octave reinforcement in middle and upper layers. The passage at m. 37 is piano and its repetition at m.
41 is fortissimo. The whole coda, mm. 80-98, is pianissimo. The distinctly contrasting dynamic levels effectively
simulate the gamelan's changing instrumentation, and especially the contrast between loud and soft styles.

Debussy punctuates the large colotomic rhythmic structure of Pagodes with his own gongs. The gong ageng is
low B. It provides the final note of the piece (m. 98) and the culminating note of many phrases (as in mm. 5, 7,
and 9). Intermediary structural punctuations are provided by other bass notes. At m. 11 the punctuating gong
moves to G#. In mm. 19-23, bass notes return generally stepwise from that G# down to B once again, in one-
measure time spans, half and quarter those of the earlier gongs, reflecting the orderly subdivision of Javanese
gatras. The descending bass notes simulate the intermediary ketuk, kempul, kempyang, and kenong arrivals in
37
gamelan music. Sensing these gongs as endings, not beginnings, may not be intuitive to Westerners. Yet an
importantly different rhythmic interpretation would emerge if a bass downbeat were to energize the start of a
new phrase rather than finish the preceding one. 38
Debussy also captures the changing tempos that signal important events in gamelan music. For example, in the
opening section of the piece he indicates a ritard just before each arrival of the low gong in mm. 5, 7, and 9. In
mm. 19-33 he imitates the gradual tempo change that guides gamelan players from one irama to another.
Animez un peu at m. 19 moves to Toujours animé at m. 23 as the rhythmic calmness of one passage moves
toward more complex cross-rhythms in the next. Continuing the transition, Revenez au 1o Tempo at m. 27, ritard
at m. 30, and Sans lenteur at m. 33 prepare for the arrival of new thirty-second note activity m. 37. 39
Pagodes convincingly simulates a Javanese gamelan. Yet it does not merely copy. Within Pagodes aspects of
both Eastern and Western musical thinking merge. For instance, while Debussy successfully substitutes the
pentatonic scale for gamelan's slendro, the principal G# C# D# F# G# motif of m. 3 actually limits itself to only
four of the pitches (appropriately, as in a Javanese patet). The missing pitch appears in the middle-register
melody of m. 7, but it fluctuates between B and A#. Several possibilities arise. Perhaps these two represent the
actual missing pitch in the slendro scale, which is somewhere between them. Perhaps they simulate microtonally
inflected vocal tones. But perhaps they also carry Western harmonic significance irrelevant to gamelan: B is tonic
and A# is its leading tone; A# then becomes dominant of the dominant as the (Western) tonality modulates from
B major to the relative minor g#.

Gamelan music is entirely polyphonic, not chordal. Yet Debussy employs chords in Pagodes. How he does so
reveals his sensitivity to both gamelan timbre and Western functionality. The very first chord provides an
example. Its purpose in a Western sense is to establish the tonic B. But it fails to establish the B major tonic triad
as one would expect in a Western context. Rather, B appears with its natural fifth F#, no third, and discordant G#
a step away (actually an upper partial in the B harmonic series). The pedaled pianissimo result simulates the
overtone-rich ringing of the gong ageng. Furthermore the perceived rhythm of m. 1, quarter—dotted quarter—
quarter—eighth, provides not a Western syncopation but, instead, a softly resonant vibration like that of a real
40
gong ageng, which one almost feels rather than hears. The vibrations continue to resonate, as does a Javanese
gong, in the ensuing eight measures of offbeat quarter note chords. The chords themselves exhibit Western
tonal function as well as exotic sound. The B, B7, and E chords of m. 3, 5 and 7 can be interpreted as I—V7/IV–IV
in the key of B major. They lead to bass D#—G# in m. 10-11, V—i of the relative minor key. Yet it is their rich color
rather than their tonal function that seems aurally more captivating as they blend into the quiet pedaled
sonority.

Go to top