Ravinia 2026 Issue 3

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918) Prelude to ‘The Afternoon of a Faun’ Scored for three flutes, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two harps, two antique cymbals, and strings French symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898) produced two preliminary ver- sions of his landmark poem “L’après-midi d’un faune” (The Afternoon of a Faun). His initial effort, “Monologue d’un faune” (1865), was intended as a theatrical piece in the French literary style known as Parnassianism. After re- vising and renaming one of the original mono- logues, Mallarmé submitted “Improvisation du faune” (1875) for publication in the anthology Le Parnasse contemporain (1876). Both editions were rejected. Undeterred, Mallarmé reworked the poem a fi- nal time and issued it himself as “L’après-midi d’un faune. Églogue par Stéphane Mallarmé” (1876) in a small luxury portfolio edition. The poet evoked the pastoral tradition of antiquity extensively. The half-man/half-goat narrator— THE FAUN—appears like a character in a pasto- ral play. “Églogue” (eclogue) evokes a Virgilian poetic form constructed as a monologue or dia- logue. Two nymphs arouse the Faun’s desire with their innocence and beauty, as did Syrinx and Echo in classic mythology. Pastoral mu- sic-making is associated with panpipes. The wa- ter nymph Syrinx is turned into a reed to escape the licentious god Pan (“Faun”). The Faun cuts seven (according some accounts, nine) reeds, binds them in a single row of descending lengths and names the instrument “Syrinx” to recall the nymph whose escape frustrated his passions. Mallarmé’s poem blurred the distinction be- tween reality and a dream-like state. The Faun cannot prove whether he has pursued the nymphs or only chased them in his dreams. Ty- pographical effects—italics vs. regular type— signal the Faun’s shifting mental states. As musi- cologist David J. Code has proposed, this duality Stéphane Mallarmé (1896) also could reflect the “divided body” of the Faun himself: the lower, animal portion being a “sym- bol of sexual desire” (italics) and the upper, hu- man portion embodying the “mental processes that intervene between desire and its complete, animal satisfaction” (regular). Claude Debussy encountered “The Afternoon of a Faun” at least by 1887, when he purchased a copy of the “definitive edition” as a gift for his friend Paul Dukas. Mallarmé had become a very visible presence in Parisian musical circles, at- tending concerts and publishing essays on the music of Richard Wagner; Debussy had him- self fallen under the spell of the “Wagnerism” sweeping Paris. Mallarmé and Debussy were well acquainted by 1892 through visits to hear Gregorian chant at St. Gervais Church and, likely, conversations about “The Afternoon of a Faun.” The interde- pendency of music and his text had sharpened in Mallarmé’s mind, as he explained on May 5, 1891: “Such a poem is suggested by music proper, which we must raid and paraphrase, if our own music, struck dumb, is insufficient.” Debussy resolved to heighten that unity in an orchestral score based on Mallarmé. His original concep- tion, encompassing three movements ( prélude , interlude , and paraphrase final ), was only par- tially fulfilled. By September 6, 1893, Debussy had composed enough of the prélude to play it through on the piano for Henri de Régnier, another poet friend. One year later, by Octo- ber 23, he had completed the delicately filigreed orchestral score and a version for two pianos. The orchestral premiere took place at the con- certs of the Société National de Musique on De- cember 22 and 23, 1894. According to Debussy’s recollection of 1910, Prelude to ‘The Afternoon of a Faun’ delighted Mallarmé: “I was not expecting anything of this kind! This music prolongs the emotion of my poem and sets its scene more vividly than color.” Throughout the past century or more, writers have contemplated the structural relationship between eclogue and orchestral score. However, no literal or specific programmatic representa- tion was intended in Debussy’s Prelude —in fact, Mallarmé and Debussy both eventually rejected that aspect of Wagner’s art. The only “literal- ism” involves the Faun’s identification with the pastoral flute, which Debussy’s music captures so effectively. Large-scale divisions within the poem, which suggest changes in atmosphere and narrative voice, find a parallel in the orches- tral score. Almost two decades after the musical premiere, Prelude to ‘The Afternoon of a Faun’ experienced a second premiere on May 29, 1912, as a bal- let choreographed by Vasily Nijinsky for Ser- gei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. That production restored the Mallarmé/Debussy collaboration to the Parisian consciousness at a momentous, revolutionary time: exactly one year later, on May 29, 1913, Diaghilev and company gave the infamous premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring . Debussy did not welcome Nijinsky’s dance in- terpretation of his orchestral poem: “Faun, you are ugly,” he scoffed. “Go away!” Ibéria from Images for Orchestra Scored for two flutes and two piccolos, two oboes, oboe d’amore, and English horn, three clarinets in B-flat and bass clarinet, three bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, field drum, tambourine, castanets, triangle, xylophone, cymbals, three bells, celesta, two harps, and strings “If an ironical fate doesn’t come and jumble up my manuscripts, I should have Ibéria finished next week and the two other pieces by the end of the month,” Debussy optimistically reported to his publisher, Jacques Durand, on July 7, 1906. In actuality, the composer took two and a half more years to complete this music as part of the Images for Orchestra . Originally con- ceived as a two-piano sequel to Debussy’s first set of Images for solo piano, the orchestral score required a painstaking recalibration of his compositional approach. The initial drafts sounded too mechanical—“well written, but with that skill born of habit that’s so hard to conquer and so tiresome”—as Debussy ex- plained to Durand on August 5, 1907. The hoped-for fluid, coloristic orchestral effects would require months of unforeseen contem- plation and experimentation. A three-movement reflection of life on a street in Spain, Ibéria offers a wealth of thematic ma- terial in the “Spanish” style that Debussy pro- totyped in “La Soirée dans Grenade” from the collection of three Estampes (1903) for piano. Other French composers of this era, among themMaurice Ravel, Jules Massenet, Emmanuel Chabrier, and Georges Bizet, exhibited a spe- cial musical affinity for the Iberian peninsula. “Along the Streets and along the Paths” evokes Claude Debussy (1909) RAVINIAMAGAZINE • AUGUST 3 – AUGUST 16 , 2026 78