Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Syrinx (1912)
Claude Debussy’s Syrinx dates from 1912 (the same year as Schoenberg’s masterpiece, Pierrot Lunaire), though it wasn’t published until 1927, nine years after his death. He wrote it as incidental music for the play, Psyché, by his friend, Gabriel Mourey. In Greek mythology, the flute is associated with the god, Pan, and in Mourey’s play, Syrinx (appropriately) accompanied the scene of Pan’s death.
As with much of Debussy’s later work, Syrinx is remarkably ambiguous in its harmony. In it, Debussy drew on whole tone, pentatonic, and chromatic pitch collections, assiduously avoiding any major or minor diatonic scales or tonal cadences. The result is a type of music that’s at once familiar but novel and filled with unexpected turns of phrase and harmony.
Also, Debussy’s rhythmic palette is decidedly unclear: there’s a free, improvisatory quality to the music as it spins out (though, in fact, the score falls into three distinct sections). One commentator suggests that the rhythmic patterns in Syrinx (which alternate between long and short, rather than strong and weak) actually mirror the rhythmic principles of French speech, which are differentiated by syllable length rather than syllable stress.
At any rate, Syrinx is a haunting piece and its three-minute duration makes it one of the friendliest introductions to the world of atonality one can imagine.
© Jonathan Blumhofer
Reproduction Rights: This program note may be reproduced free of charge in concert programs with a credit to the author.