The Cambridge Companion to Debussy by Simon Tresize

Author:Simon Tresize
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-12-31T20:06:33+00:00

168 Boyd Pomeroy

Example 9.4 ‘Brouillards’ (bars 38–40)

Example 9.5 ‘Brouillards’ (bars 46–8)

The end invokes the other triad-transformation referred to at the outset: C major–C minor (see Example 9.5). Now the relation between tonic triad and its chromatic derivatives is quite literally spelled out: bars 47–8 are an ingenious enharmonic resetting of bars 38–9 whereby chromatic alteration of triadic context (C —C) transforms the scale-degree referentiality of the same succession of pitches thus:

C

D

G

D

G

bars 38–9

C#

ˆ1

ˆ2

ˆ4

ˆ2

ˆ5

bars 47–8

C

ˆ2

ˆ2

ˆ5

ˆ3

ˆ6

D

D

G

E

A

Although traditional tonal techniques are largely (though not completely) absent from ‘Brouillards’, the tonic triad itself — its identity and transformations — nevertheless remains central to the piece’s idiosyncratic tonal and formal process. 34

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