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The 1900 Paris World Fair did indeed expose Debussy to some, at that time, none-too-common Asian music, including some gamelan.
This had a profound influence on many French composers. In a way, this "new" oriental "influence" was a turning point that gave French composers a non-Wagnerian outlet in the search for new colours.
Oriental cultural elements were actually making great strides in their influence on Western art in the late 19th/early 20th century. This can be also seen in some Italian composers, who turned to Japanese and Chinese subjects (including quotes of "authentic" Oriental music) for their operas. Two of the more famous examples, by one of the most famous, would be Madama Butterfly and Turandot. The latter work contains numerous authentic Chinese melodies.
With the Impressionists, the door opened to the use of parallel 4ths as a colouristic device. If you listen to some of the piano works ("Images") while examining the score, you notice a "new" way of treating pianistic writing.
With Debussy, the parallelism isn't a question of "harmony" but rather one of density of melodic matieral. You will come across 7th and 9th chords in the music of Debussy, where the "dissonant" intervals are not resolved in the normal sense. In his music, those notes are there for colour.
A similar process is present in the "nationalist" Russian schoool, where suspended 4ths and 6ths are used as a colouristic device (you may examine music of Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Rachmaninov, Balaikirev).
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"Those that know, do;
Those that understand, teach."
-Aristotle-
"toute audace engendrée par l'ignorance cesse d'être une audace et devient une maladresse"
-Debussy-
In musical criticism, when issues of craft and technical consideration are set aside, what remains is more subjective. However, until technical issues are dealt with, the subjective portion bears considerably less weight.
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Jul 23 2008, 2:43 PM
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