t
unique of all--his opera of _Pelleas et Melisande_, based on the
well-known play by Maeterlinck. A few comments may profitably be made
on each of these types. With few exceptions all his pianoforte pieces
have suggestive titles, _e.g._, _Reflets dans l'eau_, _Jardins sous la
pluie_, _La soiree dans Grenade_, _Poissons d'or_, _Voiles_, _Le vent
dans la plaine_, _Bruyeres_. They are mood-pictures in which the
composer has tried to imprison certain elusive states of mind--or the
impressions made on his susceptible imagination by the phenomena of
Nature: the subtly blended hues of a sunset, the changing rhythm of
drifting clouds, the indefinite murmur of the sea, the dripping of
rain. For Debussy, like Beethoven before him, is a passionate lover of
Nature. To quote his own words, he finds his great object lessons of
artistic liberty in "the unfolding of the leaves in Spring, in the
wavering winds and changing clouds." Again, "It benefits me more to
watch a sunrise than to listen to a symphony. Go not to others for
advice, but take counsel from the passing breezes, which relate the
history of the world to those who listen." Thus we see that Debussy
submits himself to the spells of Nature and tries to transmute them
into sound. The only analogies to use in a verbal description of his
music must be drawn from nature, for in each are the same shadowy
pictures, the same melting outlines.[295] Debussy has a close affinity
with that school of painters known as impressionists or
symbolists--Manet, Monet, Degas, Whistler--and is doing with novel
combinations of sound, with delicate effects of light and shade, what
they have done for modern freedom in color. His music has been called
a "sonorous impressionism." It might equally well be phrased "rhythmic
sound." To those conservatives who find it difficult to think in terms
of musical color, and wish _their_ imagination rather than that of
genius to be the standard, the retort of the artist Whistler is
applicable: To a lady who viewing one of his sunsets remarked, "But,
Mr. Whistler, I have never seen a sunset like that" came the reply
"Yes, Madam, but don't you wish you had?" In his songs Debussy has
been most fastidious as to choice of texts, his favorite poets being
Verlaine, Baudelaire and Mallarme, called "symbolists," since the aim
of their art is to resemble music and to leave for the reader a wide
margin for symbolic interpretation. His songs throughout are
imaginative and f