Le 29 juin 2017
de 16h00 à 16h30
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
amphithéâtre 6
Séance précomposée - Interpreting and Listening to the Music of Debussy
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Simon Trezise
In a period when particularity in performance rapidly dwindles into generality, this paper casts a critical eye over Debussy performance in recent decades. The precept is that close attention to detailed readings of contemporary sources, such as exist for music of the Classical period, leads performers to modify their performances so as to create a style that they consider suitable for music of the period. As these readings become reflexive the performances take on general, non-specific characteristics; they merge back into the broad stream of performance. For the most part Debussy’s music has not been subject to close reading by theorists or practitioners of historically informed performance. Nevertheless, there existed in the years following his death performers informed of his preferences in performance, such as his preoccupation with nuance. Their knowledge might be broadly construed as the basis of a ‘Debussy style’ of performance. This paper asks where the rivers and tributaries of Debussy performance have taken us in the last few years. Has the tendency been towards generalised music making with little attention to specific qualities suited to the composer and his period? Focusing on the orchestral music, I ask if there is still (and, inevitably, if there has ever been) a Debussy performance style for the orchestral music.
