Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1912 (Heft 38))

BROKEN MELODIES

IT was at one of Stephane Mallarme’s “Tuesday Evemngs,,, in the early
nineties, that I met Debussy, then entirely unknown to fame even in
France. Mallarme had published a poem, set in type of different sizes
and with blank spaces placed occasionally in the midst of a verse, instead
of the customary periods and dashes. We discussed the merits of this rather
whimsical innovation, and Debussy wondered whether these “white inter-
ludes” — — could not be carried out more effectively in
music. Silence furnishes a direct contrast to sounds and in a way is the back-
ground to all sound. In literature it is little more than a separator of ideas.
All who are familiar with modern music know that melody in the classic
sense, best compared perhaps to the long, sweeping curve of Harunobu, has
been replaced by melodious phrasing which closely resembles the broken,
uneven line of Hokusai, that bends abruptly and proceeds in zigzag fashion
before it has a chance to expand itself in one direction. The sweeping curve
obeys an emotional aesthetic force. In the broken line its natural flow is
interrupted and controlled by thought. The huge shadow of Wagner hovers
over the French music of our time and among these haters of tonic
triads and relative tonalities, Debussy has probably come nearer to in-
venting a style than either Bruneau Dukas DTndy or Pierne.
His iconoclasm has been constructive. He is the delineator of pictorial emo-
tional moods. His music is by no means free of the old-time, sugary
sweetness of French melody, but he has translated it into an idiom of his own;
just as Whistler’s nocturnes represent the transference of pictorial
sentimentalism—not so very remote from story telling—into tonal suggestive-
ness. They both use white interludes silences Whistler
by flatness of tone spread over large areas, Debussy by actual silence.
One of the most effective applications of silence occurs in Strauss'
“Salome,” after the headsman has descended into the well. The clamor of
the basses suddenly ceases. Silence reigns supreme, but an uneasy silence,
one of suspense and confusion. After that
three
plaintive
wails of a single
violin, increasing in length and the expression of agony and despair. THEN
AGAIN THE FULL ORCHESTRA, indicative of the emotional tumult in
the mind of Salome—a sensuous, grief-swayed figure bending over the well's
edge. These silences occur constantly in Debussy’s music, for instance, in
his “Pelleas and Melisande.,, They are, however, not used as dramatically,
rather in a Gallicized manner, more abruptly, for minor purposes of effect.
What interests me in this fragmentary-picture making is largely its
aesthetic significance.
Whistler, with his abstinence of form, using naught but blurred shapes
and the balance of closely selected color tones to express the poetry of
existence, almost rang the death knell of pictorial representation. Debussy

33