What Makes Debussy's Clair de Lune SO GENIUS?

my name is nari Sol I'm a Pianist composer and in this video we're going to dive into the genius of WC's Claire de Lune no matter how many times we hear it it's a piece that has remained a Timeless favorite and there's any listener into its world of Elegance and mystery on first listen The Melodies and harmonies are of course hauntingly beautiful but if we have a look at some of the more hidden details of the piece we can understand a bit more of debussy's true genius in this video I'm going to show you three of my favorite details then I'm going to give you a fully annotated performance of the piece plus a very special postlude I wrote at the end inspired by Clair de Lune for this episode I'm partnering with apple to present Apple music classical a new app designed to make your classical music listening experience much more effortless and engaging what's Difficult about navigating through classical music recordings is that we're often faced with hundreds of interpretations of of the same piece what I love about this app is that it organizes this information for you so that you always have a place to start from for example if I'm looking up debussy's sweet Burger mask which is the four movement piece that claired the Loon is the third movement of we first have a brief overview of the piece then we have an editor's Choice recording and a list of popular recordings you can also Browse by different catalogs such as artists conductors composers instruments and there's so many great playlists to choose from so I highly recommend you checking it out this comes with your Apple music subscription and to download the app please find the link in the description there's a Common Thread between all three of my examples and it's what I like to call the unpredictable familiar what I mean by this is how Debussy takes one idea and as he reintroduces that idea to you he changes subtle details in a way that completely transform your understanding of what you're hearing and also your memory of what you heard before number one there's a ringing a flat embedded into every important moment in the piece this is like a hidden constant that glues everything together so in the very beginning those a flats are so important which then translates into a wider set e Flats and at the end of this section we have these high chords and guess what's on top [Music] immediately following that we have which has that very famous flat major three chord and this is the common note between all of those chords and here at the kalmata section we have that a flat as a bass pedal point [Music] when the theme does return we only have one a flat Which is higher this time [Music] at the very end of the piece we have that a flat ring on top twice I really think that these a Flats tied the entire piece together and I hope you hear that when I play the full piece in just a little bit number two this piece has a very unstable rhythmic flow and it's always just one degree away from being a lot more basic and stable I'm going to show you a few examples of what WC does not do first of all he doesn't put everything on the downbeats [Music] I think this takes away a bit of a Wandering quality instead WC has everything gently syncopated [Music] and in this section here what I like to call soft throbs [Music] he does not always use a triplet pattern this sounds passionate but it doesn't have as much longing tension instead he changes between duples and triples and not only this if you pay attention to the density of the chords he's constantly switching them up foreign Debussy voices his chords in a very specific way so that familiar bass lines can be combined with less conventional harmonies on top in this way the sounds are so much more than the melody plus the chords what WC does not do is this foreign which is still very beautiful but what it does is it makes this flattened third a bit too obvious instead [Music] he continues to raise the bass notes in a way that is pretty familiar this is something that could be very common so our ears are somewhat accustomed to that type of motion and this voicing foreign really add something special to these chords because it elevates everything and I think that adds to the mystery of this sound I'm now going to play the piece in full for you with even more detailed annotations that will help you understand how I analyze each section following that I'm going to include a postlude to Claire de Lune that I composed myself that includes a lot of the elements that I love about this piece that is meant to serve as last echo of the piece after you hear it thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you again to Apple music classical for sponsoring this video thank you to my patrons on patreon for your continued support and I will see you in the next video

Channel: Nahre Sol

Views: 285,272

Keywords: piano, music composition, harmony, music theory, nahre sol, classical music, improvisation, pianist, film scoring, jazz, modern music, debussy, clair de lune, french piano, piano music, music analysis, music lesson, clair de lune analysis, clair de lune harmony, how to play clair de lune

Id: v59Ym4mwOfA

Length: 13min 47sec (827 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 22 2023