La mer (Debussy): Difference between revisions

[[File:Claude-Debussy-D'après-Otto.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=portrait of middle aged European man with full head of hair and neat beard|Debussy photographed by [[Otto Wegener]], probably a few years after the composition of ''La mer'']]{{Listen|filename=La mer - I. De l'aube à midi sur la mer - Concert Band - United States Air Force Band.mp3|title="De l'aube à midi sur la mer"|filename2= La mer - II. Jeux de vagues - Concert Band - United States Air Force Band.mp3|title2="Jeux de vagues"|filename3=La mer - III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer - Concert Band - United States Air Force Band.mp3|title3="Dialogue du vent et de la mer"|description3=Performed by the [[OrchestreUnited NationalStates deAir France]], under the baton of [[Charles Munch (conductor)|CharlesForce MunchBand]]}}''La mer'' was the second of Debussy's three orchestral works in three sections, the other being ''Nocturnes'' (1892–1899) and ''Images pour orchestre'' (1905–1912). The first, the ''[[Nocturnes (Debussy)|Nocturnes]]'', premiered in Paris in 1901 and though it had not made any great impact on the public, it was well-reviewed by musicians including [[Paul Dukas]], [[Alfred Bruneau]] and [[Pierre de Bréville]].<ref>Jensen, p. 71.</ref>{{refn|The 1901 performance was the premiere of the complete work: two of the three ''Nocturnes'' had been played the previous year.<ref>Jensen, p. 69.</ref>|group= n}} Debussy conceived the idea of a more complex tripartite orchestral piece and began work in August 1903.<ref name=j56>Jensen, p. 56.</ref> He was usually a slow worker, and although the composition of ''La mer'' took him more than a year and a half, this was unusually quick progress by his standards{{According to whom|date=November 2022}}, particularly at a time of upheaval in his personal life. He began composing the work while visiting his parents-in-law in [[Burgundy]]; by the time it was complete, he had left his wife and was living with [[Emma Bardac]], who was pregnant with Debussy's child.<ref name=j56/>

Debussy retained fond childhood memories of the beauties of the sea but when composing ''La mer'', he rarely visited it, spending most of his time far away from large bodies of water. He drew inspiration from art, "preferring the seascapes available in painting and literature" to the physical sea.<ref name=cso>Huscher, Phillip. [http://cso.org/uploadedFiles/1_Tickets_and_Events/Program_Notes/050610_ProgramNotes_Debussy_Mer.pdf "La mer"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100620224545/https://cso.org/uploadedFiles/1_Tickets_and_Events/Program_Notes/050610_ProgramNotes_Debussy_Mer.pdf |date=20 June 2010}}, Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 15 May 2018.</ref> Although the detailed scheme of the work changed during its composition, Debussy decided from the outset that it was to be "three symphonic sketches" with the title ''La mer''. In a letter to [[André Messager]], he described the planned sections as "Mère belle aux Îles Sanguinaires", "Jeu de vagues", and "Le vent fait danser la mer".<ref>Simeone, p. 108.</ref>{{refn|Respectively, "Beautiful mother of the Îles Sanguinaires" (a small island group in the Mediterranean), "Play of the waves" and "The wind makes the sea dance.".|group= n}} The first of these, inspired by a short story of the same name by [[Camille Mauclair]],<ref>Cogman, Peter. [https://doi.org/10.1093/frebul/kti036 "Claude Debussy, Pierre Louÿs and the Îles Sanguinaires"], ''French Studies Bulletin'', 1 December 2005, pp. 7–9 {{subscription required}}.</ref> was abandoned in favour of a less restrictive theme, the sea from dawn to midday. The last was also dropped as it was too reminiscent of ballet and the less specific theme of the dialogue between the wind and the sea took its place.<ref>Jensen, p. 197.</ref>

The premiere was given on 15 October 1905 in Paris by the [[Orchestre Lamoureux]] under the direction of [[Camille Chevillard]].<ref name=grove>[[François Lesure|Lesure, François]], and [[Roy Howat]].[https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.07353 "Claude Debussy"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 14 May 2018 {{subscription required}}.</ref> The piece was initially not well received. [[Pierre Lalo]], critic of ''[[Le Temps]]'', hitherto an admirer of Debussy's work, wrote: "I do not hear, I do not see, I do not smell the sea".<ref name=lalo>Lalo, Pierre. "Music: ''La Mer'' – Suite of three symphonic pictures: its virtues and its faults", ''Le Temps'', 16 October 1905, ''quoted'' in Jensen, p. 206.</ref>{{refn|Lalo objected to what he felt was the artificiality of the piece: "a reproduction of nature; a wonderfully refined, ingenious and carefully composed reproduction, but a reproduction none the less.".<ref name=lalo/>|group= n}} Another Parisian critic, Louis Schneider, wrote, "The audience seemed rather disappointed: they expected the ocean, something big, something colossal, but they were served instead with some agitated water in a saucer".<ref>Parris, p. 274.</ref> When the conductor [[Karl Muck]] gave the first American performances of ''La mer'' in March 1907,<ref>Trezise, p. 23.</ref> the critic [[Henry Krehbiel]] wrote: