Saturday, January 16, 2016
Levine School of Music - Strathmore Campus
Bethesda, MD
Difficulty score: 4/10 (4 for technical difficulty, 0 for interpretive and musical difficulty, 0 for scale)
This piece is the seventh in a set of twelve etudes that Debussy composed in 1915. These twelve pieces are technical exercises, each of which focuses on specific technical issues. For example, this particular etude deals with rapid chromatic scales, which in turn forces the pianist to work on playing evenly and smoothly and to develop agility and independence of his fingers.
But also, like many of the etudes written during the nineteenth century such as those by Chopin and Liszt, all twelve of these etudes are technical exercises disguised as concert pieces, unlike the etudes of composers such as Czerny that simply consist of dry rote repetitions of the technical issue. The Debussy etudes are pieces that are meant to be performed in concert (and enjoyed by listeners) in which the technical issue is the building block of the writing; for example, in this particular etude, Debussy capitalizes upon the rapid chromatic scales to create a ghostly and mysterious atmosphere. Embedding the technical issue into a concert piece like this forces the pianist to not only be able to execute the chromatic scales accurately and quickly, but also to do it with musicality. This is infinitely more useful than simple rote repetitions of the technical issue. After all, technique never just occurs in isolation; during a performance, a pianist needs to navigate a variety of technical difficulties and do it musically.
This was actually my first Debussy etude. I don't know why I waited so long to attempt one of these. Perhaps it was because these weren't exactly the flashy virtuoso pieces like the Chopin and Liszt etudes were that I was attracted to when I was younger. Perhaps it was because I needed some time to warm up to the harmonies that Debussy liked to use late in his life. I would actually say that many pianists may feel the same way; these etudes are often ignored by most pianists in favor of those of other composers. But regardless, these etudes are full of exotic and beautiful sounds and textures. They are also a good alternative to Chopin for refining various aspects of your technique; these twelve etudes cover a broad range of technical issues, from the rapid chromatic scales in this etude to the parallel thirds, fourths, and sixths in the second, third, and fourth etudes of the set, to the large leaps and thick chords in the fifth and twelfth etudes of the set and the arpeggios (broken chords) and extensions of the hand in the eleventh. I do plan on learning more of these in the future.
Considerations for Learning and Performing this Piece:
- The very first thing anyone thinking about learning this piece should do is sit down and write out a good fingering for all of the chromatic figurations (that is, if your edition does not contain fingering; my Schirmer edition did not, and I'm not sure which editions do or do not). Sloppy or poorly planned fingerings are a recipe for screw-ups later on.
- Don't use the traditional 1313123... fingering for chromatic scales. Figure out a fingering that minimizes the number of times you need to cross the longer fingers over the thumb or tuck the thumb under the longer fingers. This way, you will be able to execute these chromatic scales and figurations faster and with less effort, which will really help at the speed at which this piece is supposed to be performed.
- Keep the tempo under control. In some passages, it is very easy to speed up without realizing it, which will bring trouble in some of the trickier passages (e.g. that horrid left-hand broken sixths passage at 1:38 in the video).
- Don't overthink things during the performance. I found overthinking leads to memory lapses in this piece. This is one of those pieces that plays itself once the notes are learned; simply letting your fingers do the work and obeying the dynamic and tempo markings is sufficient for an effective performance.
