All Music Guide on Images Pour Orchestra

The three works which collectively form Claude Debussy’s Images for orchestra, not to be confused with the two sets of piano works that go by the same title, are among the more immediately accessible and directly expressive of his later pieces. Although intended to be performed in succession, the Images are frequently heard independently of one another, especially the second, “Iberia,” which remains among the composer’s most frequently played orchestral works. The three works, which continue to be published as separate titles, were initially released at different times, with the first being composed and published several years after the second and third.

“Gigues” was written from 1909-1912, and has a decidedly English flavor. Debussy quotes the English folk tune “The Keel Row” throughout as the tune ebbs and swirls in the colored orchestral texture, surfacing in one instrument, fading back into the texture, and then resurfacing on another instrument. Debussy makes striking use of the oboe d’amore in the opening “Gigues”—indeed, it can be said that this unique instrument constitutes more of a musical “theme” than does any actual melody. A plaintive tone predominates; the few hints of joyfulness are clearly the product of wistful fantasy.

The central “Iberia” (1905-1908), itself divided into three movements, is more outgoing in nature (as French representations of Spanish music and culture almost invariably seem to be). The celebratory yet undeniably aristocratic atmosphere of “Iberia” owes a great deal to the earlier Fêtes from the Nocturnes, which rides the same fine line between the vernacular and the high-minded. Debussy’s score even calls for guitars and castanets, a remarkable request at that time. There is a decadent flavor to “Parfums de la nuit,” whose nocturnal activities form the center of the piece dawn arrives with the feeling that nothing has actually happened.

The last movement of “Iberia” is kaleidoscopic in feel: Debussy presents a series of disconnected, seemingly random (but actually not so in any sense) musical ideas in a manner that foreshadows his Jeux (1912) and the processes used by many later composers, including so-called aleatoric music. The raw exuberance of a Spanish celebration drives the music to heights of a strained passion, and at times seems to be an attempt to conceal a great melancholy.

The last of the Images, “Rondes de printemps,” was composed between 1905 and 1909. It is a product of the same turn-of-the century French obsession with spring that encouraged Diaghilev to commission Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps. Debussy had himself composed an orchestral work entitled Printemps as a young man, and countless musical and literary works from the period go by similar titles.

In Images however, spring has nothing in common with Stravinsky’s famous work. “Rondes de printemps” is an unassuming work based on one of Debussy’s favorite nursery tunes, “Nous n’irons plus au bois,” a melody he incorporated into a number of compositions. Like “Gigues,” “Rondes de printemps” is introspective and nostalgic, short on activity and long on tone-color. “Debussy spreads color throughout the ensemble in a masterly, and deceptively simple display of orchestration, rather than focusing on a single instrument as he did in “Gigues.”

IberiaDebussy wrote Images oubliées in 1894 and two sets of other works for piano entitled Images between 1909 and 1912. He also composed a trio of orchestral works around the same time under the title Images (1905 – 1912). Ibéria is its second movement, in spite of the fact that it was completed first. It is also the lengthiest of the three, by far, having a duration more than twice that of either of the other two. Cast in three sections or movements, it is often performed in concert apart from its siblings and has come to be one of Debussy’s most popular orchestral compositions. The word Ibéria, incidentally, is an archaic name for Spain and has served as the title for other well-known compositions in classical music, such as a collection of piano pieces by Isaac Albéniz.

Ibéria’s three sections are subtitled “In the Streets and Byways,” “Fragrances of the Night,” and “The Morning of a Festival Day.” Its scoring is unusual in requiring guitars and castanets, but the exoticism achieved through the colorful instrumentation is always brilliantly atmospheric, never coming across as momentary cheap effects.

The first section of Debussy’s Ibéria opens with striking Spanish colors in its folk-like themes and brilliant instrumentation—especially brilliant in the imaginative use of the castanets. The music is lively and festive and divulges nothing of Debussy’s France. For the most part, it is joyous and sunny, setting the stage for the nocturnal mood that follows.

“The Fragrances of the Night” maintains the Spanish flavors in its mysterious and subdued music, but in its delicate instrumentation and descriptive sense, it sounds more typically Debussyian, if not French. This is the longest section in Ibéria and while its music is not deep, it is the most brilliantly and subtly atmospheric movement.

The closing panel, “The Morning of a Festival Day,” opens slowly, the nocturnal mood from the previous section lingering. The main section is joyous and festive, with lively themes whose rhythmic manner and rich colors exude the Spanish style. This is the shortest section and its virtuosic orchestration and infectious themes make it regrettable Debussy had not carried on a bit longer here.