Debuss's Pour le piano L.95 Sarabande - bar 7 question.

[matttherookie]

Hello,

This is my first post on the forum.

I'm trying to learn Debussy's Sarabande, I love this piece for its harmonies.
However, in 7th bar one of the chords sounds "off". This is the 5th chord in the bar, with D# octave played by left hand.

How is it supposed to be played to sound right? The D# octave in left hand does not sound "right" combined with right hand's part, ascending melody played by right hand is interrupted by it.

I'm attaching sheet music, the chord in question is circled.

Thank you for your advice!

Matt

[bobert]

Hi Matt,

Sounds okay to me.

Debussy was among the composers that transitioned harmony away from the "common practice" period. The musical language these composers invented consisted a variety of techniques, including parallelism, bitonalism, modalism, etc. Another technique used was something called pandiatonicism, where the composer freely combines lines or patterns using the same scale or mode (E-major in this case) to create a given phrase, and that is what I believe Debussy is doing here.  

This has come to be accepted as a legitimate harmonic/compositional technique in that the music hangs together just fine because the lines are using the same scale material. However, sometimes there do occur "clashes" that seem, to some, a little out of place, but to others, it's just a minor, passing tension. The thing to focus on here is the independence of the lines, i.e., the ascending chords in the R.H. and the descending scale/dyads in the L.H.  

It's up to you how much you want to bring out or subdue the momentary dissonance, but another tip would be to take note of the crescendo leading up to the B-major chords. By carefully observing the crescendo, the D# against A-major will automatically come across a bit less jarring, being softer than the two chords that terminate with the cadence on B-major.

[matttherookie]

Thank you for your reply!

I noticed that as I'm getting better with that part and play the progressing chords faster, the D# octave played with A-major RH chord sounds better. This is because it now sounds in context of the phrase.

I have to admit that I'm a bit lost with your tip: "another tip would be to take note of the crescendo leading up to the B-major chords. By carefully observing the crescendo, the D# against A-major will automatically come across a bit less jarring, being softer than the two chords that terminate with the cadence on B-major" Could you please explain?

Thanks!

[bobert]

I have to admit that I'm a bit lost with your tip: "another tip would be to take note of the crescendo leading up to the B-major chords. By carefully observing the crescendo, the D# against A-major will automatically come across a bit less jarring, being softer than the two chords that terminate with the cadence on B-major" Could you please explain?

I mean that the A/D# is played, at most, mp, and that the following C#mi and B chords are indicated to be played louder (mp+ and then mf), which will tend to take some of the focus away from the momentary dissonance of the A/D# by means of the immediate changes in volume. In other words, the ear is quickly led away from the concentrating on the passing dissonance and is instead brought to bear on the change in volume terminating in the suspension of motion at the cadence on B.

[matttherookie]

Makes sense now. Thank you. One thing worth mentioning is that I'm playing it on an entry level Yamaha keyboard. It does have sensitive keys so I can have some dynamic but I can hear a big difference in comparison to real piano when it comes to polyphony. Especially "wide" chords like the ones in Sarabande sound different. Something about how the keyboards "mixes" individual notes together. Sometimes even "straight" chords sound a bit off.  In example B-major in the 8th bar, because played wide, sounds slightly out of tune (this is very slight but I can hear it).

I'm very sorry about my lack of right terminology.

Thanks again!