Debussy's preludes and their relations

[piulento]

Hi,
just wanted to share a thought that has been running through my mind for the past week or so, if you were to be kind enough to express your opinions about it.

Over the years, the more I listened to Debussy's preludes, the more I found preludes that were 'buddies'. Meaning what? Each prelude from the first book can be paired with another prelude from the second book, and the two buddies would generally have a lot of similarities, weather in technique, musical ideas, or general atmosphere.

Some examples of buddies:
- La fille aux cheveux de lin and Bruyeres.
- La serenade interrompue and La puerta del vino.
- Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest and Feux d'artifice.

This, of course, is just my opinion, and I don't think this was ever a conscious intention of Debussy. But the odd thing is, each prelude has exactly one buddy, it's always in the other book of preludes, and the buddies never overlap. This seemes much too improbable to be completely by chance.

At first I thought, 'maybe I'm just forcing this, I'm just naturally looking for patterns'. But it's not like I just sat down and tried to deliberately look for corresponding preludes. The pairs just popped up in my head over the years, before I even thought about the complete 'buddy system'. I genuinely thought they matched, and only then noticed that they always pair up from one in each book and that there is no overlapping.

What do you think about this? Can you see what I'm talking about? If yes, can you explain this? If not, is the pairing a complete figment of my imagination, or is there some reason for it?
I don't know, maybe when Debussy wrote his second book, he just took inspiration from his first one?

Anyway, thanks for reading. Here is my full list of buddies; if you need detailed clarifications about the similarities in each pair, I'd be happy to answer.

- Book 1 no. 1 and book 2 no. 10
- Book 1 no. 2 and book 2 no. 1
- Book 1 no. 3 and book 2 no. 11
- Book 1 no. 4 and book 2 no. 7
- Book 1 no. 5 and book 2 no. 4
- Book 1 no. 6 and book 2 no. 2
- Book 1 no. 7 and book 2 no. 12
- Book 1 no. 8 and book 2 no. 5
- Book 1 no. 9 and book 2 no. 3
- Book 1 no. 10 and book 2 no. 8
- Book 1 no. 11 and book 2 no. 6
- Book 1 no. 12 and book 2 no. 9

[lostinidlewonder]

I like the connections you have made, could be a good program for a performance. The musical language Debussy uses throughout both books is quite consistent so there is a high chance of them having these relationships. There are maybe more relationships one could find, for example I feel that Le vent dans la plaine and Feux d'artifice also could be related. Perhaps the titles can reveal some information as to why you feel they are connected, eg Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest and Feux d'artifice both have a wind theme to them. I've always found meditating upon the titles and how they imbue the music very interesting.

[piulento]

I agree that the names are definitely an important aspect of the preludes (even though a lot of people state that Debussy wrote the names at the end so that you don't put too much meaning into them).
For example, I think that part of the reason that Ondine and La Cathedrale Engloutie have so many similarities is that they both involve water. Debussy may have been against taking the names of the preludes too literally, but you can't deny the fact that when writing both pieces, he had water in his head, and it guided his writing (there are plenty of other examples).
But there are also a lot of preludes that aren't really connected by meaning, but still have a really similar atmosphere. E.G - La fille aux cheveux de lin and Bruyeres aren't connected at all, if I understand correctly, but they are extremely similar in all sorts of aspects.
Guess Debussy is just strange in that way - you can't really tell the connections in his inner world, but they are visible in the music