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Lectures on Modem Music
Volume II.
I. “Fog” {Brouillards}
Vaporous sonorities, hovering uncertainly in the air,
from which there gradually emerges a short, phantom-like
phrase that is soon lost again in the mists of suspended
harmonies. A flash or two of brighter sonorities; then
another fragmentary motive appears—and disappears.
The first phrase returns, but once more fades away, in the
slowly dissipating fog.
II. “Dead Leaves” {Feuilles Mortes}
The vague and regretful melancholy which we associate
with autumn and the passing of the summer season. It is
one of the compositions in which Debussy’s powers of sug-
gestion are at their highest. This chord or that, in a man-
ner now tender, now profound, has a way of making one
divine all that the composer would otherwise have kept
secret. The diversity of the images, their incessant trans-
formation have been so discreetly insinuated that no detail
ever intrudes to break the general outlines of the piece.
Misty, yet distinct and spotted here and there with gold,
they are ever hovering before our wondering eyes.
III. “The Portal of the Vine” (La Puerta del Pino)
A marvellously vivid evocation of popular Spain, of
the life in street and tavern, incarnate, as it is here in the
spirit of the Spanish dance with all that the latter implies
of insolent provocation, of voluptuous abandon and insin-
uating tenderness, of sudden violence and the sting of sharp
desire. The piece was inspired by a mere picture-post-card
which Manuel de Falla sent the composer from Spain