Claude Debussy
La Mer

«I think music contains a freedom, more than any other art, not limited to the exact reproduction of nature, but to the mysterious connections between nature and imagination».
(Claude Debussy)

""La mer", or three symphonic sketches for orchestra, reveal the love that Claude-Achille Debussy had for the sea and has become the symbol of impressionist music.
It is undoubtedly the most complex work of the French composer, which took him almost two years to complete, from 1903 to 1905.
The symphony, although in an apparent sketch form, actually has a well-defined structure in three movements: ""De l'aube à midi sur la mer"", ""Jeux de vagues"", and ""Dialogue du vent et de la mer".
What is immediately evident is that Debussy does not want to objectively describe nature but rather to convey the states of mind that the event evokes in the human Debussy, thus the sea becomes a revealer of consciousness.
And so here is the first movement ""from dawn to noon on the sea"", the "picture" (I used this term for a dual meaning) begins with an evanescent atmosphere, a sort of horror vacui, there lies the vastness of the sea with its powerful calm, but here this feeling slowly begins to reveal the glimmering of light breaking on the water's ripples, they are brushstrokes of chiaroscuro. We are faced with music of total abandonment, everything flows in sounds of dazzling brightness.
This is the preamble to the second picture, ""Games of waves"", perhaps of the movements, the one that most reveals Debussy's new and important musical solutions. The sound seems to break, each musical nucleus merges and blends into the other (various types of dance follow one after the other, like the waltz or the bolero), rich in colors and shades, there are no references, there is no main theme, but rather many sketches that create open spaces where the musical structure has no support, it is free to wander. In the finale, the themes fade away, giving rise to a crystalline conclusion.
The last movement, ""Dialogue of the wind and the sea"" is actually a play of contrasts between these two elements (air and water). The music is vehement, breathless, until a timpani stroke gives us breath again. Here from the introduction, the theme of the first movement reappears, repeatedly in brief variations throughout the piece, symbolizing a sort of cyclicality, which, in the open ending, seems to purposely allow glimpses of new and further thematic developments.
Master Debussy was able to create music rich in colors and shades, contrasting chiaroscuro, harmonic and melodic inventions on free structures, thus giving life to impetuous surges of the soul, and "La mer" is the most representative work.

Among the various and excellent interpretations, my favorite remains that of Jean Martinon with the Orchestre national de l'ORTF recorded in 1974.