Sunday, November 18, 2007

Debussy La Cathedrale Engloutie

Sorry that I am posting so late...but this is what I got out of the piece.

I just read Mister's analysis and I think I agree with it, but I'm going to write what I thought it was before I read the other one. I wasn't able to see the picture the piece was based on and I'm sure that it would also explain a lot more.

I got that the overall form was A B A' C D C' A'', which kind of reminded me of a poem structure.
The A section is from mm. 1-15, with subsections a, a' and a''. a is mm. 1-5 in G ; a' is mm. 6-12 in C#; and a'' is mm. 13-16 in C.

The B section is mm. 16-21, with two subsections b and b'. b is mm. 16-19 in B; b' from mm. 20-21 in Eb.

Section A' is from mm. 22-27, it is in G. It seems to me as a transition into the C section, which is from mm. 28-46 and is in C. This ties back to the A section. mm. 42-46 are a transition in the key change at mm. 47.

Section D would be the key change from mm. 47 to mm. 69 with a pedal G# throughout. At mm. 70 we are back in the C section and back in C. Section C last until mm. 83.

mm. 84-89 are a restatement of the A section, but this time in C, which seems to be the pedal this whole piece was mainly built around.

Again I think I like Mister's analysis, making the key change the pivot of the piece and not as complex, but I thought I would be true to the actual work that I did....

7 comments:

Billy Richards said...

I don't see where you got the a' and a'' from, your a' is nothing like the original a you mentioned, not even in chord structure. It looks as though you got the overall sections right. I'm just going to point out the melody though considering nobody else did. The most melodic line seems to come in at 28 (section C). The piece flows very well overall, very enchanting I'd say.

Jonathan Schorr said...

I agree with your analysis. Your sections with the key areas look good. I think I too have a hard time understanding the small sub-sections - I don't think they are wrong - I just don't fully understand it. I think we also have a pedal C at measure 28 - 41. Anyways that's what I noticed - nice analysis though - looks really good.

Shelley Scarr said...

Nice analysis of the piece. You always do a thorough job. I agree with your analysis.

Randy Griggs said...

Upon looking over the piece I think that you did a very good job of analysis. I would agree with your sections. I don't understand the small sub sections.
Overall a nice thorough job.

atty said...

Good job analyzing this piece as usual. I hate to say this, but I looked to try and prove the neigh-ayers wrong about your A’ section. I can see how you could argue this as m. 22 starts out with the same whole note chord, and then the rest of it is similar, but again not exactly the same, as an a’ would be. I think that it is close enough to call it that, but then it throws off Mister’s insight about the mirror, which is interesting and I think I remember us talking about that when we talked about this piece in music theory.

Robert Christian said...

The phrase starting in measure 8 is actually C# pentatonic. I would call it b. The first phrase is G pentatonic and is a.

Robert Christian said...

First phrase is G pentatonic. Measure 8 starts b and is in C# Pentatonic.