His
lyric inspiration was here too strong; otherwise with Debussy. Each
article of rebellion is more highly stressed in the French leader, save
as to organic form, where the latter is far the stronger. And finally
the element of mannerism cannot be gainsaid in either composer.[B]
[Footnote A: Born in 1862.]
[Footnote B: Some recurring traits Wagner and Debussy have in common,
such as the climactic chord of the ninth. The melodic appoggiatura is as
frequent in the earlier German as the augmented chord of the fifth in
the later Frenchman.]
Among the special traits of Debussy's harmonic manner is a mingling with
the main chord of the third below. There is a building downward, as it
were. The harmony, complete as it stands, seeks a lower foundation so
that the plain tower (as it looked at first) is at the end a lofty
minaret. It is striking that a classic figure in French music should
have stood, in the early eighteenth century, a champion of this idea, to
be sure only in the domain of theory. There is a touch of romance in the
fate of a pioneer, rejected for his doctrine in one age, taken up in the
art of two centuries later.[A]
[Footnote A: Rameau, when the cyclopaedic spirit was first stirring and
musical art was sounding for a scientific basis, insisted on the element
of the third below, implying a tonic chord of 6, 5, 3. Here he was
opposed by Fetis, Fux and other theoretic authority; judgment was
definitively rendered against him by contemporary opinion and prevailing
tradition.
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