Sunday, April 17, 2005

Debussy: Fantouches

this song caught my attention at first because of it's fun piano accompaniment and combination of free flowing and bouncing vocal line. Starting with the piano accompaniment it is playing a fairly busy line but my favorite part is when it plays in octave half steps down do ti te la te ti do then a whole step up to re then back to do...then add the same line just a third higher starting on mi... with what sounds like alternating hands..one starting on do and the other on mi, it makes a very flirty..free..somewhat of a chase or hunt..a teasing feeling..i feel this teasing feeling becasue there are moments through the song where voice and piano are stressing opposite beats giving it a very push-pull feeling..it also gives it a feeling of syncapation in some parts which really adds to the feeling of desperate searching for her love....really mixed i guess..but the song it talking about this girl wander out trying to find her "spanish pirate". In between the verses there are la la la la in the voice that are very free...sung like a little bird searching high and low for this man. The most lyrical parts are the la la's and also stressed words like wicked, brown grass, pretty, nightingale. The accompaniment keeps this octave two hand part for the first three verses then we we get to the third verse it changes to somewhat of a more sustained flowing accompaniment when talking about looking for her spanish pirate and how her distress is loudly proclaimed....

Text-
Scaramouche and Pulcinella,
brought together by a wicked plan,
are gesticulating, black against the moon.

Meanwhile the excellent doctor
from Bologna slowly gathers
simples amid the brown grass.

Then his daughter, enticing and pretty,
under the bower, stealthily,
slips, half-naked, looking for

her fine Spanish pirate
whose distress is loudly proclaimed
by a languorous nightingale.

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