The music of Claude Debussy and Richard Strauss demonstrates the movement away from the conventional tonal system through the use of extended tonality to shape their distinctive musical styles. The development of Debussy’s departure from nineteenth-century formal models is demonstrated in Prélude a l'après midi d'un Faune. (BROWN 131) Strauss establishes his mastery over the synthesis of chromatic tonality and motivic manipulation in his opera, Salome. France began to seek independence from the imposing German canon of music after their defeat to Germany in the Franco-Prussian war. To achieve this, French composers revisited the roots of traditional French music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Rather than expression and outward …show more content…
Strauss achieves unity and coherence through the use of leitmotivs, the Wagnerian idea of associating particular keys, melodies and harmonies with particular characters and …show more content…
Rather, it’s in a mode which is intended to contain all the nuances…” (BROWN 130 lesure ed., lettres, 79; Lesure and Nichols, 84-85) The main flute theme is presented in bars 1-30 and 94-106 in E major, beginning on a C sharp. (EXAMPLE) Although the first 30 bars are in E major, the tonic does not appear until bar 13 and the key is not properly established until bars 21-26. The ambiguity of key is furthered by the use of seventh chords on A sharp, B flat and D (bars 4-12) to prepare the tonic. (EXAMPLE) Clearly, this reflects Debussy’s shift from the formal structure of functional harmony of the nineteenth century to colouristic successions. The highly chromatic nature of the opening phrase alternates between the two poles of C sharp and G natural, which is the interval of the augmented fourth, or tritone. (EXAMPLE) The tritone, which contradicts the concept of diatonic tonality, is used as Debussy’s basic structural principle in Prélude a l'après midi d'un Faune. The opening melody establishes a brief sense of E major in bar 3 but resolves to the dominant seventh of E flat major in bar 84. (EXAMPLE) This progression is extremely unusual and demonstrates the tritone relationship of the root of the dominant seventh chord B flat, and E major. The ambiguities in Prélude a l'après midi d'un Faune evolve from the basic tritone principle, using techniques of extended tonalities. The sense of