Debussy, Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune.

Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune which was first premiered in 1894 is considered perhaps to be the birth piece of the modernist movement. Though wikipedia says “It is a work that barely grasps onto tonality and harmonic function,” It is actually an incredibly tonal work, in that it has very prominent key areas. This is not functional tonality but it’s much closer to that than the way tonality manifests itself in the gestures of some Second Viennese School music.

The work sounds visceral and fleeting, just as the poem it is based off of is. In the poem:

a faun playing his pan-pipes alone in the woods becomes aroused by passing nymphs and naiads, pursues them unsuccessfully, then wearily abandons himself to a sleep filled with visions. Though called a “prelude,” the work is nevertheless complete – an evocation of the feelings of the poem as a whole.

So the work is about dirty dreams. I love the video below because Stokowski is so old he can’t conduct.