Debussy - Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune

Structure
1. Ternary with coda
  1. A - 1-54
  2. B - 55-78
  3. A - 79-93
  4. Coda - 94-110
Rhythm and Meter
1. Difficult to identify meter
2. The whole piece has a sense of freedom and rhythmic flexibility
3. Frequent changes of meter
4. Triplets (bar 1)
5. Cross rhythms (bar 67)
Melody
1. Opening melody was revolutionary
2. Opening two bars are chromatic
3. Bar three is diatonic and covers an octave
4. Melody is mainly conjunct with few leaps
5. The rest of the piece is a melodic evolution of the opening motif
Instrumentation
1. Large sized orchestra
2. Strings use tremolo
3. Harp glissando and harmonics
4. Horns sometimes muted
Texture
1. Mostly melody dominated homophony
2. Opening is monophonic
3. Doubling of instruments is common
Tonality
1. Tonality is unclear throughout
2. At the end it settles in E major
3. The opening is chromatic outlining a tritone - provides no sense of key
Harmony
1. Non-functional chords
2. Harmony creates musical 'colour'
3. Many 7th chords
4. Chord extensions 9th, 11th and 13th
5. Chromatic harmony

Resource summary

	Created by Alec Hewstone over 11 years ago