Debussy “On Taste”

This is an essay Claude Debussey wrote 103 years ago (nearly to the day!).   I was first given a copy of it by my first “legit” music theory teacher at the Berklee College of Music, Matt Marvuglio. (R.I.P)   He handed it out at the very first class and I have found it indispensably instructive ever since.  Enjoy!

Claude Debussey – “On Taste”

S.I.M., 15 February, 1913.  Reprinted in Monsieur Croche et autres écrits, ed.

Francois Lesure  (Paris:   Gallimard, 1971)  pp.222-25 Translated by S. Blum.

In our time, when the sense of “mystery” is gradually disappearing while we’re caught up in attempts to systematically “channel” human beings, it was inevitable that we would simultaneously lose the true meaning of the word “taste”.

     A century ago, to have taste meant nothing more than to support one’s views in a congenial manner. Today, this word has acquired such an extended reference, and functions in so many situations, that it amounts to little more than a kind of argument, a blow from the first in the American style…a strong affirmation, without elegance.  Following a natural tendency, “taste”, formerly an indication of “nuance” and “subtlety”, now appears in the context of “bad taste”, where forms and colors engage one another in extraordinary battles…But these reflections are much too general, since we should speak here only of music…a sufficiently arduous undertaking.

     Genius may apparently bypass “taste”;  Beethoven, for example. But one might contrast Beethoven with Mozart, who adds the most subtle taste to an equally powerful genius.   If we look at the work of J.S. Bach, the benevolent deity to whom musicians should pray before settling down to work, to protect themselves from mediocrity;  these countless works which mirror for us the achievement of the past, from playful arabesques to religious fervor, unsurpassed to this day, we would search in vain for a single error of taste.

     Portia, in “The Merchant Of Venice”,  speaks of a music which each man carries within himself…”Woe to him who hears it not!” she adds.  Remarkable words, which should give cause for thought to those who, before listening to the singing within their souls, concern themselves with picking up the formulas which will best serve them.  Or, with great ingenuity, line up single measures against each other, sad like little boxes.  Music which smells of tables and slippers.  This with the meaning given by mechanics who, trying out a badly assembled machine, say of it, “That smells of oil.”  We should guard against WRITING.  The work of moles where we end up reducing the living radiance of sounds to an operation in which, painfully, two and two make four.  For a long time now, music has experienced what mathematicians call “the delirium of number”.

     Above all, we should protect ourselves from systems which are nothing but traps to catch dilettantes.

     There have been, and there still remain, despite the disorders carried by “civilization”, enchanting small peoples who learn music as early as one learns to breathe.  Their conservatory is:  the rhythms of the sea, the wind in the leaves, and the thousand small noises to which they listen attentively, without studying arbitrary treatises.   Their traditions exist only in very ancient songs, linked to dances, to which each man, across centuries, brings his respective contribution.   Nevertheless, Javanese music follows a counterpoint against which that of Palestrina looks like child’s play.  And if one hears the charm of their “percussion”, leaving aside European biases, one must admit that ours is nothing but the barbarous noise of a circus band.

     The Vietnamese perform a type of embryonic lyric drama, on Chinese models, in which one recognizes the formula of Wagner Tetralogy, though there are more gods and fewer stage sets…A furious little clarinet takes the emotions in hand;  a tam-tam gives a shape to terror…nothing more!  No special theater,  no hidden orchestra.   Nothing but an instinctive need for art, satisfying itself with human inventiveness;  not a trace of bad taste!   To imagine that these people have never thought of seeking their formula from the school of Munich:  what are they thinking about?

     Would it then be the professional musicians who initiate the decay of civilized countries?   Is it possible that the accusation, leveled against the public, of liking only easy music (bad music) is misdirected?

     Actually, music becomes “difficult” whenever it doesn’t exist, the word “difficult” being nothing but a screen to conceal its poverty.  There is only one “music”, and it asserts itself its claim to being, whether to takes the rhythm of a waltz (even in a cafe!) or the imposing framework of a symphony. And why not admit openly that, in the two cases, good taste will often lie on the side of the waltz, while the symphony will barely conceal its pretentious piling up of mediocrity.

     Let’s not insist further on repeating this commonplace, firm and dense like stupidity: “One must not discuss tastes and colors.”   On the contrary, let’s talk to locate OUR TASTE, not that it’s lost, but we’ve smothered it beneath northern quilts.  It will be our best source of support in the struggle against the barbarians, who have gotten much worse even since they started to part their hair in the middle.

     We should uphold the notion that the beauty of a work of art will always remain mysterious:   One can never ascertain precisely “how it is made”.  We should retain, at any price, this magic peculiar to music.  In its essence, it is more disposed to embrace magic than any other art.

     When the god Pan gathered together the seven reeds of his syrinx, at first he imitated only the long sorrowful tones of the frog, complaining under the moonbeams. Later, he engaged in battles with the songs of birds. Most likely, it is from this time that the birds expanded their repertoire.

     These are sufficiently sacred beginnings, in which music may well take pride, retaining something of their mystery…In the name of all the gods, we shouldn’t try any longer to rid ourselves of it, any more than to explain it.

     Embellish it with this subtle attention to “taste”   That is the guardian of The Secret.