Asha Faria-Vare
A short analytical discussion of Debussy’s Des pas sur la neige Rejecting form in the Classical sense, Debussy generates the structure and content of Des pas sur la neige through the variation and reharmonisation of a few motifs. The opening motif is most important and serves as an ostinato on the notes D-E-F; grounding the piece to a D tonal centre. Debussy makes harmonic adjustments with the first page featuring all twelve degrees of the chromatic scale. A variety of modal flavours are present: either consciously summoned or by-products of Debussy’s adjustments to the ‘D area’:
Example 1a: Opening bars. Ostinato figure, melodic/modal adjustments (compare bars 2-4 with 5-7), D aeolian? D dorian?
Example 1b: Bars 12-13. Ab mixolydian?
Asha Faria-Vare Example 1c: Bars 16-17. Bb Lydian b7?
The entire first page could be considered an A section, with two bars built on a collection of pitches from the whole-tone scale on C providing a culmination:
Example 3: Bars 14-15. Whole-tone scale: cadential function, ostinato reference, RH doubled octaves.
A few bars prior, the ostinato figure drops out. A low rhythmic figure at bar 14 momentarily recalls the ostinato before the music comes to a halt. The ostinato disappears at one other point in the piece, bars 29-31, just before the coda. Here too, its absence seems to indicate that the music is coming to an end and when it reappears in the final bars it is transposed up an octave, demonstrating Debussy’s use of register as a formal device:
Asha Faria-Vare Example 4: Bars 29 – 33. Missing ostinato, use of register, first inversion minor triad harmonisation, rhythmic unity, extended/variant melody of bars 20-25.
The second section could be said to begin at bar 16, where the ostinato figure is heard against a motif reminiscent of the chromatic bass line in bar 8. Throughout the prelude, chromatic motifs press towards D or Db (C#):
Example 5a: Bar 16. Ascending motif.
Example 5b: Bars 8-9. Two chromaticised ascending motifs head to dom7 ths on C# and C. Aug 4th resolving to Perfect 4th = tension and release.
Asha Faria-Vare
Example 5c: Bars 10-11. Two chromatic figures head to Db.
In bars 26-27 the motif is disguised by a chromatic descent of minor triads:
Example 6: Bars 26-27. Chromatic descending motif heads to D.
Reharmonisations such as these help shape the work. Bar 20 begins exactly like bar 5 but the phrase is extended and the texture thickened:
Example 7a: Bars 5 – 7. Descending 5ths in LH, RH provides 3rd. Melody extended from opening.
Asha Faria-Vare Example 7b: Bars 19-25. Fragmented of opening melody bar 19, bars 20-21 = extended version of bars 5-7, dense harmonic texture, series of crescendos, animated from bars 21-25.
Dynamics and performance directions help to establish points of structural significance. The prelude is predominantly pianissimo, seldom exceeding piano except for a series of small crescendos at the climax, bars 23-24. The performance directions, sad, slow and painful for the most part, suddenly demand animated and tender expression: [see example 7b]. The melody of Des pas sur la neige is never explicit; like the harmony, it unfolds and develops over the course of the piece. In comparing the opening with bars 5-6, 17-19, 20-25 and 28-31 (examples already provided) we see how Debussy reuses fragments of the melody, varies and/or extends it. The most extensive development of the melody is at bars 28-31 (a reharmonised version of 23-24). Here too, the rhythmically opposed textures of the piece come together for the first time providing a thematic conclusion to the prelude [see example 4]. With the coda comes a familiar feeling of uncertainty; the final bars juxtapose g and d minor until the music eventually rests on an unconventionally spaced and unstable d minor chord:
Asha Faria-Vare Example 8: Bars 32-end. Coda, use of register, return of doubled 8ves at close of phrase, g mi juxtaposed with d mi, spacing destabilises final chord.
Two main sections and a coda have been outlined for the purpose of this analysis but only in the broadest sense since a sectional approach seems at odds with Debussy’s organic generation of material. More importance has been attached to the reappearance (or absence), reharmonisation and modification of material as it is through such procedures that Debussy evokes a sense of ‘remembering’: this is essential to the prelude’s formal construction.
