Read below for program notes for the Classics Series concert “Debussy’s La Mer” on January 24-25, 2025. Program notes are written by Jeremy Reynolds Copyright © 2025.
Overture to Don Giovanni, K. 527 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s ability to procrastinate was legendary in his day. A full performance of his famous opera Don Giovanni lasts around three hours. And yet, Mozart waited until the night before the opera was to premiere — already delayed by two weeks — to pen the opening overture, the final seven minutes of music to complete the work.
The tale is one of trust and teamwork. Mozart’s wife, Constanze, made a deal with her dithering husband: If she made him his favorite punch and told him stories to keep him alert, he’d work on the overture until he finished it.
Constanze, the angel, held up her side of the bargain. Mozart — who famously composed in his head and found the process of actually writing notes on the page quite tedious — did not. He promptly fell asleep on the sofa after drinking too much punch. The story ends happily, however, as Mozart awoke and spat out the overture with all the speed of a tasty bit of gossip.
Don Giovanni’s premiere proved a smash success. The Don, an arrogant, philandering nobleman, murders a man in the opera’s opening scene and then seduces his daughter. Later, the father rises from the grave to drag an unrepentant Giovanni to hell. To illustrate the horror of this moment, Mozart uses a special kind of dissonant chord played loudly, slowly, and rhythmically. (For the music theory buffs in the room: the chord employs diminished sevenths, a rare interval at this point in music history.)
Mozart adapted this dramatic finale for the opening of the overture, which begins with thunderous chords punctuated by great, deafening silences. Soon, strings begin to slither with a slow, portentous melody. Before long, however, the mood lightens and quickens to a bright, cheery allegro — the opera itself blends both melodrama and comedy throughout the production. There are shadows in the music, flashes of the jealousy and near-escapes by the Don in the opera. The concert version of the overture finishes with a bright chord, while the opera version transitions into the first act more directly.
Don Giovanni is now one of the most-performed operas of all time. It followed the success of The Marriage of Figaro, written by the same librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, with whom Mozart also wrote the satirical opera Così fan tutte (Women are all like that)
La Mer by Claude Debussy
When little Claude Debussy was born, his father, Manuel-Achille, dreamed of shipping his eldest son off to the French Navy to a life of adventure, respect, and financial security. Manuel-Achille’s hopes were dashed, however, when Debussy’s prodigious musical talent saw him admitted to the Paris Conservatory at the age of 10. (The young Debussy would also discover a talent for cutting class, though he eventually kicked the habit.)
At the age of 40, Debussy would embark on La Mer, or The sea, three symphonic sketches for orchestra, referencing his childhood memories of family trips to the ocean. “You perhaps do not know that I was destined for the life of a sailor and that it was only by chance that I was led away from it,” the composer wrote. “But I still have a great passion for the sea.”
The opening “sketch” emerges softly, murky strings and harp layering atop one another to build a misty texture. Soon, the music accelerates and brightens, winds dancing lightly on an undulating, wave-lake accompaniment in the strings. Rather than a traditional symphony, Debussy avoids traditional forms in favor of effects and new sounds and effects.
The original printed score for La Mer includes a print of the famous Great Wave off Kanagawa by the Japanese artist Hokusai. Debussy, who saw himself as more of a poet, snapped at comparisons between his music and the impressionist movement in visual art. “I am trying to do something different — in a way, realities — what the imbeciles call Impressionism, just about the least appropriate term possible,” he snarked in a letter.
La Mer’s second movement is quicker, more mischievous and fragmentary, with little shifts in wind and spray audible in the music’s sudden shifts in volume and texture. The last movement is a storm, with the wind represented in a solo trumpet call and the sea theme in the oboes and strings. These themes vie for dominance in the movement, ultimately entwining in a glorious finale.
Today, La Mer is one of Debussy’s most performed works, but it foundered at its premiere. The orchestra protested during rehearsals by tying handkerchiefs to their instruments; whether this was on account of the music’s departure from tradition or scandal in Debussy’s personal life — he left his wife to live with a married woman while composing La Mer — isn’t clear.