Annotation for Roy Howat

Debussy in Proportion

Annotation (by Stephen C. Simms):

In this book Howat explores the proportional structures in Debussy's music. The two relationships he seems most concerned with are bilateral symmetry and Golden Section relationships. The method itself is reasonably transparent: find a significant musical event in the score in terms of dynamics, register, harmony, or melody, and then examine the relationship that this point forms with different spans of music surrounding it. For example, the loudest dynamic marking in Reflets dans l'eau occurs in bar 58. By examining that point in relationship to the entire 94-bar length of the piece, one can see that it occurs at the Golden Section point.
Primary Golden Section = 61.8 %
(part/whole)*100 = percentage of the whole that the part occupies
(58/94)*100 = 61.7 %
Two number series in which GS proportions are found are used by Howat: the Fibonacci series (1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 ...) and the Lucas series (1 3 4 7 11 18 29 ...).
The book itself is in four sections. The first section explains the ideas and methods that Howat uses in the rest of the book. This section features a chapter exclusively detailing an analysis of Reflets dans l'eau, which serves as an exemplar demonstrating the concepts. The second unit of the book attempts to trace the development of Debussy's use of proportion historicall and also contains a chapter analyzing L'isle joyeuse. The third section of the book is an analysis of La Mer with a chapter for each movement. The last section is a combination of analysis and musicological support for Debussy having conciously used the proportions that Howat has discovered.