by HAROLD SAMUEL (Pianoforte)
Olive Groves (Soprano)
EVERYONE knows Debussy's excellence in delicately imaginative and pictorial music. Most of his sketches are impressionistic, and we need little more than the title to help us to conjure up the scene which the composer has endeavoured to translate into musical terms.
It is not on record that Debussy ever went to
China, so that these Pagodas are not a strictly authentic record. It may be that his eye had dwelt on some engraved pictures of Chinese scenes-for Engravings (Estampes) is the title of the volume from which this piece is taken: or maybe Debussy is thinking only of those little China men who nod to us from mantel-pieces-they also are called Pagodas. The only suggestion we get from the music is the continuous tinkle of bells-bells of all kinds but those that ring in the belfries of Europe.
The cool charm of the portrait of the ' lassie wi' the lint-white locks' is particularly attractive. One feels that the composer has conjured up the perfect parallel in sound of the portrait in the poem of Baudelaire that inspired the piece.
The Toccata is a swift, airy piece that might
. almost stand as an expression of the spirit of Mercury, the winged messenger.