Stuckenschmidt points to two similar (he calls them "identical") passages in the music of Debussy and Berg. Each passage involves five chords in which the top voice moves from G to Eb while the bass moves by fourths and fifths as follows: Bb-Eb-ab-Db-Gb. The passages occur in Debussy's Six épigraphes antiques composed in 1914 (a suite for piano duet; the passage is in the fourth piece, "Pour la danseuse aux crotales") and in Berg's Vier Lieder, Op. 2, completed in 1909 (the passage is in the last song). The Debussy suite incorporates music he had written some fourteen years earlier for Pierre Louy's Chansons de Bilitis, the passage in question, however, is not present in the earlier music. It appears, therefore, that Debussy is referring (probably unconsciously) to Berg. A famous precedent for this sort of reference occurs as an unusual chord in Ravel's Habanera (1895) is repeated literally in Debussy's "Soirée dans Grenade" from Estampes (1903).

Works: Debussy: "Soirée dans Grenade" from Estampes (1903) (459); Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 6 (456).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: David C. Birchler