The Influence of Franz Liszt's Structural Style on the Music of Claude Debussy: An Analytic Comparison of the Anne?es de Pe?le?rinage and the Preludes

Abstract

In spite of the fact that there is almost no written evidence to suggest it, it is the intention of this paper to show that the formal and structural styles employed by Liszt in Les Annees de pelerinage did indeed exert a noticeable influence on the way in which Debussy constructed the music presented in his two books of Preludes. This theory originated in the present author's mind (although it was not thought of as a topic for an honors thesis until a year later), after having been introduced to Debussy's Deux Arabesques. Having taken a course in the music of the Romantic period in which several piano pieces by Liszt were a part of the listening assignment, it became evident that there was a remarkable similarity between the first of the two Arabesques by Debussy (dating from 1888) and "Sposalizio" by Liszt (dating from 1838). When it came time to decide on a topic for this thesis, it seemed that it would be interesting to explore just how close a similarity there was between the formal styles of these two composers. [From introductory section]