2.3 Musical form
Roy Howat in his work, Debussy in Pro portion: A Musical Analysis, presents his discovery that Debussy’s music “contain s intricate proportional systems which can account both for the precise nature of the music’s unorthodox forms and for the difficulty in defining them in more familiar terms”, [4] . These proportional systems are based on the Golden Ratio. For example, Howat notes that the dramatic climax of Cloches à travers les feuilles and of ‘Mo uvement’ from Images (1905 ) occur exactly on the overall Golden Ratio division of the work , i.e. the climaxes occur when the ratio of the total number of bars to the climax bar gives approximately 1.618.
Howat also postulates that Debussy’s p reoccupation with Fibonacci numbers explains some of the unorthodox structure of his compositions. As examples he notes:
•the 21 bars introduction to Rondes de Printem ps;
• the 34 bars of the first
•the 34 bars build-up to the triumphant coda of L’isle joye use and to the recapitulation of
Masques;
• the 34 bars before the first reprise in Refle ts dans l’eau and the 55 bars before its
c limax;
•the 55 bars introduction to the last movement of La mer.