Free | Current TV
Posted: 1/1/0001
Art + Debussy Music + talk => 5 min mini doc
.a series of gradually unfolding, beautiful digital seascapes created by images captured from webcams overlooking the sea, sited at different locations along the south east coast of the UK..
British artist Susan Collins s work draws upon classical landscape traditions in painting to create digital works which unfold in real time.
Presented at the modernist masterpiece, the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhll on Sea, Sussex.
http://tiny.cc/seascapecollins
Debussy's Reflets Dans L'Eau - Reflections in the Water - is one of many works in the composer's output inspired by water or by the sea.
It is also one of the most evocative of the imagery the composer attempts to convey and one of the most popular piano works in his output. Debussy revealed that he viewed the piece as a depiction of a pebble being tossed into calm water to make ever-widening ripples. That said, the work also conveys a good bit more, including, as the title suggests, reflections on the water surface, undoubtedly of the sun and sky and nature scenery surrounding it.
The piece quietly opens, with chords rising into the upper register seeming to depict gentle splashes. Thematically, the work is threadbare; atmospherically, however, it is rich. The main theme is short-breathed (mainly consisting of eight, sometimes ten notes), gradually evolving from the opening material. The middle section develops tension and erupts in music the composer must have envisioned as ripples nearly turning into waves. The mood returns to its earlier tranquil demeanor and this approximately five-minute work quietly ends.
Debussy wrote and rewrote Reflections while staying at the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne across the bay from Bexhill on Sea. He had to flee Paris in 1905 with his mistress, Emma Bardac, to escape a scandal - his wife had shot herself. From the hotel he wrote to his Publisher, Jacques Durand:
'Your impatience with regard to the Images is t