ABSTRACT
The first half of Chapter 7 deals with the rejection by Debussy of the massive influence of Wagner in France in the late 19th century. Debussy devoted himself to creating a truly French style of music that owed little to the German heritage of symphonic composition. To do this he borrowed techniques from Russian composers, from non-Western sources such as gamelan music, from Impressionist painting, and from Symbolist poetry. Although he wrote no symphonies, his three-movement symphonic work La mer amply demonstrates the compositional technique used to create his new French style.
The second half of Chapter 7 investigates the subject of musical Nationalism in the 20th century by looking at the works of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. His symphonies present us with unique solutions to the question of how to do something new with the symphony while simultaneously remaining true to that genre’s long tradition.
