What was Debussy's central idea about musical harmony?
Harmony, you ask? It is not some dry, academic exercise, some predictable scaffolding. For me, it is a palette of colors, a texture that can evoke a specific mood, a fleeting impression. I loosened its chains, allowing chords to float, to resolve not out of necessity but out of a kind of sensory inevitability. Think of the shifting hues of the sea in 'La Mer' – the harmony is not a structural element, but a reflection of that vast, ever-changing expanse. It is about the sensuous beauty of sound itself, not its adherence to abstract rules. Pleasure is the law, is it not?
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