Other Good Bridges: Continuity and Debussy's "Reflets Dans L'eau"

What Makes a Good Bridge?[1] In his article "What Makes a Good Bridge?" (2003) Steve Larson examines the formal and functional roles of the B section-the bridge-in AABA American popular song forms. His analyses of popular songs show the ways in which bridges contrast with and create compelling links with their surrounding A sections. He provides a list of attributes of good musical bridges which, like their architectural counterparts,* differ from the paths they connect, but are part of a single path;* direct motion along a more-restricted path with a clear goal;* are (unlike the places they connect) not a place to stop;* connect more stable areas;* cross some contrasting terrain or obstacle;* tend to be balanced and symmetrical, yet open-ended, structures;* are more comfortable to travel on if they are structurally sound;* are more desirable to travel on if they take you where you want to go (Larson 2003, 11).Example 1. Bridge (measures 17-24) of Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm"[2] Larson's discussion of the bridge (measures 17-24) to George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" highlights some intriguing features. He shows that the melodic pattern established in the bridge's first four bars is restated a step below during the second four bars, but with a crucial difference. An exact restatement of the melodic material would end with the pitch F. Example 1 shows that that pitch is withheld at the end of the bridge, leaving the pattern incomplete. Yet F is the first pitch heard at the return of the A section, and thus it completes the pitch pattern only after the sectional division. Larson's analysis describes a type of musical motion that contributes to the continuity across formal and hypermetric divisions. It impels musical motion by bridging the formal divide.[3] The term "bridge" has at least three meanings in music. (1) For Western European music it is roughly synonymous with "transition," a musical section-often modulatory-that connects more stable thematic sections. (In that same context bridge may also refer to a retransitional section, which typically stands on the dominant and brings about a stable harmonic arrival at a critical formal juncture such as a recapitulation.) (2) In American popular song bridge refers to the contrasting B section within an AABA song form. (3) The term "bridge" may be more generally applied to links, elisions, or overlaps between formal sections, phrases, subphrases, and harmonic regions. In this latter sense bridge is more a verb than a noun: it does not necessarily describe a specific formal section but instead accounts for a kind of musical process.(1) Larson's analysis of "I Got Rhythm" invokes the idea of bridge in the second and third senses: it describes the events in the B section of an AABA song, and it further points out how pattern completion creates continuity across sectional boundaries.[4] My concern in this essay is with this latter type of bridge, particularly musical processes that enhance continuity across formal sections, phrases, subphrases, or harmonic regions in the music of Debussy. Thus my focus is not on bridge sections, but on bridging processes. The first two excerpts, from "La cathedrale engloutie" (from Preludes, Book 1) and Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune, create melodic bridging structures. I then turn to Debussy's solo piano work "Reflets dans l'eau" (from Images, Book 1) and show how Debussy links the formal sections of the ABACA small rondo. Here Debussy creates formal overlaps by the continuation of motivic or harmonic events across formal boundaries. In the final portion of the essay I consider the above ideas in light of the Debussy critical tradition that privileges aesthetic values of circularity, discontinuity, and stasis.Some Good Bridges[5] Central to Debussy's bridging processes is overlap or elision.(2) In "La cathedrale engloutie" (from Preludes, Book 1) the overlap comes about through pattern completion (as in "I Got Rhythm") that links remote key areas. …