Valse Romatique ~ Romantic Waltz

Good afternoon!
Today I am going to do a other quick analysis of one of Claude Debussy's compositions, Valse Romantique.

Valse Romantique is in the key signature of Ab major, just by the key signature we can see that this song will sound happy or 'nicer' because it is in a major key. Remember: major = Happy and Minor = Sad!
 Valse Romantique means the Romantic Waltz. The first tempo marking that is given on the score is 'Tempo Di Valse Moderato' which means Waltz time moderate.

The bass starts with the melody while the treble is silent for the first five bars. The tempo is in three/four which is a common beat. The bass starts with triplets and we see and accidental note in between the forth and fifth note. The bass plays the same notes for eight bars, but in the first six we have accents on top of them. This is telling us that we need to press harder on this note to make it sound a little more sudden.

In bar seven the treble takes over the melody and plays quavers that ascend. The live that appears under them and over the notes in the next bar mean that we play them so they 'run' into each other and don't sound separated. This is a common impressionistic theme as before this period in time, we get the stiff and regal sounding piano that I have mentioned in my first post.

The song sound really jagged as the bass begins the melody at the beginning. As the treble takes over the melody the song then moves into a rhythmic stability for two bars as the treble starts. Then in bar seven as the notes ascend, as I mentioned earlier, which gives a blurry feel because the music isn't totally stabilised. The bass clef takes the same notes until bar eight . This gives as a small melody in the background that compliments the notes being played in the treble. The bass then comes in a lot deeper as the notes in the treble start to differentiate from what they have been playing before, in bars five, six and seven. 

The notes in bars nine, ten and eleven, start to make the music more interesting by being carried into one another. With the crescendo underneath the notes the music gets louder as the bass carries the lower notes. The swing-y looking lines in bar twelve tell us that the notes in treble and bass are supposed to sound somewhat together and not to work seperatley.

     

Valse Romantique ~ Claude Debussy