Stepping-Stones
Michel Debost · 2002
Abstract Creators of Japanese gardens put a great amount of beauty into a small space. Their use of space and understatement is a model for musical interpretation. I love their stepping-stones: flat rocks symbolizing various stages of our existence or an imaginary river made of fine white gravel. Whatever they stand for, they are poetic images of suspended time. There are helpful stepping-stones in interpretation also: pacing a dynamic progression and tracking a change in tempo. (See Stepping Stones ex. 1, page 225.) The initial bar is p throughout. In the second bar, the primary notes are highlighted while the secondary patterns remain p. In the last bar, all the elements come forward. The figured-bass harmonic progression follows the same ascending dynamic progression. In the following example, since no harmonic progression exists in the accompaniment, the performer has two possibilities: