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  4. Vol 7, Issue 1, 2026

Cyclic Form and Tonal Design in Debussy's String Quartet in G Minor

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DOI: 10.23977/artpl.2026.070105 | Downloads: 1 | Views: 32

Author(s)

Nan Wang 1

Affiliation(s)

1 School of Music and Dance, Baoshan University, Baoshan, Yunnan, China

Corresponding Author

Nan Wang

ABSTRACT

Claude Debussy's String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10, composed in 1893, showcases the composer's harmonic innovation, textural richness, and structural inventiveness. This study explores the quartet's cyclic design, in which a recurring thematic idea—the cyclic theme—undergoes various transformations across all four movements. Particular attention is given to Debussy's harmonic language, including modality, whole-tone inflections, parallelism, and chromatic mediant relationships, as well as the quartet's deviations from classical formal models. Through close analysis of each movement, this study reveals how Debussy achieves unity and contrast within the quartet, ultimately offering an integrated formal and tonal framework that can be described as a reversed cyclic sonata.

KEYWORDS

Debussy, String Quartet, Cyclic Form, Chromatic Mediant Relationship

CITE THIS PAPER

Nan Wang. Cyclic Form and Tonal Design in Debussy's String Quartet in G Minor. Art and Performance Letters (2026) Vol. 7: 26-32. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/artpl.2026.070105.

REFERENCES

[1] Jones, Evan Allan, ed. Intimate Voices: the twentieth-century string quartet. Vol. 1. University Rochester Press, 2009.
[2] Strasser, Michael. "Grieg, the Société nationale, and the Origins of Debussy's String Quartet." In Berlioz and Debussy: sources, contexts and legacies, pp. 103-116. Routledge, 2017.
[3] Wheeldon, Marianne. "Debussy and La Sonate cyclique." Journal of Musicology 22, no. 4 (2005): 644-679.
[4] Delécluse, François. "New Insights into Debussy's Sketches for the String Quartet Op. 10." Studia Musicologica 62, no. 3-4 (2022): 213-239.
[5] Yih, Annie K. "Analysing Debussy: Tonality, motivic sets and the referential pitch-class specific collection." Music Analysis 19, no. 2 (2000): 203-229. 
[6] Fauquet, Joël-Marie, Stephen E. Hefting, and Patricia Marley. "Chamber Music in France from Luigi Cherubini to Claude Debussy." In Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, pp. 287-314. Routledge, 2004.

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