Take a listen to Pagodes.
(Estampes 1, Pagodes, Alex Wesseinberg, 1986 Deutsche Grammophon)
In 1889, at the Exposition Universelle, Debussy was first exposed to the genre of Javanese Gamelan music. From then on, his work quite often featured notable influences from Gamelan music, most evident in Pagodes, the first movement of three in his solo piano composition, Estampes (1903) (Lederer 2007, 21). Pagodes evokes images of East Asia, through the use of pentatonic scales (B major, C#, D#, F#, G#, A#). You might even notice that some motifs within the compositional score, outlines the shape of pagodas (mostly religious east asian tiered towers), such as in the first couple bars (D. Vanderburg).
(Pagoda: http://www.hotelclub.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Sakayamuni-pagoda.jpg)
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| (First two measures of Pagodes) |
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