Debussy “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun”

I thought Debussy’s piece, “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” was a very beautiful piece of music. Like with a lot of the music we have listened to this semester, I noticed how the tempo of the piece affected my temporal experience of listening. When the song sped up, my heart rate physically increased, and when the song slowed down, I felt more relaxed. The tempo and rhythm of the music, with its varying speeds and beats, made the song more interesting to listen to. If the song had just been at one slow tempo, or one fast tempo, I don’t know if I would have enjoyed it as much. I thought that the auditory interaction of the instruments with the notes played and the tempo created almost a light atmosphere, and there were parts in the piece that I would picture being played in a movie that had a scene taking place in a field of daisies or something of that nature. Another aspect of this piece affected my temporal experience of not listening to the song, but reading the poem that inspired it. I read the poem while listening to the piece, and I noticed that when the plot of the poem got more heated, the tempo of the music sped up and got more heated. Likewise, when the poem was starting or when there was a lull in the plot, the piece’s tempo was slow. I don’t know if that is because of the speed at which I read the poem or if Debussy meant for that to happen, but I thought that listening to the piece while reading the poem created an interesting temporal experience.