of mode in the harmonic progression, the unusual spacing of the chord in measure 5, and the placing of the perfect fourth in the two flutes. The effect is quite unexpected and magical." According to Donald Mitchell, the "rational basis" of Mahler's orchestration was "to enable us to comprehend his music by hearing precisely what was going on." Debussy Apart from Mahler and Richard Strauss, the major innovator in orchestration during the closing years of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century was Claude Debussy. According to Pierre Boulez (1975, p20) "Debussy’s orchestration… when compared with even such brilliant contemporaries as Strauss and Mahler… shows an infinitely fresher imagination." Boulez said that Debussy's orchestration was "conceived from quite a different point of view; the number of instruments, their balance, the order in which they are used, their use itself, produces a different climate." Apart from the early impact of Wagner, Debussy was also fascinated by music from Asia that according to Austin "he heard repeatedly and admired intensely at the Paris World exhibition of 1889". Both influences inform Debussy's first major orchestral work, Prelude a l’après-midi d’un faune (1894). Wagner's influence can be heard in the strategic use of silence, the sensitively differentiated orchestration and, above all in the striking half-diminished seventh chord spread between oboes and clarinets, reinforced by a glissando on the harp. Austin (1966, p. 16) continues "Only a composer thoroughly familiar with the Tristan chord could have conceived the beginning of the Faune." Later in the Faune, Debussy builds a complex texture, where, as Austin says, "Polyphony and orchestration overlap...He adds to all the devices of Mozart, Weber, Berlioz and Wagner the possibilities that he learned from the heterophonic music of the Far East.... The first harp varies the flute parts in almost the same way that the smallest bells of a Javanese gamelan vary the slower basic melody." Debussy's final orchestral work, the enigmatic ballet Jeux (1913) was composed nearly 20 years after the Faune. The opening bars feature divided strings, spread over a wide range, a harp doubling horns with the addition of the bell-like celesta in the 5th bar and the sultry voicing of the whole tone chords in the woodwind: Jensen (2014, p. 228) says "Perhaps the greatest marvel of Jeux is its orchestration. While working on the piano score, Debussy wrote: ‘I am thinking of that orchestral colour