Clair de lune

About this Piece

Though ubiquity has threatened to turn this piece into a high-end spa soundtrack, its origins were significantly more fraught. Composed in 1890 but withheld for fifteen years, it only reached the public in 1905 because the heirs of Debussy’s deceased sponsor, Georges Hartmann, enforced its publication to settle the composer’s mounting debts. Debussy, who had since evolved into a revolutionary of tonal color, was understandably mortified to see his early salon experiments released to the masses. The movement was originally titled Promenade sentimentale (a sentimental stroll), a name that implied a far more literal, earthbound narrative. In a stroke of marketing genius or perhaps poetic surrender, he re-titled it after Paul Verlaine’s poem. The irony is purely linguistic: a bergamasque is a clumsy, rustic peasant dance from Bergamo. Debussy subverted this awkward heritage by creating a shimmering 9/8 landscape of weightless D-flat major chords that feel more like light hitting water than feet hitting a dance floor. While critics rushed to label the result Impressionism, Debussy famously retorted that such a term was the invention of imbeciles. He preferred to speak of his music as realities and insisted that his work should only ever be performed on a Bechstein. As you navigate these delicate arpeggios, remember that you are playing a work the composer viewed as a youthful indiscretion, eventually utilized as a financial pawn to satisfy his creditors.