“And their song mingles with the moonlight”

Claude Monet, A Seascape, Shipping by Moonlight

As we begin our new term this September, the evenings will be getting darker and our music making will be as described in the above line from Paul Verlaine’s beautiful poem, “Clair de lune”. Written in 1869, the poem provided the inspiration for Claude Debussy’s piece of that name, which we will be playing this term.

Clair de lune (“Moonlight”) was originally composed by Debussy in 1890 and formed the third movement of his Suite bergamasque for piano. Due to its great popularity, it has since been orchestrated and arranged for a wide variety of instrumental combinations.

Whilst studying composition at the Paris Conservatoire, Debussy had been looking for an alternative to the 19^th century classical-romantic tradition, both in form and in harmonies. His research led him to traditional music from non-European traditions such as Japanese gamelan music, and he experimented with both pentatonic and whole tone scales. Another influence was the French Symbolist movement of the 1880s, which sought to evoke moods and feelings through language, metaphor and imagery. To create these shifting moods and atmospheres, Debussy’s music developed with a greater emphasis on instrumental colours and textures. There was also more use of static harmony and an avoidance of traditional musical form. This music became known as French Impressionist, due to its conceptual likeness to the Impressionist painters of the period such as Monet. Although Debussy wholeheartedly rejected the use of this term, his music certainly formed a turning point which paved the way for the modern music of the 20^th century.