Classical Music | Piano Music

Claude Debussy

L’Isle Joyeuse (The Island of Joy)  Play

Brian Lee Piano

Recorded on 10/19/2011, uploaded on 01/19/2012

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Composed in 1903-04, L’isle joyeuse (“The Happy Isle”) is a single-movement work for the piano and a trademark piece of Debussy’s mature compositional style. Debussy took his inspiration for the piece from Jean-Antoine Watteau’s Rococo painting L'Embarquement pour Cythère (“The Embarkation for Cythera”). Cythera, one of the Greek isles, according to legend is the birthplace of Venus, the goddess of love. In Watteau’s painting, illustrating the joyous and pleasurable time enjoyed by the French aristocracy following the death of Louis XIV, an amorous couple is seen in the presence of a statue of Venus, while others, encircled by cupids, make their way down a hill to a golden boat. Some have speculated that the painting is, in fact, a departure from the island of Cythera, suggesting the brevity of love and perhaps coinciding better with Debussy’s chosen title.

Fashioned in a sort of modified sonata form in A major, Debussy begins L’isle joyeuse with a cadenza-like passage of brilliant and rapid figurations that lead to the piece’s principal theme. This energetic subject is based predominantly on the Lydian mode but later, with the arrival of a related idea, adopts the whole-tone scale. Appearing roughly a third of the way into the piece is the lyrical second subject in a rich diatonic A major, with only occasional inflections from the Lydian mode and set against rippling arpeggio quintuplets. Throughout the development, fragments of both themes are heard amongst the interesting and lush textures which Debussy so masterfully could usher forth from the piano. Each theme is given a reprise in the recapitulation. However, the second theme’s return is delayed with much expectation so as to gives its fortissimo rendering near the end greater weight. Following this climatic reprise, an altered form of opening cadenza brings the piece to a brilliant conclusion.      Joseph DuBose

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There are distinct differences between L’isle joyeuse and Clair de lune.  The first is a brilliant virtuosic piece inspired by a French Baroque painting (Watteau’s L’embarquement pour Cythère), while Clair de lune is a slower-paced nocturne, initially titled Promenade Sentimentale, inspired by Paul Verlaine’s poem of the same name. Despite these differences, both share a common link (according to Paul Roberts in Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy) to the fête galante (“gallant party”), which were romantic, amorous, outdoor events conducted by French aristocrats in the 1700’s, and later a label given to the painting style Watteau was instrumental in creating. His celebrated painting of the island of Cythère, currently housed in the Louvre, portrays one of these excursions and served as an inspiration to Debussy’s musical island. It was also the spark for Verlaine’s set of poems called Fêtes Galantes.  Regardless of their differences and common links, both are considered to be among Debussy’s most celebrated works in the piano literature.      Brian Lee