Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 09/28/2011, uploaded on 09/28/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Claude Debussy composed his two books of preludes during a remarkably brief period—the first, between December 1909 and February 1910; and the second, during roughly the same period in 1912-13. Though totaling twenty-four in number between the two books, Debussy’s preludes do not follow the precedent established by J. S. Bach’s ubiquitously known Well-Tempered Clavier (namely, a prelude in each of the major and minor keys) and imitated by several other composers, including Frédéric Chopin, Charles-Valentin Alkan, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. However, this does not mean that Debussy’s preludes are without order, and the relationships that can be found among them indicate that their published order was, to a certain extent, quite purposeful, yet also designed with a degree of inherent flexibility. Debussy, in keeping with the artistic philosophy of his day, also composed each prelude with specific scene or image in mind. Yet, to partially disguise these intents from the listener and to allow his audience to discover them of their own accord, Debussy craftily placed his titles at the end of each prelude. Performance practice of the preludes varies. Early performances, even by Debussy himself, established a precedent of grouping the prelude in threes or fours, allowing performers to pick those in which they perhaps are most comfortable. However, some performers also choose to perform each book in their entirety.

In the third prelude, Le vent dans la plaine (“The Wind in the Plain”), rushing sextuplet figurations depict a refreshing breeze across the world and a melodic motif heard in the middle of the texture perhaps calls to mind the movement of wildflowers or grain as they are caught in the rushing air. The vigorous wind in Debussy’s imaginative scene hardly lets up throughout the prelude except for three times (once at the beginning and twice at the end) when the sextuplets give way to a sudden passage of descending block chords in an eighth-note rhythm, as the picturesque scene of Debussy’s title slowly returns to its tranquil state before the next gust.       Joseph DuBose

Debussy - Prelude le Vent Dans la Plaine. Performed by Alexander Fomenko in Moscow conservatory concert hall on June 23, 2005.

Dipartimento di pianoforte dell'Istituto Europeo di Musica: i linemanti didattici di Heinrich Neuhaus

The music published in our channel is exclusively dedicated to divulgation purposes and not commercial. This within a program shared to study classic educational music of the 1900's (mostly european).