You’ve probably talked in your classrooms about this week’s Earth Day (some classes have even volunteered to help clean up in the neighbourhood)! One composer who was inspired by nature and wrote many pieces about nature was Claude Debussy, a French Impressionist composer. I’ve played several of his piano works =)

Some of his famous pieces:
– Suite Bergamasque (1890, rev.1905): a four-movement suite – ‘Prélude’, ‘Menuet’, ‘Clair De Lune’ and ‘Passepied’ – for piano. The relaxing music is inspired by a poem, written by French poet Paul Verlaine, and pre-echoes the hazy, impressionistic textures of Debussy’s later work, especially in his best-loved piano piece ‘Clair De Lune’.
– La Mer (1905)
– Prélude à l’Aprés-Midi d’un Faune (1894): A faun mythological half human–half goat creature appearing in Roman mythology. It is often said that the era of modern music began with a single work in 1894: Claude Debussy’s Prélude à L’Après-Midi D’Un Faune for orchestra. Based on Mallarmé’s poem, Debussy considered the Prélude to be evocative “of the successive scenes in which the longings and desires of the faun pass in the heat of the afternoon”. Debussy stretched the traditional system of keys and tonalities to their limits. The Prélude, one of Debussy’s best works, is one of the most popular pieces of music of all time and inspired many composers including Leonard Bernstein and Boulez.
– Pelléas Et Mélisande (1902): the only opera Debussy ever completed and is considered a landmark in 20th-century music (watch the concert suite here or a short summary of the opera here)
– Deux Arabesques (1888/1891)
– Children’s Corner (1908): Enchanting suite in six movements evoking scenes from childhood – including the riotous ‘Golliwog’s Cake-Walk’ – dedicated “To my dear little Chouchou with her father’s gentle apologies for what follows”.
– Images (1905 – 1907) (recorded in the Chan Centre at UBC)
– String Quartet In G Minor (1893)
– Préludes (1910 – 1913)
– Jeux (1913): This unforgettable ballet features two girls and a boy, who upon losing their ball during an evening game of tennis, hunt for it in the moonlit undergrowth, playing the odd game of hide-and-seek along the way.