Claude Debussy music is the roar of the wind and sea, rustling of greenery, commotion of water and aura of a summer day. This is the nature without harmonic discord. All attempts to probe Debussy creative heritage means destroying its very essence.

Today, on the birthday of the French composer, founder of musical impressionism and music critic Claude Debussy, we invite you to listen to a rare recording of works by Claude Debussy performed by the author. In our new compilation - his preludes from the cycle created at the end of his career (the first notebook in 1910, the second one - in 1913). The whole cycle consists of twenty-four preludes, each with its own flagship title, indicated only at the end of the piece (by this the composer emphasizes the unwillingness to "impose" his conception on the performer and listener), which is almost never associated with the literature source. Each prelude has a perfectly finished and harmonic form. With this work, Debussy summed up his creative work and expressed everything that was characteristic of musical form, content, poetic image and particularity of style. The capacity of the preludes to embody separate, successive impressions, absence of mandatory schemes in the composition, improvisational freedom of expression - all those features were close to the aesthetic views and artistic method of the composer-impressionist.

The cycle opens with “The Danseuses de Delphes” prelude. The exalted beauty of the marble sculptures of the antique bas-relief evoked bright musical and poetic associations in the composer’s mind. The sculptural group of three dancers on a fragment of the Greek temple, the copy of which Debussy saw in the Louvre exposition, inspired him. The music impresses with the exceptional plasticity of slow, smooth movements. At the same time, Debussy follows his own intonation paths, on the one hand, vivifying the techniques of medieval organ, and on the other, brilliantly implementing the techniques of impressionistic tone painting.

Among the preludes by Debussy, which have a literature or figurative source, “La Cathedrale engloutie” stands out. This prelude was created by the composer under the impression of a Breton legend about the ancient city of Ys, once swallowed by the sea and, according to the stories of local anglers, sometimes rising from the waves at dawn accompanied by the sounds of distant ringing bells. The plot attracted the composer by its heroic and picturesque sides. The prelude genre and means of musical expression comply with the task of the most subtle reproduction of the seascape, gradually dissipating fog and dawning, the bell-ringing coming from the depths of the sea, and, finally, the rising city.

“La Danse de Pack” is the prelude dedicated to the impressions from “A Midsummer Night's Dream” by W. Shakespeare.

One of the romanticism and impressionism characteristic aesthetic features manifested itself in all those works - the desire to reconcile various spheres of art as much as possible - music, literature, painting, sculpture and thereby enrich the content and expressive means of each of them (in this case, music).

Ref. Belcanto.ru