Debussy Clair de Lune

Clair de Lune is one of Claude Debussy's most famous piano compositions. It is actually the third of the four movements in the Suite bergamasque. Its fascinating tone poetry and its relatively modest technical demands soon made it one of Debussy's most popular and - removed from its original context - most widely played individual pieces, which is why the Wiener Urtext Edition has been issued as a single piece for the 150th birthday of the composer. Debussy's music is a reflection of the poem with the same name, "Clair de Lune" by Paul Verlaine, which describes the emotional landscape of a distant Arcadia, linking reminiscences of the old aristocratic pursuits of the past to modern tonal explorations of the fin de siècle. Verlaine's poem is printed in this issue before the musical text, not only in the original French, but also in German and English translations.