Program Notes
Debussy famously placed his titles at the end of each prelude — in parentheses, like whispered suggestions — insisting that music should evoke rather than describe. In this spirit, this program pairs each prelude with a poem: not as illustration, but as a second voice in conversation. Debussy was a poet's composer. He set Verlaine, Baudelaire, and Mallarmé to song, and their Symbolist ideal — that art should suggest mood rather than state meaning — left their mark on every note he wrote for piano. The Préludes breathe the same air as Symbolist verse: impressionistic, allusive, alive to color and atmosphere.
*performed together with Doctoral students of Michigan State University
Program
Claude Debussy (1862–1918) 12 Preludes, Book I (1911):
● Danseuses de Delphes (Dancers of Delphi)
● Voiles (Veils/Sails)
● Le vent dans la plaine (The Wind in the Plain)
● Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir (Sounds and Perfumes Swirl in the Evening Air)
● Les collines d'Anacapri (The Hills of Anacapri)
● Des pas sur la neige (Footsteps in the Snow)
● Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (What the West Wind Saw)
● La fille aux cheveux de lin (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair)
● La sérénade interrompue (The Interrupted Serenade)
● La cathédrale engloutie (The Sunken Cathedral)
● La danse de Puck (Puck's Dance)
● Minstrels
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Claude Debussy (1862–1918) 12 Preludes, Book II (1913):
● Brouillards (Mists)
● Feuilles mortes (Dead Leaves)
● La Puerta del Vino (The Gate of Wine)
● Les fées sont d'exquises danseuses (The Fairies are Exquisite Dancers)
● Bruyères (Heather)
● Général Lavine — eccentric
● La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune (The Terrace for Moonlit Audiences)
● Ondine
● Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C. (a humorous nod to Dickens' Mr. Pickwick)
● Canope
● Les tierces alternées (Alternating Thirds)
● Feux d'artifice (Fireworks)