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Favorite Debussy Piano Piece?

Favorite Debussy piano piece

19K views 46 replies 37 participants last post by  Janspe 
#1 · (Edited)
Just got through a marathon of Debussy's piano pieces. Now I want to know what everyone's favorite is.

Include why it is your favorite if you can. It makes discussion more interesting.
 
#10 ·
Most of his piano music stands out as quite good to me, but Suite Bergamasque I think is his very best. I am not going on what I think is likely his most challenging or innovative work here, just what moves me the most musically. I find this work magical and in my mind it is one of the greatest suites for piano in the repertoire.
 
#17 ·
Well, it looks like I'm the first one to vote for L'isle joyeuse, which really is an excellent piece. The other piano works from Debussy that I like are the Etudes (beautiful), and of course the Preludes. But this is coming from someone whose taste never really agreed with Debussy for some reason.
 
#24 ·
Thank you! I knew I wasn't the only one! Definitely my favorite Debussy piece. It's a gorgeous, forward-looking work with lots of whole-tone scale and chord progressions.
 
#23 ·
I never cared for the early arabesques, or that reverie, may have liked Girl with the Flaxen Hair for one time when I first heard it in childhood, but don't care for that now either. Cathedrale Engloutie has been exposed to death.

BUT, the majority of this literature is so outstanding I cannot choose but a big bunch of it....

I am still mesmerized by the prelude, Book I, No. 6, Des pas sur la neige, because it is made of nearly nothing, has a maximum expressive strength while using the minimum of materials, and includes a very Satie-like non musical directive -- perhaps the only like it in all of Debussy -- "like an old (or remembered?) regret."

If anything is "music for other musicians," Des pas sur la neige has got to be one of those. I believe there is none other quite similar from Debussy.

The piece is masterly, and displays the most quiet kind of virtuosity in its writing.

 
#25 ·
Des pas sur la neige
I adore this piece too! I am preparing it for performance in the fall.
The rhythm of the "footsteps" makes me think of walking alone expecting someone else to be there, who isn't there any longer. There is the footstep you can hear, then an equal amount of time for the footstep that's absent, then one heard, then one absent. Debussy was genius not to cover up that experience with too many notes.
 
#31 ·
I actually really enjoy reverie. It's difficult to find an interpretation that suits your likings though, it was played one way and recorded by someone, and everyone just copied that version. It's way too fast in that one. I did like Kathryn Scott's interpretation, and Xavier de maistre played it wonderfully on the harp. I also really like la valse romantique. It's just a shame that Debussy's pieces go from the difficulty of le petit negre, to a much higher difficulty like la valse romantique. I love Debussy, but I am not able to play a lot of his pices, but I hope to do so in the future.
 
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