Clair de lune (Suite bergamasque, No. 3 - steady score version)

Background

Clair de lune is the third of the four pieces in Claude Debussy's Suite bergamasque. He began the suite around 1890, in his late twenties, but did not publish it until 1905, after revising it. The other movements are a Prelude, a Minuet and a Passepied, so the suite looks back to the dance suites of the eighteenth century.

The title, "moonlight", comes from a poem by Paul Verlaine, "Clair de lune", published in his collection Fêtes galantes in 1869. The poem describes masked figures in moonlit gardens, and it also mentions bergamasques, a rustic dance, which probably explains the suite's name too. Debussy had already set the poem as a song. The piano piece is reported to have had an earlier title, Promenade sentimentale, before the Verlaine name was chosen.

How to practise it

The piece is in D flat major and 9/8 time, three beats in a bar with each beat divided into three eighth notes. It falls into clear sections: a very quiet opening with no strong beat, a fuller middle that swells and moves (from bar 15), a flowing section with rippling arpeggios (from bar 27), and a return of the opening.

The first bars are soft thirds high in the treble. Nothing sounds on the first beat; the left-hand third enters just after it and the right hand a moment later, which creates the floating, beat-less feeling.

Count the eighth notes carefully at first (1-2-3, 2-2-3, 3-2-3) so the delayed entries are placed exactly. Only once they are accurate should you begin to relax the timing.

The flowing section is the part most players come for, and the part that needs the most work. The left hand starts each wave low, and the right hand finishes it higher up while also holding the melody notes.

Practise the waves hands together but without the melody first, aiming for one even ripple with no bump where the hands meet. Then add the melody notes, letting them ring above the arpeggios.

A plan:

1. Bars 1 to 14 hands separately, then together at half speed.
2. The arpeggio waves from bar 27, slowly and two bars at a time.
3. Bars 15 to 26, the swelling chords, practising the crescendo carefully.
4. The return and coda, then join everything.

This steady-beat version keeps strict time, which makes it ideal for learning the notes; the performance version shows how much the timing breathes in a real performance. Use the pedal generously but change it with every new harmony, listening hard for blur. Above all keep the sound soft: Debussy marks much of the piece pianissimo, and its loudest moments should still feel warm rather than forceful.