La fille aux cheveux de lin (short excerpt) (Preludes, Book 1, No. 8 - a 5-bar excerpt with chords, not the opening)

Background

La fille aux cheveux de lin, "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair", is the eighth of the twelve preludes in Claude Debussy's first book of Préludes, composed in 1909–10 and published in 1910. Debussy printed each title at the end of its prelude rather than at the top, in brackets and after a row of dots, as if to let the music speak first and the picture follow.

The title comes from a poem by Leconte de Lisle, one of a group of "Scottish songs" in his collection Poèmes antiques, a short love poem about a fair-haired girl sitting in a flowering meadow on a summer morning. Debussy's prelude is one of his simplest and gentlest pieces, marked Très calme et doucement expressif, very calm and softly expressive, in the warm key of G flat major. Its tune uses mostly the notes of a five-note (pentatonic) scale, which gives it an open, folk-like sound.

This page is about a short excerpt: only five bars, under twenty seconds, out of a prelude of 39 bars. It is not the prelude's opening.

How to practise it

In Debussy's score the tune is first heard on its own, unaccompanied. In this excerpt it is carried on top of soft chords from the very first beat, so the main task is voicing: making the top note of each chord sing while the notes beneath it stay hushed.

Learn the top line by itself first. It falls through the notes of the chord and climbs back up again:

Sing it, then play it with one finger, shaping it like a slow breath out and in. Next, add the chords underneath and keep listening to the top. A useful exercise is to play each chord with the top note mf and the others pp, then bring everything down to soft while keeping the same balance.

Some of the chords in bars 3 and 4 are wide. Share them between the hands where they do not fit comfortably in one, and let the pedal join them. Change the pedal with each new chord, a little after the chord sounds, so the harmonies never smudge.

The excerpt ends on a long, soft chord in bar 5 with a single high note above it. Give that chord its full length and let it fade before lifting the pedal.

A plan:

1. The top line alone, singing.
2. Each chord on its own, balancing the top note.
3. Bars 1 and 2, then bars 3 to 5, very slowly.
4. The whole excerpt at half speed, then at the written speed.

This arrangement has flexible timing, so you can follow the gentle ebb and flow rather than a strict beat. Keep your arms relaxed and let their weight sink into the keys: the sound should be round and warm, never sharp.

Finding notes quickly in the treble clef is covered in the how to read notes guide.