This is one of those iconic pieces that everyone knows without knowing the name of the piece or the composer. It’s traditional, and it was written in 1895, but to me it sounds like something that could have been written for a film right now. The only thing I don’t like about it is that I didn’t write it!
So my goal was to go for the greatest possible dynamic contrast possible without making the music sound stressed, anxious or driven.
And also I wanted to “stop time”, which is what happens when you listen to something that is slow, relaxing, peaceful, but you would like it to go on and on because the total experience seems right, hypnotic, and calmly fascinating.
In the piano music of Debussy everything seems to be marked soft, more soft, very soft and very very soft.
Perhaps he was trying to get across the idea that his music was not supposed to be hammered, struck, overplayed and so on, but from listening to his recordings it’s quite clear that his playing had much more contrast and variety than his scores would suggest.
So my intent here was to stretch everything. There are indeed parts that are marked mp, mf and even f, so it doesn’t say it should always be soft. In real time or in a recording if everything is soft, after awhile it just all sounds the same, and of course you can turn up and down the volume. The same thing is true for something loud. If it is all loud, after awhile you get desensitized to the volume and it just sounds normal, or you turn it down. When live, all loud is insensitive, monotonous and boring. All soft is just boring, and even washed out sounding, and it sounds timid.
At the beginning, I didn’t like how this sounded. It sounded a bit odd for my taste. The more I listened the more I enjoyed the piece.
Five minutes is not enough. I wanted to hear more. The best I could do was to listen several times. Beautiful, I love it.
You’ve hit a perfect balance. Some performances are so slow and dreamy that they lull one to sleep, but thoughtlessly over-passionate would destroy it too. I hear the “stretch everything” you mention – it brings things out in a way that feels right, and carries us along.
This is a very calming piece. Sometimes I listen to this in my free time.
Yay, this is definitely one of my favorites if not my second favorite piano piece ever. It has a very calming and simple tone that never ceases to ease my mind but still manages to have tense sounding sections and very complex ones. It’s just so well rounded yet so “one note”, (yes i see the contradiction), and I love it. Truly respect Debussy for being brave enough to expirement. What a legendary musician.