Claude Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...

's ''Études'' ( L 136) are a set of 12 piano

étude An étude (; ) or study is an instrumental musical composition, usually short, designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill. The tradition of writing études emerged in the early 19th century with the rapidl ...

s composed in 1915. Debussy described them as "a warning to pianists not to take up the musical profession unless they have remarkable hands". They are broadly considered his late masterpieces. # ''Étude 1 pour les cinq doigts d'après Monsieur Czerny'' (five fingers, "after Monsieur Czerny") # ''Étude 2 pour les tierces'' ( thirds) # ''Étude 3 pour les quartes'' ( fourths) # ''Étude 4 pour les sixtes'' ( sixths) # ''Étude 5 pour les

octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

s'' # ''Étude 6 pour les huit doigts'' (eight fingers) # ''Étude 7 pour les degrés chromatiques'' (

chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...

degrees) # ''Étude 8 pour les agréments'' (

ornaments An ornament is something used for decoration. Ornament may also refer to: Decoration *Ornament (art), any purely decorative element in architecture and the decorative arts *Biological ornament, a characteristic of animals that appear to serve on ...

) # ''Étude 9 pour les notes répétées'' (repeated notes) # ''Étude 10 pour les sonorités opposées'' (opposing sonorities) # ''Étude 11 pour les arpèges composés'' (composite

arpeggio A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves. An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...

s) # ''Étude 12 pour les accords'' ( chords)

Notes

References

* Elie Robert Schmitz, V. Thomson. ''The Piano Works of Claude Debussy''. Courier Dover Publications, 1966. *

External links

* * Compositions by Claude Debussy

Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...

1915 compositions {{classical-composition-stub