''Images'' (usually pronounced in French) is a suite of six compositions for solo piano by

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 ...

. They were published in two books/series, each consisting of three pieces. These works are distinct from Debussy's ''

Images pour orchestre ''Images pour orchestre'', L. 122, is an orchestral composition in three sections by Claude Debussy, written between 1905 and 1912. Debussy had originally intended this set of ''Images'' as a two-piano sequel to the first set of ''Images'' for ...

''. The first book was composed between 1901 and 1905, and the second book was composed in 1907. The total duration is approximately 30 minutes. With respect to the first series of ''Images'', Debussy wrote to his publisher,

Jacques Durand Jacques Durand (28 June 1920 – 16 August 2009) was a French engineer, model builder and automobile designer. He is primarily known for designing several sports cars, which were built in small volumes in France beginning in the 1950s and c ...

: "Without false pride, I feel that these three pieces hold together well, and that they will find their place in the literature of the piano ... to the left of Schumann, or to the right of Chopin... " Debussy wrote another collection, ''Images oubliées'' (L. 87), in the Winter of 1894 and dedicated it to Yvonne Lerolle, daughter of the painter

Henry Lerolle Henry Lerolle (3 October 1848 – 22 April 1929) was a French painter, art collector and patron, born in Paris. He studied at Académie Suisse and in the studio of Louis Lamothe. His work was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1868, 1885, and 189 ...

Structure

*Book 1 (or "1st series") ( L. 110) # "

Reflets dans l'eau Claude Debussy's ''Reflets dans l'eau'' ("Reflections in the Water") is the first of three piano pieces from his first volume of ''Images (Debussy compositions for solo piano), Images'', which are frequently performed separately. It was written in ...

" (Reflections in the water) in

D major D major (or the key of D) is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor. The D major scale is: : Ch ...

# "Hommage à Rameau" (Tribute to

Rameau Jean-Philippe Rameau (; – ) was a French composer and music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera an ...

) in

G minor G minor is a minor scale based on G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has two flats. Its relative major is B-flat major and its parallel major is G major. According to Paolo Pietropaolo, it is the cont ...

# "Mouvement" (Movement) in

C major C major (or the key of C) is a major scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. C major is one of the most common keys used in music. Its key signature has no flats or sharps. Its relative minor is A minor and ...

*Book 2 (or "2nd series") (L. 111) # "Cloches à travers les feuilles" (Bells through the leaves) in B

whole-tone In Western music theory, a major second (sometimes also called whole tone or a whole step) is a second spanning two semitones (). A second is a musical interval encompassing two adjacent staff positions (see Interval number for more det ...

(the middle section is in

E major E major (or the key of E) is a major scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has four sharps. Its relative minor is C-sharp minor and its parallel minor is E minor. Its enharmonic equivalent, ...

) # "Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut" (And the moon descends on the temple that was) in

E minor E minor is a minor scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has one sharp. Its relative major is G major and its parallel major is E major. The E natural minor scale is: : Changes needed ...

# "Poissons d'or" (Golden fish) in

F major F major (or the key of F) is a major scale based on F, with the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat. Its relative minor is D minor and its parallel minor is F minor F minor is a minor scale based on F, consis ...

*''Images oubliées'' (L. 87) # "Lent (mélancolique et doux)" in F minor # "Souvenir du Louvre" in C minor # "Quelques aspects de '' parce qu'il fait un temps insupportable" in D minor No. 2 is the first version of "Sarabande" from ''

Pour le piano ''Pour le piano'' (''For the piano''), L. 95, is a suite for solo piano by Claude Debussy. It consists of three individually composed movements, Prélude, Sarabande and Toccata. The suite was completed and published in 1901. It was premiered on ...

'' (L. 95, 1901); no. 3 is an early version of "Jardins sous la pluie" from ''

Estampes ''Estampes'' ("Prints"), L.100, is a composition for solo piano by Claude Debussy. It was finished in 1903. The first performance of the work was given by Ricardo Viñes at the Société Nationale de Musique in Paris. This three-movement piano ...

'' (L. 100, 1903).

Inspirations and musical analysis

"Reflets dans l'eau" is one of the many pieces Debussy wrote about water; in particular, light reflecting off its surface. The piece creates an image of water being not quite still, then becoming rapid, then decreasing in motion again. "Reflets dans l'eau" is also an example of the new tone colours Debussy discovered for the piano in this part of his life, and it is considered to be one of his greatest works for the instrument. Techniques such as

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 ...

, pedal-point,

staccato Staccato (; Italian for "detached") is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation, it signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence. It has been described by theorists and has appeared in music ...

tremolo In music, ''tremolo'' (), or ''tremolando'' (), is a trembling effect. There are two types of tremolo. The first is a rapid reiteration: * Of a single Musical note, note, particularly used on String instrument#Bowing, bowed string instrument ...

and

glissando In music, a glissando (; plural: ''glissandi'', abbreviated ''gliss.'') is a glide from one pitch to another (). It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French ''glisser'', "to glide". In some contexts, it is distinguished from the co ...

are used to depict moving water. "Hommage à Rameau" is more subdued. It is a

sarabande The sarabande (from es, zarabanda) is a dance in triple metre, or the music written for such a dance. History The Sarabande evolved from a Spanish dance with Arab influences, danced by a lively double line of couples with castanets. A dance cal ...

honouring the memory of

Jean-Philippe Rameau Jean-Philippe Rameau (; – ) was a French composer and music theory, music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of Fr ...

. "Mouvement" is the most abstract designation of the pieces. It is a perpetuum mobile, meaning that it is built around a continuous stream of notes. "Cloches à travers les feuilles" was inspired by the bells in the church steeple in the village of

Rahon Rahon is a city and a municipal council in the Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district, district Shaheed Bhagat Singh of the Indian States and territories of India, state of Punjab (India), Punjab. Rahon is in Doaba region of Punjab. Doaba also know ...

in Jura, France. Rahon was the hometown of

Louis Laloy Louis Laloy ( Gray, 18 February 1874 – Dole, 4 March 1944 ) was a French musicologist, writer and sinologist. A Doctor of Letters (he spoke French, English, German, Italian, Latin, Russian, Greek and Chinese), he became an eminent musicologist, ...

, a close friend of Debussy and also his first biographer. "Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut" (And the moon descends on the temple that was) was dedicated to Laloy. The name of the piece, which evokes images of

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

, was suggested by Laloy, a

sinologist Sinology, or Chinese studies, is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of China primarily through Chinese philosophy, language, literature, culture and history and often refers to Western scholarship. Its origin "may be traced to the ex ...

. The piece is evocative of Indonesian

gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

music, which famously influenced Debussy. "Poissons d'or" was probably inspired by an image of a golden fish in Chinese

lacquer Lacquer is a type of hard and usually shiny coating or finish applied to materials such as wood or metal. It is most often made from resin extracted from trees and waxes and has been in use since antiquity. Asian lacquerware, which may be ca ...

artwork or

embroidery Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. In modern days, embroidery is usually seen on c ...

, or on a Japanese print. Other sources suggest it may have been inspired by actual goldfish swimming in a bowl, though the French for goldfish is 'poisson rouge' (red fish).

Recordings

Many famous pianists of the 20th century have recorded Debussy's ''Images'', such as

Walter Gieseking Walter Wilhelm Gieseking (5 November 1895 – 26 October 1956) was a French-born German pianist and composer. Gieseking was renowned for his subtle touch, pedaling, and dynamic control—particularly in the music of Debussy and Ravel; he made inte ...

and

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (; 5 January 1920 – 12 June 1995) was an Italian classical pianist. He is considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century. According to ''The New York Times'', he was perhaps the most reclusive, e ...

. The French musical critic Jean Roy wrote of

Claudio Arrau Claudio Arrau León (; February 6, 1903June 9, 1991) was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Bra ...

's 1979 recording (

Diapason d'Or The Diapason d'Or (French for "Golden Tuning Fork") is a recommendation of outstanding (mostly) classical music recordings given by reviewers of '' Diapason'' magazine in France, broadly equivalent to "Editor's Choice", "Disc of the Month" in the ...

n° 266 & 334) as being "unrivalled". A recording by Noriko Ogawa won the Editor's Choice of ''

Gramophone A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

'' and is noted favorably by Stephen Walsh in

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

's ''Building a Library'' series. A recording by

Marc-André Hamelin Marc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ (born September 5, 1961), is a Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer. Hamelin is recognized worldwide for the originality and technical proficiency of his performances of the classic repertoire. He has received 11 Gr ...

is noted for its "intriguing interpretive vision".

References

External links

* * * {{Authority control Compositions for solo piano Suites by Claude Debussy