Debussy plays Debussy | Clair de Lune (1913)

Claude-Achille Debussy - Clair de Lune (Mondglanz, Mondschein, Moonlight), Suite Bergamasque, Debussy, piano. The Suite bergamasque was first composed in 1890-1905.
"Claude Debussy Plays His Finest Works"
Claude Debussy, Piano Roll, 1913.

From 1903 to 1913, Claude Debussy recorded several of his own pieces on piano rolls. Debussy was delighted with the reproduction quality, saying in a letter to Edwin Welte: “It is impossible to attain a greater perfection of reproduction than that of the Welte apparatus. I am happy to assure you in these lines of my astonishment and admiration of what I heard. I am, Dear Sir, Yours Faithfully, Claude Debussy.” More than one century old, these recordings allow us to listen to the great composer playing his own works. Debussy made his last recordings when he was 52 years old and suffering from cancer, in 1913. He died less than five years later, on March 25, 1918.

Rolls for the reproducing piano were generally made from the recorded performances of famous musicians. Typically, a pianist would sit at a specially designed recording piano, and the pitch and duration of any notes played would be either marked or perforated on a blank roll, together with the duration of the sustaining and soft pedal. Reproducing pianos can also re-create the dynamics of a pianist's performance by means of specially encoded control perforations placed towards the edges of a music roll, but this coding was never recorded automatically. Different companies had different ways of notating dynamics, some technically advanced (though not necessarily more effective), some secret, and some dependent entirely on a recording producer's handwritten notes, but in all cases these dynamic hieroglyphics had to be skillfully converted into the specialized perforated codes needed by the different types of instrument.

The playing of many pianists and composers is preserved on reproducing piano roll. Gustav Mahler, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg, Teresa Carreño, Claude Debussy, Manuel de Falla, Scott Joplin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Scriabin, Jelly Roll Morton and George Gershwin are amongst the composers and pianists who have had their performances recorded in this way.

Claude Debussy's famous Clair de lune is the third piece of the Suite bergamasque for piano, a work whose title was chosen as much for its composer's love of the word-sounds as for its Renaissance implications (though the work can rightly be described as something of a tribute to the French harpsichordists of olden days).

The D flat major of Clair de lune is perfectly chosen, the gleaming melody in parallel thirds (con sordina, Debussy requests) expertly balanced by the beautifully dissonant tempo rubato that follows it. During the un poco mosso middle section of Clair de lune, the music swells far past the pianissimo of the opening, and in its climax one might say that the young composer has crafted more of sunlight than of moonlight; the incessant arpeggios may well be overdone, but one can cherish them all the same. Little wisps of these arpeggios find their way over into the reprise of the opening music, and the rolling tones of the middle section are given a few measures to plead their case once more before the final chromatic cadence, a moment of absolute tranquility, is made.

Clair de Lune is a French poem written by Paul Verlaine in the year 1869. It is the inspiration for the third and most famous movement of Debussy's 1890 Suite bergamasque of the same name. 'Clair de lune' ('Moonlight') is from Verlaine's early collection Fêtes galantes (Gallant Parties, 1869).

Clair de lune

Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,
Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres.

Paul Verlaine

Moonlight

Your soul is a select landscape fair
Where charming masqueraders and bergamaskers go
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.

All sing in a minor key
Of victorious love and the opportune life,
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight,

With the still moonlight, sad and beautiful,
Which gives the birds to dream in the trees
And makes the fountain sprays sob in ecstasy,
The tall, slender fountain sprays among the marble statues.

Paul Verlaine

[Thamerlife]

Congratulations Debussy, you played yourself

[jocknessmonsterjockedwards]

If it didn’t say Debussy played it everyone would be hating on the speed

[illlanoize]

Crazy this guy has the same name as Debussy

[ameliajang]

Debussy’s version: rapidly yet gently falling in love with a fluttering heart
Modern version: reminiscing a relationship that ended with bittersweet memories

[Slack-xy]

I'm glad Debussy is still around to share this with us

[eenayeah]

If it really is him, then it is interesting how fast he plays it..

[molybdenumrose]

I like the speed. It feels like the music is pouring out of him.

[kashphlinktu]

*ONLY* Debussy himself could play it like this, because if anyone else did it, they would be surrounded with people telling them no, no, you played it *wrong*. But nobody can tell Debussy that he played his own piece wrong. So he plays it however he damn well pleases. Something to be learned about trust here, I think.

[marianneoelund]

Debussy made this recording of Clair de Lune, and 13 other pieces, onto a set of 6 rolls using a Welte-Mignon reproducing piano, also known simply as a "Mignon."
The Mignon was unique in that it recorded the nuances of a player's performance, including dynamics and pedaling, thus the result can be far more expressive than the more typical player-piano roll reproductions.  Debussy was delighted with the quality of the result, and wrote in a letter to Edwin Welte, "It is impossible to attain a greater perfection of reproduction than that of the Welte apparatus.  I am happy to assure you in these lines of my astonishment and admiration of what I heard."

[flamingfive]

the actual reason it’s so fast is because it’s recorded on a roll that has limited time for recording, so playing it fast is the only way to get through the whole thing

[simeonowen]

Trying to comprehend the 106 years of time between then and now. Imagine all the moments this song has experienced. Withstood the test of time and reached us today through means that nobody back then could have imagined.

[taradonelson]

I've been playing this piece for near 15 years with more than one teacher -- It never crossed my mind to look up Debussy himself playing it! This is a game changer. He emphasizes things I didn't expect. I plan to listen to this many more times and create a sound closer to his than the modern interpretations. It's shocking that the modern ones all sound alike and no one plays it the way he did! It's much more... chaotic... than I expected

[TheXPERT]

his wife must've been telling him dinner was ready mid-way through the piece

[kenmayfield]

This has to be one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed.

[ferociousgumby]

He speeds up because he was running out of paper. Used to happen with cylinder recordings a lot

[e_]

This was the first performance of Clair de Lune to really move me. Debussy knew exactly when to push and when to pull back, how to pace and where to hesitate. This piece just became exponentially more interesting to me. Thank you, Claude.

[kwamealievergreen]

if you ever want insight on the elitism within the music community, all you have to do is look at all the comments of people saying that DEBUSSY is playing his own composition wrong and too quickly.

[jaylamerlockwood]

Does anyone else see the star in his eye?!

[thomasdalton]

For those wondering why it's fast in comparison to modern recordings, Debussy actually gave the instructions "très expressif" (very expressive) at the start of the piece, I.e play it how you want - what speed, what rhythm, what dynamics, what tone... This is merely Debussy's representation of Clair de Lune, and not sounding like a stuck up, but it's one of the most interesting yet beautiful I've ever heard.

[dylanhall]

Gotta say, at first I didn’t like this version. But as it went on I realized how natural and almost improvisational it sounds with him playing it. I’ve never heard someone play it like that before. It truly is a treat to hear a great piece played by the person who wrote it.