Learn Première Arabesque

About the piece

The piece that taught Debussy to be Debussy.

Debussy wrote the Deux Arabesques between 1888 and 1891, in his late twenties, while he was still finding the harmonic language that would define everything he wrote afterward. The Première Arabesque is the earlier of the two, and it already shows the characteristic fingerprints: parallel motion in thirds and sixths that sidestepped classical voice-leading, whole-tone inflections that blur the sense of key, and a texture that seems to float rather than stride. For all that, the piece is firmly tonal — E major — and the melody is unusually warm and singable for a composer later associated with atmosphere over tune.

The title 'arabesque' comes from the visual art term for an intricate, interlocking decorative pattern — the kind found in Islamic architectural ornament. Schumann had used the word for a piano piece before Debussy, and Debussy was reading the French Symbolist poets who drew parallels between pattern in language and pattern in music. The result is a piece that is simultaneously decorative and deeply felt: the flowing semiquaver figures in the right hand trace a continuous line that never quite repeats itself identically, always unfolding.

The Arabesques were among the first of Debussy's works to be widely played, partly because their difficulty is manageable and partly because the sound was genuinely new. They were published in 1891 by Durand and quickly found their way into conservatory programs across Europe. By the time Debussy became famous for 'Pelléas et Mélisande' and the Préludes, the Arabesques had already introduced a generation of pianists to his sound world.