Composed: 1894
Premiered: 1894, Paris
Duration: 10 minutes

This poetically atmospheric work, the first piece to announce the emergence of Debussy’s sensuous mature style (widely known as Impressionism, although he never cared for the name), developed out of his admiration for Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem The Afternoon of a Faun. Debussy recognized in it a style similar to his own view of music. He composed his Prélude during the summer of 1894.

The words of the poem are those of a faun or satyr, a languid, pleasure-loving half-man, half-goat figure from Classical mythology. Debussy wrote, “The music of this Prélude is a very free illustration of Mallarmé’s beautiful poem. It is not to be seen as an attempt at a synthesis of the poem; that is suggested rather by the succession of scenes through which the faun’s dreams and desires in the heat of the afternoon are expressed. Then, weary of continuing the pursuit of the sacred water-nymphs and spirits, he abandons himself to enriching sleep, which is full of finally fulfilled dreams, of complete possession of the natural world.”

Music as free and as sensuous as this had never been heard before. Its improvisational quality would become a Debussy trademark. Conjured out of silence by the unaccompanied call of the faun’s flute, it evokes Mallarmé’s hazy, dream-like ideas with effortless tonal magic.
 
Program Note by Don Anderson © 2023