I am a child of the 60’s. When Beatlemania hit in 1963, I was seven years old, but even at that age I loved their music and, honestly, about ninety-five percent of the music from that decade.

Were those ten years the pinnacle of musical achievement? In my humble opinion, while some fantastic compositions were penned in that period, they don’t hold a candle to Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, and a host of other composers from the previous three or four hundred years.

I listen to a lot of different genres, from classic rock to heavy metal and acid rock. Alice Cooper and Chris de Burgh are two of my favorite artists of the past fifty years. “Eighteen” by the former and “Crusader” by the latter are excellent songs. I will listen to some country, although most of it is not my cup of tea.

One of my all-time favorite pieces is Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune”, the third movement in his Suite bergamasque. He started composing it around 1890 and finished just before publishing in 1905.

Monsieur Debussy did not want to use these early piano compositions because he felt the style was not mature enough, but in 1905 he accepted the offer of a publisher who thought they would be successful, given the fame Debussy had gained in the previous fifteen years. While we don’t know how much he wrote in 1890 and how much in 1905, we do know that he changed the names of at least two of the pieces. “Passepied” was first called “Pavane”, while “Clair de lune” was originally “Promenade sentimentale”. The names are from poems by Paul Verlaine. The title of the third movement of Suite bergamasque comes from his poem “Clair de lune”, which mentions bergamasks in the second line of the opening stanza.

I love the entire suite, although I have to confess that, of the four movements, Clair de lune is my favorite. It is a beautiful work from start to finish, and I especially love the arpeggios, which seem to run rampant through this work. Before I sat to write this article, I listened first to that portion and then to the whole composition. Something I noticed this time, that I had not before, is that hints of the third movement are interspersed throughout the composition, especially within the #1-“Prelude” and #2-“Menuet”.

Youtube has a number of versions, but the performance in the link is by Rousseau who, to my delight, includes a light show reminiscent of the Playstation game Guitar Hero. In my opinion, rather than detracting from the song’s perfection, it enhances the melody.

If you want to listen to the suite, this link is to a performance by Alain Planes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko2_WjP4id4&ab_channel=FranceMusiqueconcerts

Treat yourself to twenty minutes of musical bliss; I think he does a wonderful job of capturing the composer’s intent as he transcribed the notes.