Debussy: Preludes pour piano, Premiere Livre: III. . .

I first heard this piece on my living room floor. I was sprawled out on the carpet with the score, listening to a recording by Paul Jacobs. I followed the two staves of the piano as best I could, hoping to somehow obtain the true meaning of the piece by connecting the sounds to their corresponding notes, but I had no idea what I was doing. I was just listening and following contours. I didn't know what the instrument was doing, or how one would even play this piece. But I was entranced. I had never heard the piano not sound like a piano before. The colors took me out of my living room. It sounded like the wind, but there was nothing Romantic about it. There was a breeze, there was the play of tall grass, there were violent gusts. Everything was chilling and subtle and just natural. I decided then and there that I wanted to make those sounds on the piano myself. I wanted to write them too. What could be more beautiful than being able to project images and feelings to another person through music?

I immediately became obsessed with the idea of music as symbolism. Listen to these notes being played, this harmony reoccurring; it is an objective image, it represents one immovable detail in this composition and we must respect that. That obsession took off and I completely overlooked a simple detail of the score; why had Debussy placed the titles at the end of each Prelude instead of the beginning?

I used to love this piece of music because it was the wind. But now when I think about it, purely as sound, I love it even more.



. . . Le Vent dans la plaine