Deux Arabesques

• Debussy composed this set of two character pieces for piano in 1890-1891. The set was published by Durand in the same year.¹
• Debussy used the term “arabesque” to describe a freely-unfolding, ornamented melody. 
  • The term was inspired by the decorative abstract art in Islamic architecture, though Debussy associated the idea with music from many cultural sources.²

“Palestrina, Vittoria, Orlando di Lasso, etc. had this divine sense of the ‘arabesque.’ The found the basis of it in Gregorian chant, whose delicate tracery they supported with twining counterpoints. In reworking the arabesque, Bach made it more flexible, more fluid, and despite the fact that the Great Master always imposed a rigorous discipline on Beauty, he imbued it with a wealth of free fantasy so limitless that it still astonishes us today.”

Debussy, in La Revue Blanche (May 1, 1901).³

• Debussy’s use of the adjective “arabesque” has less to do with Arabic aesthetics and more to do with the exotic or dreamlike aesthetics of the Symbolist movement in art and poetry. Debussy was greatly influenced by the Symbolists, particularly the poets (he frequently set Symbolist texts to music).⁴

Contents 

1. Andantino con moto (E major) 
2. Allegretto scherzando (G major)⁵

1. “2 Arabesques (Debussy, Claude),” IMSLP, accessed October 26, 2021, https://imslp.org/wiki/2_Arabesques_(Debussy%2C_Claude).
2. Paul Roberts, Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 2001), 66.
3. Quoted in Roberts, Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy, 67.
4. François Lesure and Roy Howat, “Debussy, (Achille-)Claude,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed October 26, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000007353.
5. “2 Arabesques (Debussy, Claude),” IMSLP.