Estampes

• Debussy composed Estampes in 1903, and dedicated the set to Jacques-Emile Blanche (1861-1942), an artist friend who also painted Debussy’s portrait (the portrait is sadly lost).¹
• The title of the set, “Estampes,” meants “prints,” i.e. the visual art genre of woodblock prints.² Woodblock prints from Japan were popular artistic inspiration among the visual artists of Debussy’s time, especially the Impressionists.³

“There is not even one measure of this music borrowed from the Spanish folklore, and yet the entire composition in its most minute details, conveys admirably Spain.”

Manuel de Falla⁴

Movements

1. Pagodes
2. La soirée dans Grenade
3. Jardins sous la pluie

1. François Lesure and Roy Howat, “Debussy, (Achille-)Claude,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 27, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000007353.
2. Stephen Walsh, Debussy: A Painter in Sound (New York: Knopf, 2018), Ebook.
3. Kelly Richman-Abdou, “How Japanese Art Influenced and Inspired European Impressionist Artists,” My Modern Met, accessed August 28, 2019, https://mymodernmet.com/japanese-art-impressionism-japonism/.
4. Quoted in Robert E. Schmitz, The Piano Works of Claude Debussy (New York: Duyell, Sloan and Pearce Publishers, 1950), 85-86.