Suite bergamasque

Composer: DEBUSSY, Claude
  • Debussy’s Suite bergamasque for piano was composed c. 1890, revised and published in 1905. The suite is comprised of four movements:
    1. Prélude
    2. Menuet
    3. Clair de lune (originally called “Promenade sentimentale”)
    4. Passepied (originally called “Pavane”)1
  • Suite bergamasque was inspired by Paul Verlaine‘s Fêtes galantes, a collection of poems evoking scenes and characters from the commedia dell’arte.2
    • Debussy also found the title of his full suite in Verlaine’s poem “Clair de lune.” The Bergamasque is a 16th-century dance from Bergamo, Italy, which Verlaine has his masked characters performing in the poem.3

Sources

  1. “Suite bergamasque (Debussy, Claude),” IMSLP, accessed January 14, 2026, https://imslp.org/wiki/Suite_bergamasque_(Debussy,_Claude).
  2. François Lesure, “Preface: Suite Bergamasque,” G. Henle Verlag, accessed January 14, 2026, https://www.henle.de/en/Suite-bergamasque/HN-381.
  3. Paul Roberts, Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1996), 91.

Cut IDs

18573 41149 43638 45285 15688 15678 16974 20219 22301 22856 26577 25452 41549 42329 16252 18778 21769 25897