Debussy Arabesque No. 2
Debussy: Deux Arabesques
The Two Arabesques
The Two Arabesques (Deux arabesques), L. 66, is a pair of arabesques composed for piano by Claude Debussy. They are two of Debussy's earliest works, composed between the years 1888 and 1891, when he was still in his twenties.
Although quite an early work, the arabesques contain hints of Debussy's developing musical style. The suite is one of the very early impressionistic pieces of music, following the French visual art form. Debussy seems to wander through modes and keys, and achieves evocative scenes through music. His view of a musical arabesque was a line curved in accordance with nature, and with his music he mirrored the celebrations of shapes in nature made by the Art Nouveau artists of the time. Of the arabesque in baroque music, he wrote:
“that was the age of the ‘wonderful arabesque,’ when music was subject to the laws of beauty inscribed in the movements of Nature herself.”
The arabesques
The two arabesques are given these tempo marks:
Andantino con moto
Allegretto scherzando
Arabesque No. 2.
Allegretto Scherzando
The second arabesque in G major is noticeably quicker and more lively in tempo. It opens with left hand chords and right hand trills. The pieces makes several transpositions and explores a lower register of the piano. Again notable is a hint of the pentatonic scale. The style more closely resembles some of Debussy's later works. Like the closing bars of the first arabesque, this arabesque closes in a similar fashion.
