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Clair de Lune, third movement from Suite Bergamasque Paul Crossley, piano The Suite Bergamasque was first composed by Debussy around 1890, but was significantly revised just before its publication in 1905. It seems that by the time a publisher came to Debussy in order to cash in on his fame and have these pieces published, Debussy loathed the earlier piano style in which these pieces were written. While it is not known how much of the Suite was written in 1890 and how much was written in 1905, we do know that Debussy changed the names of at least two of the pieces. Passepied was called Pavane and Clair de lune was originally titled Promenade Sentimentale. These names also come from Paul Verlaines poems. It is interesting, however, to note that Promenade Sentimentale alludes specifically to one of Verlaines earliest collections, Poèmes saturniens, a fact that Debussy obviously took into account when he changed the name (and most likely a lot of the music) in order to suit both his later style, and Verlaines. The third, and most famous movement of Suite bergamasque is "Clair de lune", meaning moonlight in French. Its name comes from Paul Verlaine's poem of the same name. Quoted from Paul Robert's "Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy" Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918)
