“La mer est plus belle”, L. 81 no. 1 (1891)

Published 1891 [voice and piano], from Trois mélodies, no. 1, Paris, Hamelle, by Claude Achille Debussy (1862-1918) , set to a text by Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) , no title, from Sagesse, in Sagesse III, no. 15, published 1880, dedicated to Ernest Chausson.

References to the sea abound in Debussy’s works, sometimes by directly giving them titles that refer to the ocean or water, as well as the surging rolling of waves of sound that characterises so much of his compositional style. It appears that references to the sea also refer like a [read more…]