La fille aux cheveux de lin

Debussy's Préludes Book 1 (1909–10) sit at the centre of the Impressionist piano repertoire, and La fille aux cheveux de lin ("The Girl with the Flaxen Hair") is one of the most-played pieces in the cycle — a hushed pentatonic melody in G♭ major, evoking the Leconte de Lisle poem of the same title. The prelude is short, intimate, and unmistakably Debussian; it has remained in continuous performance since its first publication.

Technically the piece tests three priorities at Grade 6 level: voicing a sustained pentatonic melody clearly through a slow-shifting harmonic landscape, sensitive pedal work that clarifies the modal harmonic shifts without blurring the melodic line, and a restrained dynamic plan dominated by pianissimo with deliberate small peaks. The piece is in G♭ major (six flats) and the unfamiliar key signature requires careful preparation; the harmonic vocabulary is pentatonic and modal rather than common-practice tonal.

Two pitfalls. First, students often play the piece too fast and lose the très calme et doucement expressif register that Debussy specified; build a tempo that allows every harmonic shift to settle before the next one arrives. Second, the pedalling is the substance of the performance; aim for a clean pedal change on each chord change with deliberate moments of half-pedal at the modal pivots.

The complete Préludes Book 1 are on IMSLP in clean public-domain editions. Hearing the surrounding preludes — particularly the famous La cathédrale engloutie — calibrates the variety Debussy brought to the Préludes form.