Clair de lune

Debussy composed Suite bergamasque in 1890 and revised it for publication in 1905; the third movement, Clair de lune ("moonlight"), has become one of the most-played piano pieces of the twentieth century. The title is borrowed from Verlaine's poem of the same name, and the music — slow, modal, harmonically luminous — set a standard for the Impressionist piano idiom that the rest of Debussy's output then expanded.

Technically the piece tests three Grade 7 priorities: voicing a sustained, expressive melodic line through a continuous chordal texture, sensitive pedal work that clarifies the modal harmonic shifts without blurring the texture, and a sustained dynamic plan dominated by pianissimo with deliberate small peaks. The piece is in D♭ major (five flats) and the unfamiliar key signature requires careful preparation; the broken-chord central section needs even physical control across both hands.

Two pitfalls. First, students often play the piece too fast and lose the très expressif register that Debussy specified; build a tempo that allows every harmonic shift to settle before the next one arrives. Second, the famous opening melody is sometimes played at one volume from start to finish; Debussy's writing has a small lift toward the central climax and a quiet return, and ignoring the arc flattens the reading.

The complete Suite bergamasque is on IMSLP in clean public-domain editions. Hearing the surrounding movements — Prélude, Menuet and Passepied — calibrates the variety of touch Debussy demanded across the cycle.