The Two Arabesques (Deux arabesques), L. 66, is a pair
of arabesques composed 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...(+)
The Two Arabesques (Deux arabesques), L. 66, is a pair
of arabesques composed 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.
The Arabesque No. 1 (Andantino con moto) is in the key
of E major and begins with parallelism of triads in
first inversion, a composition technique very much used
by Debussy and the impressionist movement. It leads
into a larger section beginning with a left hand
arpeggio in E major and a descending right hand E major
pentatonic progression.
The second quieter (Rubato) section is in A major,
which starts with a gesture (E-D-E-C♯), briefly
passes through E major, returns to A major and ends
with a bold pronouncement of the E-D-E-C♯
gesture, but transposed to the key of C major, played
forte.
In the last section (a recapitulation of the first
section), the music moves to a higher register and
descends, followed by a large pentatonic scale
ascending and descending, and resolving back to E
major.
The vocabulary of Debussy's music is rich in harmonic
dimension. The composer uses 7ths, 9ths, 11th and more,
while he intersperses whole tone progressions that are
so characteristic of his writing. If density, or volume
ever applied to musical performance, this piece meets
all requirements for a slow entry into notes, and a
swimming motion through them therefore although
originally written for Piano (and variations thereof),
I chose to create this arrangement for concert harp to
accentuate these characteristics of the original work.
SHEET MUSIC