L'îsle joyeuse

As a composer of piano music, Debussy generally favoured quicksilver, light-fingered passagework over displays of physical power, but he could deliver big-scale keyboard virtuosity when required, and he deployed this quality majestically in L’isle joyeuse (The Happy Island, 1903-04). This was inspired by L’embarquement pour Cythère (The Embarkation for Cythera), a painting by the 18th-century French Baroque artist Jean-Antoine Watteau, which hangs in the Louvre art gallery in Paris. The stylised pastoral scene depicts a group of amorous couples about to depart on a voyage to the Greek island of Cythera (Kithira), the traditional birthplace of Venus, goddess of love (whose statue also features in the picture). Debussy’s work is a musical portrayal of joyful and abandoned sensuality, whose single-movement design feels more imposing than its six-minute duration might suggest. The shimmering trills and exuberant passagework of the opening bars are followed by the sumptuous second theme, which eventually builds toward a closing peroration of surging power.