Images, Set I

Debussy’s Images I for solo piano comprises three pieces, each with a descriptive title—the type of pictorial evocations that led the composer to be dubbed an “impressionist” (though he loathed the term). Each piece can stand alone, but together they form a splendidly contrasted and complementary series. They were written between 1901 and 1905, around the time that Debussy eloped with Emma Bardac, each leaving a spouse for the other. In this period, too, he composed his orchestral masterpiece La mer (The Sea); perhaps he found in water’s fluctuating states a mirror for the passions of the human heart. “Reflets dans l’eau” (“Reflections in the Water”) unfolds in fluid, translucent textures; deep-set melodic fragments are glimpsed through the gleaming surface. “Hommage à Rameau” is a sarabande paying tribute to the 18th-century Baroque composer whose harpsichord works helped Debussy and his contemporaries develop a new, distinctively French musical style. Finally, “Mouvement” (“Movement”) is an abstract piece in dazzling perpetual motion, virtuosic but delicate, based around the split-second repetition of spinning triplets.