Clair de Lune is one of the most famous Piano works by Claude Debussy. Strictly speaking it is the third movement of the four-movement 'Suite bergamasque'. Due to its fascinating tonal poetry and its moderate technical demands it soon became one of the most popular and most frequently performed individual pieces by Debussy which is why the Wiener Urtext Edition now publishes a separate edition on the occasion of the composer's 150th birthday. Debussy's music reflects the poem of the same name 'Clair de Lune' by Paul Verlaine which outlines the landscape of the soul of a faraway Arcadia in which reminiscences of the ancient'fêtes galantes' of the 'ancien régime' are combined with the modern sound experiments of the fin de siècle. In this edition Verlaine's poem is printed not only in the original French version but also in German and English translations preceding the musical text.
