II.

Early Works

During the 1890s Debussy's works were performed with increasing frequency, and despite their controversial nature, he began to gain some recognition as a composer. Outstanding pieces from this period are the String Quartet in G Minor (1893) and the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, 1894), his first mature orchestral work, derived from a poem by French symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé.

Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande, based on the play of the same name by Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck, was produced in 1902. It earned Debussy widespread fame for the extent to which his score retained and enhanced the abstract, dreamlike quality of Maeterlinck's play and for his treatment of the melody, which virtually duplicates the rhythm of natural speech. Regarded by some critics as a perfectly wedded fusion of music and drama, Pelléas et Mélisande has had frequent revivals.

From 1902 to 1910 Debussy wrote chiefly for the piano, rejecting the traditional percussive approach to the instrument and emphasizing instead its capabilities for delicate expressiveness. His most important works of this period include Estampes (Engravings, 1903), L'île joyeuse (The Isle of Joy, 1904), Images (two series, 1905 and 1907), and several preludes.

In 1909 Debussy learned that he was afflicted with cancer. Most of his late works are chamber music, including three extraordinary sonatas, for cello; for violin; and for flute, viola, and harp. Among Debussy's numerous other important works are the ballet score Jeux (Games, 1912), the orchestral poem La mer (The Sea, 1905), and the songs in Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire (Five Poems of Baudelaire, 1889; see Baudelaire, Charles Pierre).