Debussy: La Mer

Making Waves?

Beyond the Score Debussy’s greatest orchestral masterpiece, La mer was completed in 1905, halfway between our two works by Mahler and Rachmaninov. In this vivid music, the French composer achieves one of the most perfect balances in all symphonic music between architectural mathematics and the shimmering use of symbolism and suggestion, deeply immersing the listener in a world of dreams and the unconscious. For Debussy, as for Rachmaninov, the sea and water are not merely the actual oceans of our planet, but the fluid inner world of spirit and imagination, across which every human being voyages.

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