The name is absent

158 Lectures on Modem Music

that direction. It would be indeed difficult for a composer
to write another opera based on the same conceptions as
“Pelléas”, just as it will be impossible, in the future, to
ignore its many and far-reaching innovations. It is truly
a pity that so many excellent musicians have yet to make
acquaintance with a work which has its place beside Monte-
verdi’s “Orpheus”, “The Marriage of Figaro”, “Tristan”
and “Boris”, as one of the few really great operas in the
history of music.

Other important compositions also date from the period
when Debussy was working on “Pelléas” : “Fêtes Galantes”,
first series (1892);¹ “String Quartet” (1893); “Noc-
turnes:²—Nuages, Fêtes, Sirènes” {Clouds, Fêtes, Sirens),
from 1897-1899; “Chansons de Bilitis” ² ( 1898). The
orchestral works, “La Mer” {The Sea) and “Images”
{Gigues, Iberia and Dances of Spring) are later, appearing
in 1905 and 1911, respectively. Deserving of more than
the mere casual mention which, for lack of space, we are
obliged to give it here, is “The Martyrdom of Saint Sebas-
tian”, incidental music for a “Mystery Play” by d^,An-
nunzio, some numbers of which the composer later arranged
into an orchestral suite. Except in certain pages of
“Pelléas” and in the first two “Ballads of François Villon”
(1910)—which are likewise far too little known—Debussy
had never before attained to heights of such serenity and
pathos.

All the well-known piano works, apart from the early
and rather sentimental “Suite Bergamasqueⁿ (1890), ap-
peared after 1900, beginning with “Pour Ie Piano” {For
the Piano) in 1901, and leading up to the two volumes of
“Préludes” (1910) and the “Études” (1915).

Debussy’s last compositions are frankly inferior. But

¹ For orchestra.

^a Songs.

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