Claude Debussy transformed Paul Verlaine’s poem into music “Clair de lune”

The ideal text to adapt to music was a question posed to Claude Debussy in the journal "Musica" in 1911. The composer proclaimed his choice for rhythmic prose after skeptically illustrating a number of options, adding that the composer should create his text. Debussy published 56 songs, but of those, he issued no less than 18 set poetry by Paul Verlaine. He did, after all, arrange numerous of his words to music.

Debussy used Verlaine's maxim "Music above all else, and for that picked the irregular, nebulous and dissolving better into the air" and turned it into a literary reality. This artistic affinity between the two authors has been extensively analyzed. Before he traveled to Rome or became familiar with the music of Wagner, Debussy attempted two versions of Clair de Lune, with the first setting dated from between 1882 and 1884.

Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masquerades and dancers are promenading,
Playing the lute and dancing, and almost
Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.

While singing in a minor key
Of victorious love, and the pleasant life
They seem not to believe in their happiness
And their song blends with the moonlight,

With the sad and beautiful moonlight,
Which sets the birds in the trees dreaming,
And makes the fountains sob with ecstasy,
The slender water streams among the marble statues.

But let's not forget that Verlaine and Claire de lune also served as the inspiration for the renowned Suite bergamasque, which properly featured "Clair de lune" in the third movement.