Nocturnes (Debussy)

{{Short description|1899 musical work by Claude Debussy}} {{italic title}} {{Redirect|Trois Nocturnes|other uses|Three Nocturnes (disambiguation)}} {{Infobox musical composition | name = ''Nocturnes'' | type = Orchestral music | composer = Claude Debussy | image = Pour Georges Hartmann - "Nocturnes" - 1° Nuages - 2° Fêtes - 3° Sirènes - Claude Debussy - Paris - 1898 - 1899 (manuscrit autographe), p 3r.jpg | image_upright = 1.2 | caption = Original manuscript of the orchestral arrangement | catalogue = L 98 | dedication = Georges Hartmann (publisher) | based_on = {{plainlist| * ''Poèmes anciens et romanesques'' by Henri de Régnier * ''Nocturnes'' by Whistler }} | duration = about 25 minutes | movements = {{plainlist| * I. ''Nuages'' ("Clouds") * II. ''Fêtes'' ("Festivals") * III. ''Sirènes'' ("Sirens") }} | composed = {{start date|1892}}–1899 | performed = {{plainlist| * 9 December 1900 ({{abbr|mvts|movements}} 1 & 2) * 27 October 1901 (all 3 mvts) }} | scoring = {{hlist| Orchestra | women's chorus}} | published = {{plainlist| * 1900 * 1930 (revised version) }} }} '''''Nocturnes''''', L 98 (also known as '''''Trois Nocturnes''''' or '''Three Nocturnes''') is an Impressionist orchestral composition in three movements by the French composer Claude Debussy, who wrote it between 1892 and 1899. It is based on poems from ''Poèmes anciens et romanesques'' (Henri de Régnier, 1890).

==Composition== ==="Three Scenes at Twilight"=== Based on comments in various Debussy letters and in Léon Vallas's biography,<ref name="DeVoto" /> it has generally been assumed that composition of the ''Nocturnes'' began in 1892 under the title ''Trois Scènes au Crépuscule'' ("Three Scenes at Twilight"),<ref name="Rodda" /> an orchestral triptych.<ref name="Kuenning" /><ref name="DeVoto" /> However, the lack of actual manuscripts makes it impossible to determine whether such works were truly related to the ''Nocturnes''.<ref name="DeVoto" />

''Trois Scènes au Crépuscule'' was inspired by ten poems by Henri de Régnier entitled ''Poèmes anciens et romanesques'' (published in 1890).<ref name="Jensen">{{cite book |last1=Jensen |first1=Eric Frederick |title=Debussy |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=176–178 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xY0dBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA176|isbn=978-0199730056 }}</ref> Régnier was a symbolist poet, and his poems contain vivid imagery and dreamlike associations of ideas. In a letter to Jacques Durand on 3&nbsp;September 1907, Debussy writes "I am more and more convinced that music, by its very nature, is something that cannot be cast into a traditional and fixed form. It is made up of colors and rhythms";<ref name="Fisk">{{cite book |last=Morgenstern |first=Sam |editor-last=Fisk |editor-first=Josiah |title=Composers on Music: Eight Centuries of Writings: A New and Expanded Revision of Morgenstern's Classic Anthology |year=1997 |orig-year=1956|publisher=Northeastern University Press |location=Boston |page=207 |edition=2nd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7iwZ-qTuSkUC&q=colors++rhythms |access-date=7 January 2020|isbn=978-1555532796 }}</ref> he found suitable material in the imagery of these poems.<ref name="Lockspeiser" />{{rp|127}}

Debussy may have begun creating the work for an intended performance in New York City, promoted and sponsored by Prince André Poniatowski, a banker and writer, and a confidant to whom Debussy frequently expressed himself in long letters.<ref name="Snyder" /><ref name="Lockspeiser" />{{rp|168–169}}<ref name="Orledge" /> The New York performance was to consist of the premiere of Debussy's ''Fantaisie'' for piano and orchestra completed two years earlier, a rather traditional work in classical form but a tradition which Debussy in the next two years would reject and musically move away from (resulting in the ''Fantaisie'' never being performed or published in his lifetime); his experimental oratorio ''La Damoiselle élue'', from four years prior, also still unperformed as yet; and the ''Twilight Scenes'', which Debussy told the prince were "pretty much finished" even though he hadn't put anything on paper yet.<ref name="Snyder" /><ref name="Lockspeiser" />{{rp|168–169}} The American concert deal fell through.<ref name="Snyder" />

Debussy was already working with difficulty on his opera ''Rodrigue et Chimène'', a biography of ''El Cid''; it has been said that he eventually destroyed its complete score because he felt he could no longer write "that kind of music" to "that kind of literature",<ref name="Samuel" /> but his biographer says he merely concealed them and they remained in private collections.<ref name="O'Brien" />

He was also working on another orchestral triptych after a cycle of three poems by another symbolist poet, Stéphane Mallarmé, called ''L'après-midi d'un faune'', that was more in keeping with the new style of music and inspiration Debussy was seeking. He had in fact asked Henri de Régnier, a close associate of Mallarmé, to inform the latter of his interest in setting the poems to a new kind of musical impression.<ref name="Rodda" /> Mallarmé was vehemently opposed to juxtaposing poetry and music and was strongly against Debussy's compositional idea.<ref name="Valéry" /> After Mallarmé heard the completed ''Prélude'' based on his first poem, however, Debussy had evidently caused him to completely reverse his belief, as he expressed his astonishment in lavishing praise and admiration in a personal letter to the composer.<ref name="Dumesnil" />

===Three Nocturnes for solo violin and partitioned orchestra=== Meanwhile, Debussy's ''Scènes au Crépuscule'', after Régnier's poetry, were completed in piano score in 1893, but before Debussy had a chance to orchestrate them he attended the premiere performance of his String Quartet in G minor in December, given by the Ysaÿe Quartet led by Belgian violin virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe.<ref name="Avis" /> Debussy was impressed and flattered by Ysaÿe's interest in his music and decided to rewrite his ''Twilight Scenes'' into a piece for solo violin and orchestra.<ref name="Rodda" />[[File:Whistler-Nocturne in black and gold.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|''Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket'' from a series of impressionist paintings by Whistler|left]]In 1894, after completing the first movement of his Mallarmé triptych entitled ''Prélude'' (to "The Afternoon of a Faun"), he began the recomposition of the ''Twilight Scenes'' in a new inspired style, retitling the new version ''Nocturnes'' after a series of paintings of the same name by James McNeill Whistler, who was living in Paris at the time.<ref name="LAPhil" /><ref name="Rodda" />

In September he described the music to Ysaÿe as "an experiment in the different combinations that can be achieved with one colour—what a study in grey would be in painting".<ref name="O'Brien" /><ref name="Avis" /> Whistler's most famous painting was a portrait of his mother called ''Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1''.<ref name="Rodda" /> Debussy scored the orchestral part of the first of the three pieces for strings alone; the second for three flutes, four horns, three trumpets, and two harps; and the third for the two groupings together.<ref name="Avis" /><ref name="Rodda" /> The first version of the ''Nocturnes'' seems to be the one described; he later abandoned the idea of the solo violin arrangement when he was unable to get Ysaÿe to undertake the performance.<ref name="O'Brien" />

Following the abandonment of ''Rodrigue et Chimène'' in 1893, Debussy had immediately begun work on an opera more to his liking, ''Pelléas et Mélisande'', which occupied him with no small measure of trouble over the next nine years, until it premiered on 30&nbsp;April 1902.<ref name="Nichols">{{cite book |last1=Nichols |first1=Roger |last2=Smith |first2=Richard Langham |title=Claude Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande |date=1989 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-31446-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q8OMyheKMpsC}}</ref> Thus it wasn't until 1896 that he informed Ysaÿe that the music for the ''Nocturnes'' had pretty much been completed and he still wanted Ysaÿe to perform the solo violin part.<ref name="Rodda" /><ref name="Avis" />

By 1897, Debussy had decided to dispense with a solo violin part and the orchestral groupings, and simply write all three movements for a full orchestra. He worked for the next two years on the ''Nocturnes'', and once confessed to his friend and benefactor, the publisher Georges Hartmann,<ref name="IMSLPHartmann" /> that he was finding it more difficult to compose these three orchestral nocturnes than a five-act opera.<ref name="Rodda" /> Wanting to equal the sensation caused by the success of "The Afternoon of a Faun" piece,<ref name="Rodda" /> he drove himself toward an over-perfectionism with the ''Nocturnes''. Having worked on the composition for as long as seven years, constantly revising it and changing its very structure several times, he expected it to live up to his own grand, avant-garde views: {{quote|I myself love music passionately; and because I love it, I try to set it free from barren traditions that stifle it. It is a free art, gushing forth, an {{nowrap|[open-]air}} art, an art boundless as the elements, the wind, the sky, the sea! It must never be shut in and become an academic art.|Debussy, in an interview in ''Comœdia'', 1910<ref name="Woodwind">{{cite book |title=Woodwind Anthology: A Compendium of Woodwind Articles from the Instrumentalist |date=1992 |location=Northfield, IL |publisher=Instrumentalist Company|volume=1 |page=599|quote=In an interview in ''Comœdia'' on January 31, 1910, he said... |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I7IQAQAAMAAJ&q=%22love+music+passionately%22+stifle+barren |access-date=8 January 2020}}</ref><ref name=Rodda />}}

===Completion and further revision=== thumb|Debussy at the piano in the summer of 1893 A full score of the manuscript of the ''Nocturnes'' was signed with the completion date of 15 December 1899.<ref name="Kuenning" /> The manuscript bears a dedication to Georges Hartmann, who helped to support Debussy financially beginning in 1894. It was published under contract to Hartmann's publisher, under the Eugène Fromont imprint in 1900. This printed score contained dozens of errors.<ref name="DeVoto" />

The first two movements, ''Nuages'' and ''Fêtes'', received their premiere on 9 December 1900 in Paris by the Lamoureux Orchestra conducted by Camille Chevillard. The third movement ''Sirènes'' could not be staged because the female choir needed for it was unavailable.<ref name=Avis /> The complete work was premiered by the same orchestra and conductor on 27 October 1901. Though these initial performances received a cool response from the public, they were more positively hailed by fellow musicians. A review by Pierre de Bréville in the ''Mercure de France'' has been translated as saying: "It is pure music, conceived beyond the limits of reality, in the world of dreams, among the ever-moving architecture that God builds with mists, the marvelous creations of the impalpable realms."<ref name="Rodda" /><ref name="Daitz">{{cite journal |last1=Daitz |first1=Mimi Segal |title=Pierre de Bréville (1861–1949) |journal=19th-Century Music |date=July 1981 |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=24–37|quote=Daitz suggests a date for the original article, but does not give the quote. More details may be available in her Ph.D. thesis. She writes: 'Breville's longest series of articles was written for the ''Mercure de France''. Missing only a few months, he wrote the "Revue du Mois-Musique" from February 1898 through July 1901. It was in one of these articles (January 1901) that he reviewed the premiere of Debussy's ''Nocturnes''.' |doi=10.2307/746557|jstor=746557 }}</ref>

For several years after its publication, almost until the day he died, Debussy continued to tinker with the composition, at first making corrections to dozens of errors in his copy of the published score, then moving on to adjusting small passages and fundamentally revising the orchestration.<ref name="DeVoto" /><ref name="Rodda" /> Debussy made many subtle changes to ''Sirènes'' to integrate the wordless singing of the women's chorus with the orchestra.<ref name="LAPhil" /> Two of these scores exist with Debussy's changes in different colors of pencils and inks, and often these changes are contradictory or simply alternate versions.<ref name="DeVoto" /> As Debussy told conductor Ernest Ansermet when the latter asked which were the right ones: "I'm not really sure; they are all possibilities. Take this score with you and use whatever you like from it."<ref name="Labyrinth">{{cite book |last1=Herlin |first1=Denis |chapter=Sirens in the Labyrinth: Amendments in Debussy's Nocturnes |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=Richard Langham |title=Debussy Studies |date=1997 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |pages=51–77}}</ref><ref name="DeVoto" />

Debussy continued to modify the composition just as he had for the seven years prior to its publication, sometimes just not satisfied or sometimes thinking of a new experiment in sound, a new color combination of instrumental timbres he hadn't heard yet.<ref name="Mark">{{cite book |last1=DeVoto |first1=Mark |title=Debussy and the veil of tonality : essays on his music |date=2004 |publisher=Pendragon Press |location=Hillsdale, NY|page=99 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WxrrQiB4U9cC&pg=PA99 |access-date=8 January 2020|isbn=978-1576470909 }}</ref> Many of these changes were finally incorporated into a "definitive version" published in 1930 by Jobert.<ref name="Mark"/><ref name=DeVoto /><ref name=Rodda /> This version continues to be performed today.

A comprehensive version addressing many more of Debussy's "possibilities" was published in 1999 by Durand, edited and annotated by Denis Herlin.<ref name="Herlin">{{cite book |last1=Herlin |first1=Denis |title=Claude Debussy: Nocturnes |date=2000 |publisher=Durand (T. Presser) |location=Paris}}</ref> One reviewer states "in this new critical edition for the Debussy ''oeuvres complètes'', all of the most important questions concerning the establishment of a text of the ''Nocturnes'' for practical performance have been confidently answered."<ref name=DeVoto /> Herlin has carefully traced and analyzed four printings of the ''Nocturnes'' by Fromont, ending in 1922; multiple scores by Jean Jobert between 1922 and 1930; multiple versions of a heavily revised Jobert score appearing between 1930 and 1964; a 1977 edition by Peters of Leipzig; and a study score from Durand.<ref name=DeVoto />

The ''Nocturnes'' were performed as a ballet in May 1913, with Loie Fuller dancing.<ref name="O'Brien">{{cite book |translator-first1=Maire |translator-last1=O'Brien|translator-first2=Grace |translator-last2=O'Brien|last1=Vallas |first1=Leon |title=Claude Debussy His Life And Works|date=1933 |publisher=Oxford University Press; Humphrey Milford |place=London |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.57948/ }}</ref> The ''Nocturnes'' are considered one of Debussy's most accessible and popular works, admired for their beauty and for holding new possibilities and wonder upon repeated hearings.<ref name=LAPhil />

== Instrumentation == The piece has the following instrumentation.<ref name=LAPhil/>

{{col-begin}} {{col-3}} ;Woodwinds : 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo) : 2 oboes : 1 cor anglais : 2 clarinets : 3 bassoons

{{col-3}}

;Brass : 4 horns in F : 3 trumpets in F : 3 trombones : 1 tuba

;Percussion : timpani

: cymbals : snare drum {{col-3}} ;Voices : women's chorus (3rd movement only)

;Strings : 2 harps

: 1st violins : 2nd violins : violas : cellos : double basses {{col-end}}

==Music== {{listen | filename = Debussy Nocturnes1Nuages VPO.ogg | title = I. ''Nuages'' | description = A computer-generated soundfile of the first movement }}

There are three movements, each with a descriptive title.

{{Ordered list|type=upper-roman

| ''Nuages'' ("Clouds")

| ''Fêtes'' ("Festivals") | ''Sirènes'' ("Sirens") }}

The entire work lasts approximately 25 minutes.<ref name=LAPhil />

Debussy wrote an "introductory note" to the ''Nocturnes'' and each of the individual movements, printed in the programme for the first complete performance in 1901:<ref name=Brook /> "The title 'Nocturnes' is to be interpreted here in a general and, more particularly, in a decorative sense. Therefore, it is not meant to designate the usual form of the Nocturne, but rather all the various impressions and the special effects of light that the word suggests."<ref name="O'Brien"/> ===I. ''Nuages''=== thumb|upright=1.6|Theme [[File:Septnonakkordparallelen in Debussy Troid Nocturnes, Nuages.svg|thumb|upright=1.2|Parallel seventh chords]] The tempo markings are "Modéré – Un peu animé – Tempo I – Plus lent – Encore plus lent."<ref name="IMSLP">{{cite web |title=Nocturnes |url=http://ks.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/5/53/IMSLP419438-SIBLEY1802.30697.b039-39087009438930score.pdf |access-date=3 February 2020 |website=IMSLP}}</ref>

According to Debussy, "'Nuages' renders the immutable aspect of the sky and the slow, solemn motion of the clouds, fading away in grey tones lightly tinged with white."<ref name="O'Brien" /> Biographer Léon Vallas recorded Debussy's comments on the genesis of this piece:{{quote| One day, in stormy weather, as Debussy was crossing the Pont de la Concorde in Paris with his friend Paul Poujaud, he told him that on a similar kind of day the idea of the symphonic work "Clouds" had occurred to him: he had visualized those very thunderclouds swept along by a stormy wind; a boat passing, with its horn sounding. These two impressions are recalled in the languorous succession of chords and by the short chromatic theme on the English horn.<ref name="Brook"/><ref name="Cox">A very similar translation is given by {{cite book |last1=Cox |first1=David |title=Debussy orchestral music |date=1974 |publisher=British Broadcasting Corporation |page=20}}</ref><ref name="similar">A similar translation is given by {{cite book |last1=DeVoto |first1=Mark |title=Debussy and the veil of tonality : essays on his music |date=2004 |publisher=Pendragon Press |location=Hillsdale, NY |page=99 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WxrrQiB4U9cC&pg=PA99 |access-date=8 January 2020|isbn=978-1576470909 }}, which credits the original text to Léon Vallas, ''Claude Debussy et son temps.'' Paris: Albin Michel, 1958.</ref><ref name="Vallas">{{cite book |last1=Vallas |first1=Léon |title=Claude Debussy et son temps |date=1958 |publisher=Albin Michel |location=Paris}}</ref>}}{{Clear}}

===II. ''Fêtes''=== thumb|upright=1.8|''Fêtes'' uses {{Time signature|15|8}} time (shown subdivided into {{Time signature|9|8}} and {{Time signature|6|8}})The tempo markings are "Animé et très rythmé – Un peu plus animé – Modéré mais toujours très rythmé – Tempo I – De plus en plus sonore et en serrant le mouvement – Même Mouvement."<ref name="IMSLP" />

According to Debussy: {{quote|"Fêtes" gives the vibrating, dancing rhythm of the atmosphere with sudden flashes of light. There is also the episode of the procession (a dazzling fantastic vision), which passes through the festive scene and becomes merged in it. But the background remains resistantly the same: the festival with its blending of music and luminous dust participating in the cosmic rhythm.<ref name="O'Brien"/>}}

Léon Vallas, in his biography, continues:

{{quote|Debussy went on to explain to Poujaud that "Festivals" had been inspired by a recollection of merry-making in the Bois de Boulogne, with noisy crowds watching the drum and bugle corps of the Garde Nationale pass in parade.<ref name=Brook />}}

===III. ''Sirènes''=== The tempo markings are "Modérément animé – Un peu plus lent – En animant surtout dans l'expression – Revenir progressivement au Tempo I – En augmentant peu à peu – Tempo I – Plus lent et en retenant jusqu'à la fin."<ref name="IMSLP" />

According to Debussy, "'Sirènes' depicts the sea and its countless rhythms and presently, amongst the waves silvered by the moonlight, is heard the mysterious song of the Sirens as they laugh and pass on.<ref name="O'Brien" />

==Whistler and Debussy== The title, ''Nocturnes'', refers not to the musical tradition of the same name but to the "nocturne" paintings of Whistler, who in turn had borrowed the term from music.<ref>{{cite book | last = Walsh | first = Stephen | title = Debussy: A Painter in Sound | publication-place = London | publisher = Faber & Faber | year = 2018 | isbn = 978-0-571-33016-4 }}</ref>{{rp|133}} Debussy's description of the ''Sirens'' movement reminded his biographer Léon Vallas of Whistler's "Harmonies in blue and silver". Vallas noted that Whistler "was a favourite with Debussy, and their art has often been compared."<ref name=Brook /> The two were mutual influences, with Whistler borrowing from musical vocabulary to name his pictures, while Debussy did something similar in reverse.<ref name="O'Brien"/> {{Gallery | title = | align = | style = | state = | height = | width = | captionstyle = | footer = | James Abbot McNeill Whistler 007.jpg | alt1 = | ''Harmony in blue and silver: Trouville'' | Nocturne in Blue and Silver, by James Abbot McNeill Whistler, c. 1871-1872, oil on panel - Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University - DSC01240.jpg | alt5 = | Nocturne: Blue and Silver | James Abbott McNeill Whistler - Nocturne- Blue and Silver - Chelsea - Google Art Project.jpg | alt2 = | Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea | James McNeill Whistler - Nocturne- Blue and Silver—Battersea Reach - Google Art Project.jpg | alt3 = | Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Battersea Reach | James McNeill Whistler - Nocturne- Blue and Silver—Bognor - Google Art Project.jpg | alt4 = | Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Bognor | James Abbott McNeill Whistler - Nocturne in Blue and Silver- The Lagoon, Venice - Google Art Project.jpg | alt6 = | Nocturne: Blue and Silver – The Lagoon, Venice | James McNeill Whistler - Nocturne in Blue and Silver - Google Art Project.jpg | alt7 = | Nocturne: Blue and Silver }}

==Arrangements== The complete work was transcribed in 1910 for two pianos by Maurice Ravel and Raoul Bardac (Debussy's pupil and stepson), and was first performed in 1911.<ref name=Avis /> ''Fêtes'' was arranged for solo piano by the English pianist Leonard Borwick, and the arrangement has been recorded by Emil Gilels, among others.<ref name=Tanin /> ''Fêtes'' has also been transcribed for large symphonic wind ensemble by Merlin Patterson and William Schaefer.<ref>{{cite AV media|title=Fêtes : from Three Nocturnes |oclc=16400183|type=Music LP|publisher=Franco Colombo|location=New York}}</ref>

== Discography == {| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible" |+Recordings of the complete orchestral version !Year !Conductor !Orchestra !Label |- |1939 |Piero Coppola |Orchestre de Paris |HMV |- |1940 |Leopold Stokowski |The Philadelphia Orchestra |RCA Victor |- |1952 |Ernest Ansermet |L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande |Decca |- |1952 |Antal Doráti |Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra |Mercury |- |1953 |Jean Fournet |Orchestre de Paris |Philips |- |1954 |Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht |Orchestre National de France |Columbia |- |1955 |Pierre Monteux |Boston Symphony Orchestra |RCA Victor |- |1956 |Eugene Ormandy |The Philadelphia Orchestra |Columbia |- |1958 |Eduard van Beinum |Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra |Philips |- |1958 |Constantin Silvestri |Orchestre de Paris |EMI |- |1960 |Ernest Ansermet |L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romance |Decca |- |1960 |Leopold Stokowski |London Symphony Orchestra |Capitol |- |1961 |Pierre Dervaux |Orchestre Colonne |Westminster |- |1961 |Leonard Bernstein |New York Philharmonic |Columbia |- |1961 |Manuel Rosenthal |Orchestre National de l'Opéra de Paris |Vega Records |- |1962 |Carlo Maria Giulini |Philharmonia Orchestra |EMI |- |1962 |Charles Munch |Boston Symphony Orchestra |RCA Victor |- |1962 |Pierre Monteux |London Symphony Orchestra |Decca |- |1962 |Paul Paray |Detroit Symphony Orchestra |Mercury |- |1963 |Pierre Monteaux |Orchestre de Paris |RCA Victor |- |1964 |Jean Fournet |Czech Philharmonic |Supraphon |- |1965 |Eugene Ormandy |The Philadelphia Orchestra |Columbia |- |1969 |Sir John Barbirolli |Orchestre de Paris |EMI |- |1970 |Claudio Abbado |Boston Symphony Orchestra |Deutsche Grammophon |- |1970 |Eliahu Inbal |Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra |Philips |- |1971 |Pierre Boulez |New Philharmonia Orchestra |Columbia |- |1973 |Louis de Froment |Orchestre Philharmonique Luxembourg |Vox |- |1974 |Jean Martinon |Orchestre National de France |EMI |- |1974 |Jean Fournet |Radio Filharmonisch Orkest |Decca |- |1976 |Antal Doráti |National Symphony Orchestra |Decca |- |1978 |Daniel Barenboim |Orchestre de Paris |Deutsche Grammophon |- |1979 |Lorin Maazel |The Cleveland Orchestra |Decca |- |1980 |Bernard Haitink |Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra |Philips |- |1981 |Alain Lombard |Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg |Erato |- |1982 |Sir Colin Davis |Boston Symphony Orchestra |Philips |- |1982 |Sergiu Comissiona |Houston Symphony Orchestra |Vanguard |- |1983 |Michael Tilson Thomas |London Philharmonic Orchestra |CBS Masterworks |- |1984 |André Previn |London Symphony Orchestra |EMI |- |1987 |Vladimir Ashkenazy |The Cleveland Orchestra |Decca |- |1988 |Michel Plasson |Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse |EMI |- |1988 |Michael Tilson Thomas |Philharmonia Orchestra |CBS Masterworks |- |1988 |Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos |London Symphony Orchestra |IMP Classics |- |1990 |Alexander Rahbari |BRT Philharmonic Orchestra |Naxos |- |1990 |Charles Dutoit |Orchestre symphonique de Montréal |Decca |- |1990 |Yan Pascal Tortelier |Ulster Orchestra |Chandos |- |1991 |Armin Jordan |L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande |Erato |- |1992 |Sir Georg Solti |Chicago Symphony Orchestra |Decca |- |1994 |Esa-Pekka Salonen |Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra |Sony Classical |- |1994 |Jean-Claude Casadesus |L'Orchestre National de Lille |Harmonia Mundi |- |1999 |Lorin Maazel |Wiener Philharmoniker |RCA Victor |- |2005 |Paavo Järvi |Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra |Telarc |- |2008 |Jun Märkl |Orchestre National de Lyon |Naxos |- |2018 |François-Xavier Roth |Les Siècles |Harmonia Mundi |}

==References== {{Reflist|refs=

<ref name=Avis>{{cite AV media notes |author-first=Peter |author-last=Avis |title=Trois Nocturnes, L98. composer: Claude Debussy |url=https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/tw.asp?w=W4085 |id=[https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/notes/55014-B.pdf Liner notes to Debussy : The complete music for two pianos] (Stephen Coombs and Christian Scott, 2p), Helios CDH55014 (CD), May 1999 [1991 Hyperion] |year=1999 |publisher=Hyperion Records |access-date=27 October 2019 }}</ref>

<ref name=Brook>{{cite book |author-first=Donald |author-last=Brook |title=Five great French composers: Berlioz, César Franck, Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Ravel: Their Lives and Works |location=Freeport, NY |publisher=Books for Libraries Press |year=1971 |orig-year=1946 |page=168 }}</ref>

<ref name=DeVoto>{{cite web |author-first=Mark|author-last= DeVoto |author-link=Mark DeVoto |title=Claude Debussy: Nocturnes. Édition de Denis Herlin. Paris: Durand, 1999 & Paris: Durand (T. Presser), 2000. Reviewed |url=https://sites.tufts.edu/markdevoto/files/2018/05/Nocturnesreview.pdf |date=16 May 2018 |orig-year=Revised from ''Notes'' September 2001 |publisher=Tufts University |access-date=27 October 2019 }}</ref>

<ref name=Dumesnil>{{cite book |author-first=Maurice|author-last= Dumesnil |author-link=Maurice Dumesnil |title=Claude Debussy : Master of Dreams |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vIMHAQAAMAAJ |year=1979 |orig-year=1940 |location=Westport, CT |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-313-20775-4 |page=181 }}</ref>

<ref name=IMSLPHartmann>{{cite web |author=IMSLP |title=G. Hartmann |url=https://imslp.org/wiki/G._Hartmann |publisher=Petrucci Music Library |access-date=29 October 2019 }}</ref>

<ref name=Kuenning>{{cite web |author-first=Geoff |author-last=Kuenning |title=Debussy: Nocturnes |url=https://lasr.cs.ucla.edu/ficus-members/geoff/prognotes/debussy/nocturnes.html |work=Program notes for Concerts by the Symphony of the Canyons |date=14 December 1996 |publisher=UCLA |access-date=27 October 2019 }}</ref>

<ref name=LAPhil>{{cite web |title=Nocturnes |url=https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/2463/nocturnes |publisher=Los Angeles Philharmonic |access-date=11 October 2012 }}</ref>

<ref name="Lockspeiser">{{cite book |author-first=Edward |author-last=Lockspeiser |author-link=Edward Lockspeiser |title=Debussy: His Life and Mind, Volume 1 : 1862–1902 |url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=CY85AAAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.PP1 |location=Cambridge and New York |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1978 |orig-year=reprint of 1966 Second ed. (1st ed. 1962) |isbn=978-0-521-29341-9 |page=127 }}</ref>

<ref name=Orledge>{{cite book |author-first=Robert |author-last=Orledge |author-link=Robert Orledge |chapter=Debussy the Man |title=The Cambridge Companion to Debussy |editor=Simon Trezise |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00trez_0 |year=2003 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-65478-4 }}</ref>

<ref name=Rodda>{{cite web |author-first=Richard E.|author-last= Rodda |title=Nocturnes Nos. 1 and 2. About the Work. Composer: Claude Debussy |url=https://www.kennedy-center.org/artist/composition/5213 |year=2019 |publisher=The Kennedy Center |id=Article also at [https://www.thesymphony.org/program-notes/view/carpenter-plays-poulenc-saint-saens Santa Barbara Symphony website] |access-date=27 October 2019 }}</ref>

<ref name=Samuel>{{cite AV media notes |author-first=Claude |author-last=Samuel |author-link=Claude Samuel |title=Rodrigue et Chimène, notes |id=Debussy: Rodrigue et Chimène (Kent Nagano, conductor), Erato 98508 (CD), 1995 |year=1995 |publisher=Erato Disques |pages=12–13 }}</ref>

<ref name=Snyder>{{cite book |author-first=Harvey Lee |author-last=Snyder |title=Afternoon of a Faun: How Debussy Created a New Music for the Modern World |url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=CD45CwAAQBAJ&pg=GBS.PP1 |year=2015 |location=Milwaukee |publisher=Amadeus Press |isbn=978-1-574-67482-8 |pages=117–120 }}</ref>

<ref name=Tanin>{{cite web |author-first=Ates |author-last=Tanin |title=Recorded Gilels |url=http://www.doremi.com/RecGilels.html |date=1 August 2005 |publisher=Doremi |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060414232111/http://www.doremi.com/RecGilels.html |archive-date=2006-04-14 }}</ref>

<ref name=Valéry>{{cite book |author-first=Paul |author-last=Valéry |author-link=Paul Valéry |chapter=Stephane Mallarmé |title=Collected Works of Paul Valéry, Volume 8: Leonardo, Poe, Mallarmé |chapter-url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=XL99BgAAQBAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP1 |translator1=Malcolm Cowley |translator1-link=Malcolm Cowley |translator2=James R. Lawler |year=1933 |location=London |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |publication-date=1972 |isbn=0-7100-7148-5 |page=263 }}</ref>

}}

==External links== {{Commons category|Nocturnes (Debussy)}} * {{IMSLP2|work=Nocturnes (Debussy, Claude)|cname=Nocturnes}} * [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s4LZbr_h50 YouTube] - Pierre Boulez, Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna State Opera Chorus (Salzburg Festival, August 30, 1992) * [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0LR1Rw0W4c YouTube] - Mikko Franck, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Chœur de Radio France, Maîtrise de Radio France (September 15, 2017)

{{Claude Debussy}} {{Impressionist music}}

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Category:Suites by Claude Debussy Category:1899 compositions Category:Compositions for symphony orchestra Debussy Category:Orchestral suites Category:Music based on poems Category:Orchestral compositions with chorus