As a composer Debussy must be regarded as one of the most important and influential figures of the earlier twentieth century. His musical language suggested new paths to be further explored, while his poetic and sensitive use of orchestra and keyboard textures opened still more possibilities. His opera Pelléas et Mélisande and his songs demonstrated a deep understanding of poetic language, revealed by his music, expressed in terms that never overstated or exaggerated.

The five-act opera Pelléas et Mélisande was first staged at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1902, conducted by André Messager. Based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck and of its period in its evocation of a mysterious medieval dream-world, it at first found little favour, only gradually coming to win public acceptance as its delicate nuances and timbres and poetic expressiveness were more fully understood and appreciated.

Golaud, out hunting, loses his way in the forest, and finding Mélisande weeping, persuades her to come home with him. In Arkel's castle, Geneviève reads a letter from her son Golaud, confessing his marriage to Mélisande and seeking forgiveness. In the third scene Pelléas, Golaud's half-brother, and Mélisande meet outside the castle. In the second act Pelléas shows Mélisande the castle grounds. They sit by the side of a shady fountain, where, as the clock strikes midday, she drops the ring that Golaud had given her. In the castle Golaud is resting. At midday his horse had thrown him. He notices that Mélisande no longer wears the ring he gave her, and angrily tells her that she must find it, with the help of Pelléas. In the following scene Pelléas and Mélisande enter the cave where she has told Golaud she had lost the ring. They find paupers sleeping there, and quietly leave.

In the third act Mélisande, at the window of a tower in the castle, is combing her hair for the night. Pelléas comes to the foot of the tower, from where he can fondle her hair. Golaud emerges, to upbraid them for their childishness. He leads Pelléas down to a disused well in the castle vaults, where a slip would be fatal. When they emerge he openly tells Pelléas to avoid the company of Mélisande. At night in front of the castle, Golaud makes his son Yniold stand on his shoulders and tell him what he sees in Mélisande's chamber. He sees her there with Pelléas. In the fourth act Pelléas has been warned that he must leave. Before he goes, he seeks to meet Mélisande by the Fountain of the Blind. Arkel is moved by the beauty of Mélisande and is shocked when Golaud, in his presence, speaks angrily to her. In the park Pelléas and Mélisande meet and avow their love for each other, observed by Golaud, who kills Pelléas and wounds Mélisande. In the final act Mélisande, in a chamber in the castle, is recovering from her wounds. She gives birth to a baby girl, but dies, leaving the child to live in her place.

The orchestral work derived from the opera by the Rumanian-born composer Marius Constant takes primarily instrumental episodes, using the same scoring and weaving the whole together. His symphony starts with the opening music of the opera, suggesting the distant medieval world in which it is set and the surrounding forest. It moves, at the entrance of Golaud, to the curtain that closes the scene, after his first meeting with Mélisande, continuing after the second scene between Geneviève, mother of Golaud and Pelléas, and King Arkel, their grandfather, including the start of the third scene. This is joined to the music that follows the second act meeting of Pelléas and Mélisande and their resolve to tell Golaud the truth about the loss of the ring.

The work continues with the short opening to the second scene, in which Mélisande sits by Golaud's bed in Arkel's castle, moving on to the music that follows the opening scene of the third act, in which Mélisande, in her tower, combs her hair, allowing it to fall down to Pelléas, who stands below, both of them observed by Golaud. It continues with the opening bars of the second scene, in which Golaud takes Pelléas down to the castle vaults. This leads directly to the curtain after the second scene of the fourth act and the close of the fourth scene by the fountain, where Pelléas and Mélisande embrace, observed by Golaud, continuing as Golaud approaches, with sword drawn, striking his brother to the ground. The act closes and the last act opens in a room in the castle, with Arkel and Golaud, with a doctor, by the bedside of Mélisande, continuing as servants enter the chamber where she lies dying. Bells sound, as the servants kneel and the horns give Arkel's words 'Je n'ai rien entendu', as Mélisande quietly dies.

Writer: Keith Anderson