When Debussy came to compose his Images for orchestra, he wrote to his publisher Jacques Durand that he was trying to do something different from what he had done in his earlier works, those dubbed "Impressionist", and to deal instead with "realities". Each of the three pieces that make up Images was inspired by influences from a different Western European country: Scotland (Gigues), Spain (Ibéria) and France (Rondes de printemps).

In June 1906 Debussy met fellow composer André Caplet, who soon became a trusted friend, whose "prodigious musical instinct" Debussy greatly valued. Caplet made two arrangements of Images, for two pianos and piano four-hands respectively.

Written between 1905 and December 1908, Ibéria was the first of the Images to be completed. Debussy's only visit to Spain consisted of a single afternoon spent in San Sebastián, just across the border. There are no quotations or borrowings from pre-existing music here, the work drawing instead on a kind of imagined folk tradition in which all the melodies stem from the composer's own mind, although they are based on modal or ornamental cellular elements typical of Spanish folk music. Its poetic unity is based on the succession of atmospheres conjured to illustrate a journey from day to night and on to early morning. Debussy's technique becomes even more fascinating, however, as we begin to hear his motifs and thematic materials resurfacing in each of Ibéria's three movements (none of which is cast in any purely conventional form), generated from very limited elements by the inventiveness of the composer.

Par les rues et par les chemins (In the streets and byways), in ternary form, sets out an elegant principal theme introduced by a lively sevillana rhythm, three cyclical elements and then, in the central section, an obsessional theme punctuated by a fanfare and a weightier motif in the lower register.

At the end, the daylight fades in a magnificent coda that sets the scene for the following movement, Les Parfums de la nuit (The perfumes of the night), a piece of writing full of enchantment, sensory perception and reverie, in an "enumerative" (ABC) three-part form. An obsessive habanera rhythm, more hinted at than overtly stated, is here interwoven with cyclical motifs drawn from the first movement. When the habanera ceases, a new episode begins, with a "sweet and melancholic" theme which is met by passionate impulses. In place of the expected recapitulation, the third part, a subtle moment of remembrance (echoes of the night) and anticipation (the "minstrel" from the final movement) leads without a break into Matin d'un jour de fête (Morning of a feast day). An approaching march is punctuated by chiming bells, two cyclical motifs and a series of quasi guitarra chords. Later we also hear the impassioned motif from the second movement again, this time "expressive and slightly mocking". The middle section in 3/4 begins with a marked contrast in tempo, character and instrumentation. The march is then replaced by a more declamatory, minstrel-style piece of music.

In August 1907, Debussy went back to Rondes de printemps (Round dances of spring) and wrote to Durand, "The thing about this music is that it is intangible and therefore cannot be manipulated in the way that a robust symphony can." He also confided, "I am more and more convinced that music is not, in its essence, something that can flow in a rigorous, traditional form. It is made up of rhythmic tempos and colours…"

Completed in 1909, Rondes opens with two "call" motifs, portraying the awakenings of springtime. The first is chromatic and anticipates Jeux, the second is in elegant thirds quickly followed by a sketch of a traditional song from the Île-de-France "Nous n'irons plus au bois…" (No more we'll go to the woods), used more for the substance of its material than as an individualised theme. After light harmonies in quavers, it appears again, more clearly defined this time, before the main theme in A major bursts in. Following a slower episode, the song is treated contrapuntally and later, after a reprise of the main theme, is presented several times in augmented note values beneath an ostinato ronde rhythm.

Gigues was composed between 1909 and 1912 in collaboration with André Caplet, who wrote the following about the work: "Jigs… Sad jigs… Tragic jigs… Portrait of a soul—of a grief-stricken soul" which hides "its sobs behind the mask and jerky movements of a grotesque puppet". A brief introduction gives way to a wistful, folk-inspired, modal tune structured in two contrasting parts; this returns only in snatches. The main theme, with its lively rhythm, later gives way to a rendering of "Dansons la gigue" (Let's dance a jig), a French tune borrowed from a collection by Charles Bordes, with the addition of a more impassioned element which becomes increasingly dominant in the central section, to the point of banishing the rhythmic ostinato.

Writer: Gérald Hugon
Translated by: Susannah Howe