If you haven’t visited the Google homepage today, I suggest you do so. Google is celebrating French composer Claude Debussy with a spectacular Doodle that features one of his best-known movements.
Today’s Doodle features an animation of a nighttime scene. Lights flicker on an off, smoke from a faraway factory shields the full moon. The animation pans left to right as automobiles and ships make their way across the screen. It’s a scene that invokes the word “moonlight,” so it’s fitting that the soundtrack to the doodle is Debussy’s “Clair de lune.”
“Clair de lune” is one of, if not the most popular piece of music that Claude Debussy ever composed. it’s the third and final movement of his Suite bergamasque, first published in 1905.
Debussy was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, on August 22nd, 1862. Today’s Google Doodle celebrates what would be his 151st birthday. He began piano lessons at the age of 7, and it was clear from an early age that Debussy possessed quite the talent. He began to study music at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 10, doing so for nearly 11 years.
Debussy is widely regarded as one of the the most influential composers of the 1900s. In his time, Debussy wrote Orchestral pieces, ballets, many soloist piano pieces, and dozens of works for voice and piano. He died in Paris in 1918 of rectal cancer.
