Debussy: Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum

A most beautiful piece in my opinion, and a challenging one for students of the piano.

Here, Italian pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920 - 1995) plays Part One of Debussy's Children's Corner Suite. Recorded in 1962 at Turin.

Children's Corner (L. 113) is a six-movement suite for solo piano. It was published by Durand in 1908, and was first performed by Harold Bauer in Paris on 18 December that year. In 1911, an orchestration by André Caplet was premiered and subsequently published.

Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum

The title of the first movement alludes to sets of piano exercises of that name (Gradus ad Parnassum - Latin: "Steps to Parnassus"), several of which had been published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including one by the prolific publisher of piano exercises Carl Czerny. This piece is a rather ingenious study in finger independence with a twentieth-century vocabulary. In the middle, the pianist slows down and tries the material in other keys for exercise. Debussy's "Doctor Gradus Ad Parnassum" is of intermediate difficulty and requires experienced fingers. Debussy told his publisher that the movement should be played "very early in the morning".

Видео Debussy: Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum канала AntPDC