La cathédrale engloutie (Debussy)
Movements
Notes
“La cathédrale engloutie” (The Sunken Cathedral) is a musical composition written by the French composer Claude Debussy for solo piano. It was published in 1910 as the tenth prelude in Debussy’s first book of preludes. It is characteristic of Debussy in its form, harmony, and content. The piece is based on an ancient Breton myth in which a cathedral, submerged underwater off the coast of the Island of Ys, rises up from the sea on clear mornings when the water is transparent. Sounds can be heard of priests chanting, bells chiming, and the organ playing, from across the sea. Accordingly, Debussy uses certain harmonies to allude to the plot of the legend, in the style of musical symbolism.
