Debussy would sit himself down without speaking at the piano of the little study-cum-library and start to improvise. Anyone who knew him can remember what it was like. He would start by brushing the keys, prodding the odd one here and there, making a pass over them and then he would sink into velvet, sometimes accompanying himself, his head down, in an attractive nasal voice, like a sung whisper. He gave the impression of delivering the piano of its sound, like a mother of her child. He cradled it, sang to it softly, like a rider to his horse, like a shepherd to his flock, like a thresher to his oxen.
A. Martin, Claude Debussy , Paris, 1942, in R. Nichols, Debussy Remembered, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 49–50.
– Léon-Paul Fargue
Debussy improvising
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