Today, I want to talk about a piano masterpiece, La fille aux Cheveux de lin. The name of the piece can be translated as “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”. The composer is Claude Debussy. I have talked about his other piece “Clair de Lune” a few weeks ago. Since these two pieces are both composed by Debussy, they have some similarities. I will compare and contrast the two pieces at the end of the blog.

“The Girl with the Flaxen Hair” is the eighth piece in Debussy’s first book “Preludes”, written around 1910. As usual, the title was put at the end of the piece. Many people speculated about who the girl in the title is. Some of them guessed she is Debussy’s daughter. The other believed that she is someone Debussy loved. However, the idea of the title actually came from a poem by Charles-Marie René Leconte de Lisle, which I’ll post the English version below.

Compared with “Clair de lune”, “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair” is a much shorter piece. It only has two pages when “Clair de lune” has nine pages. However, the big chords in Debussy’s piece never disappoint me. “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair” begins with a memorable two-bar phrase, plays flute-like by the right hand alone. Then the left hands with harmony are added. In the middle, the piece goes into the climax. The emotion of the whole song is also pushed to the highest point. However, it gets really quiet right after a continuous series of harmonies. Soon the same melody of the beginning part appears again. The same phrase is played by the right hand with different harmony on the left hand. It creates a different atmosphere while echoing the beginning of the song, indicating that the song has entered the end.

In my opinion, the overall atmosphere of “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair” is less grand than “Clair de lune”, but the elusive harmonies and lilting theme set the romantic tone. If “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair” is a song for the morning when all things come to life, “Clair de lune” is for a night of melancholy and quiet. I like both of them very much. Debussy is a genius composer. He is always my favorite. I’m excited to get into more of his pieces.

La fille aux cheveux de lin
by Charles-Marie René Leconte de Lisle

Sitting amidst the alfalfa in flower,
Who sings in the cool morning hour?
It is the girl with the flaxen hair,
The beauty with cherry lips so fair.
Love, in the summer sun so bright,
Sang with the lark for sheer delight.

Your mouth has colors so divine,
It tempts a kiss, o, were it mine!
Come chat with me in the flow’ring grass,
Girl with the long lashes, silken tress.
Love, in the summer sun so bright,
Sang with the lark for sheer delight.

Do not say no, o cruel girl!
Do not say yes, far better still
To read your large eye’s longing gaze,
Your rosy lips which I so praise!
Love, in the summer sun so bright,
Sang with the lark for sheer delight.

Farewell to deer, farewell to hare!
And to red partridges! I shall dare
a kiss of your crimson lips to steal,
your flaxen locks to caress and feel!
Love, in the summer sun so bright,
Sang with the lark for sheer delight.