Renoir. His orchestra sparkles with iridescent fires,
with divided tones, with delicate violets and argents and shades of
rose. The sound of the piano, usually but the ringing of flat colored
stones, at his touch becomes fluid, velvety and dense, takes on the
properties of satins and liqueurs. The pedal washes new tint after new
tint over the keyboard. "Reflets dans l'eau" has the quality of sheeny
blue satin, of cloud pictures tumbling in gliding water. Blue fades to
green and fades back again to blue in the middle section of "Homage a
Rameau." Bright, cold moonlight slips through "Et la lune descend sur le
temple que fut"; ruddy sparks glitter in "Mouvement" with its
Petruchka-like joy; the piano is liquid and luminous and aromatic in
"Cloches a travers les feuilles."

Yet there is no uncertainty, no mistiness in his form, as there is in
that of some of the other impressionists. His music is classically firm,
classically precise and knit. His lyrical, shimmering structures are
perfectly fashioned. The line never hesitates, never becomes lost nor
involved. It proceeds directly, clearly, passing through jewels and
clots of color, and fusing them into the mass. The trajectory never
breaks. The music is always full of its proper weight and timbre. It
can be said quite without exaggeration that his best work omits nothing,
neglects nothing, that every component element is justly treated. His
little pieces occupy a space as completely as the most massive and grand
of compositions. A composition like "Nuages," the first of the three
nocturnes for orchestra, while taking but five minutes in performance,
outweighs any number of compositions that last an hour. "L'Apres-midi
d'un faune" is inspired and new, marvelously, at every measure. The
three little pieces that comprise the first set of "Images" for piano
will probably outlast half of what Liszt has written for the instrument.
"Pelleas" will some day be studied for its miraculous invention, its
classical moderation and balance and truth, for its pure diction and
economical orchestration, quite as the scores of Gluck are studied
to-day.

For Debussy is, of all the artists who have made music in our time, the
most perfect. Other musicians, perhaps even some of the contemporary,
may exhibit a greater heroism, a greater staying power and
indefatigability. Nevertheless, in his sphere he is every inch as
perfect a workman as the greatest. Within his limits he was as pure a
craf