Noctave
The piece
Clair de lune is the third piece of the Suite bergamasque, which Debussy began around 1890 and only published in 1905, with Fromont. The title comes from a poem by Paul Verlaine in his Fêtes galantes, which also contains the word "bergamasques". This easy version, arranged for Noctave after the Fromont edition, takes the first fourteen bars and the last two, a semitone lower: in C major, with no flats at all, instead of D-flat major and its five flats.
The time signature is 9/8: three beats, each a dotted quarter. The piece opens on a rest, then the third E–G comes in on the third eighth; count the first eighth in your head so you don't come in early. The right hand plays almost everything in thirds, legato, with fingers 1–3 and 2–4. In places Debussy writes two notes across a beat of three eighths; here they become a quarter and an eighth, easier to read. From bar 9 the left hand rises in an arpeggio and the pedal holds the chord: change it every bar.