Debussy: Piano Preludes Bk.2 No.5 "Bruyères" - symphonic wind dectet

Debussy: Piano Preludes Bk.2 No.5 "Bruyères" (Heather) - symphonic wind dectet

Arranged double wind quintet/bass

Debussy's Préludes are 24 pieces for solo piano, divided into two books of 12 preludes each. 

Unlike some notable collections of preludes from prior times, such as Chopin's Op. 28 preludes, or the preludes from Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Debussy's do not follow a strict pattern of tonal centres.

This is from the 2nd Book.

I have arranged all of these preludes from both books:

Book 1

Danseuses de Delphes

Voiles

Les sons et le parfums…..

Des pas sur le neige 

La fille aux cheveux de lin

La Cathédral engloutie

Minstrels

Bk.2

Bruyères

General Levine

Hommage à S.Pickwick Esq

Canope

As if by magic, we are transported to heather covered V it shows that this shepherd is a distant cousin of ‘la fille heathland with a piece much reminiscent of la Fille aux cheveux de lin’. The same calm, the same purity

aux Cheveux de Lin from book one. Nature and innocence demand a spontaneous and laidback approach to those delicate and poetic riffs to match the colour and aroma of fragrant purple shrubs. Birds may be heard calling, accompanied by the distant refrain of a shepherd’s flute in this harmonious and homogeneous prelude — an admirable contrast to numbers IV and VI.

In direct connection with this prelude, Marguerite Long mentions a Debussy souvenir pairing the scent of sea mist and coastal pines, and if she is correct this would take us to Arcachon in south west France. It is possible that the young composer first went there in 1880 with the baroness Nadejda Von Meck and later in 1904 when he stayed with the uncle of Emma Bardac (née Moyse), his future bride.

The pastoral and familiar poetry of a woodland scene where the earth’s pervasive scent mingles with the subdued display of patches in purple.

— Cortot

A peaceful melody on a shepherd's pipe, resonating on the silent moorland. With its Celtic pentatonic structure

and the same diatonic transparency, time-signature and tempo provide a clear link.

— Harry Halbreich