Clair de Lune

The poem written by Paul Verlaine in 1869 embraced every aspect of an exemplary moonlight scene: nocturnal silence, heartbreak, the impossibility of happiness, ecstatic fountains and marble statues. All of these qualities preferably enhanced by a minor key. Thus, the elusive, indefinable and inexplicable surely do gain clear shape in music. Forgotten dreams, fading images and yearning for the past is relived and imagined in nocturnes, preludes, interludes and etudes. Time passes but has no grip on silver moonlight, rippling water and whispering leaves; a comforting thought by Verlaine that melody will always be assimilated with 'Clair de Lune'.