Debussy Rêverie | Bruce Liu

Debussy should talk to Saint-Saëns about pieces they don’t like getting published.

Saint-Saëns wouldn’t let The Carnival of the Animals be published while he was alive (only The Swan got out), so it came out after he died. Debussy wasn’t so lucky. He wrote Rêverie around 1890 and sold it for the money, and when Fromont went to print it in 1905 he wrote to them that he regretted it — he’d written it in a hurry, and it was a piece of no importance.

I listened to it today on Bruce Liu’s new DG recording, and I’d agree with Debussy. It sounds too simple. If you didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t guess Debussy. Bruce Liu plays it well, but there just isn’t that much to dig out of the piece.

But that’s also why it’s popular.

Bruce Liu, from Lunaris: