Impressionistic Thinking—A Study on the Compositional Style and Performance Interpretation of Debussy’s Moonlight

Achille-Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was an outstanding French musician. At the height of the late Romanticism movement, he broke off from traditional composition techniques and sought to depict a hazy mood with colorful sound effects, as a result establishing a unique impressionistic style. “Moonlight” is the third piece in his “Bergamo Suite” and is one of Debussy’s most highly praised works. In particular, it is representative of Debussy’s musical thoughts and characteristics. Taking “Moonlight” as the research objective, this paper integrates Debussy’s life experience and the social-historical background of his time to summarize the characteristics of his work and to provide suggestions on performance interpretation.