Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, L. 86

Premiered in Paris in 1894, this revolutionary ten-minute tone poem is widely regarded as the beginning of musical modernism. Debussy's response to Mallarmé's symbolist poem depicts a faun's drowsy afternoon reverie. The solo flute melody that opens and closes the work, its free rhythm and sinuous chromaticism, the shimmering whole-tone harmonies, and the delicate orchestral palette — antique cymbals, muted strings, harp — created an entirely new sound world that Boulez said "blew up all of Western music."