Artform / Sheet music / Debussy

Free Debussy sheet music

35 Debussy scores on Artform's shelf, ordered easiest to read first. Every score here is public domain, free to read, print and keep.

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Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

French composer often filed under Impressionism, a label borrowed from painting that he actually resented, preferring to think of his music as its own thing entirely: harmony built for colour and mood rather than the traditional pull toward resolution. He won the prestigious Prix de Rome, hated the experience, and spent the rest of his career quietly dismantling the rules he'd been trained in. Clair de Lune and the two books of Préludes, with titles like "Footsteps in the Snow" and "The Sunken Cathedral," ask a pianist to think less about hitting the right note and more about the shape of a sound in the air. He died during the First World War, as German shells fell on Paris, still revising his final works.

Start with these

The easiest Debussy on the shelf, in order. Nothing here is graded and nobody is ranked: the shelf simply puts the pieces that ask less of your hands before the ones that ask more.

Ariettes oubliées No. 4 - Chevaux de bois E major · 1 min Children's Corner - The Little Shepherd A major · 3 min Arabesque No. 1 E major · 4 min La plus que lente G♭ major · 5 min Prelude, Book I No. 1: Danseuses de Delphes B♭ major · 2 min Children's Corner - Jimbo's Lullaby B♭ major · 3 min Mazurka A major · 3 min Pour le piano - II. Sarabande C♯ minor · 4 min Children's Corner - Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum C major · 3 min La fille aux cheveux de lin G♭ major · 2 min Mandoline C major · 2 min Suite Bergamasque - IV. Passepied F♯ minor · 3 min

Every Debussy score

Clair de Lune D♭ major · 5 min Valse romantique F minor · 4 min Ariettes oubliées No. 6 - Spleen F minor · 2 min Ariettes Oubliees No. 1 Cest l'Extase E major · 3 min Suite Bergamasque - Prelude F major · 4 min Ariettes oubliées No. 3 - Lombre des arbres A♯ minor · 2 min Préludes - Book I - I B♭ major · 2 min Voici Que Le Printemps D major · 2 min Hommage à Rameau de Images (2) B major · 7 min La cathédrale engloutie (The Submerged Cathedral) C major · 6 min Trois Chansons de Bilitis No. 3 - Le Tombeau des Naïades A major · 2 min Suite Bergamasque - II. Menuet A minor · 3 min Ballade F major · 7 min Ballade de Villon à s'amye F♯ minor · 4 min Nocturne D♭ major · 6 min Préludes - Book I - IV A major · 2 min Ariettes oubliées No. 5 - Green G♭ major · 2 min Cinq Poëmes de Baudelaire No. 2 - Harmonie du Soir B major · 4 min Ariettes oubliées No. 2 - Il pleure dans mon coeur B major · 2 min Préludes - Book I - II C major · 3 min Printemps Paraphrase (- L.Roques) C♯ minor · 5 min Trois Chansons de Bilitis No. 1 - La flûte de Pan B major · 2 min Images: Reflets dans leau D♭ major · 4 min

How the reader works

Each score opens as engraved notation you can read from the stand, and it plays: hear the piece first, then slow it down and loop the bar that is not working. There is nothing to install and no account to make. When you want paper, print it.

Every file is MusicXML, so MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale and Dorico open them too.

Where to go next

If you are learning Debussy rather than only reading, the scale pages cover fingering in every key, the chord pages spell out every chord, and the symbol dictionary explains any mark on the page you do not recognise.

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