Pelléas et Mélisande

With the world premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902, Claude Debussy challenged his contemporaries to listen to music in a new way. His instrumentation was without precedent. He transposed the Wagnerian leitmotif technique into a subtle tone painting and described atmospheres and dispositions of the soul that elude description and that even music is often only able to gesture towards.