Composition

There is no firm evidence that Debussy started writing any part of La mer before 1903, but given his long fascination with the sea it is surely possible that something was noted down and stored at an earlier time. This view was shared by Lockspeiser, who, recalling the date of the Mauclair story that originally provided the title of the first movement (1893, around the beginning of composition of Pelléas), reflected: ‘while we possess no sketches of it from this period it is reasonable to assume that there may have been earlier attempts to give expression to his “endless memories” of the sea.’ One such attempt may have been the Franckian principal theme of ‘Dialogue du vent et de la mer’ (third movement), for although it is perfectly adapted to the music's needs, its character is reminiscent of an earlier phase in Debussy's output.

The visit to René Peter's brother described in chapter 1 is generally thought to have occurred around the time Romain Rolland reported Debussy's engagement on an orchestral work based on The Fall of the House of Usher, described as ‘a symphony on psychologically-developed themes’, in 1890. Keith Spence stumbled upon new information relating to this anecdote in the recollections of a local historian, Dr Petit de la Villéon, writing in 1959, long after the events described (there are no other known sources for this information). Dr Petit moves Debussy's visit to Brittany to 1902–4, the time he ‘officially’ set to work on La mer.