Although no autograph musical manuscript by Achille is dated before 1880, it is clear that by then he had already tried his hand at composing some songs or little piano pieces. This means that the dates of 1876 or 1878, given for some songs in the catalogs based on the lists of works made by Jean-Aubry and Laloy, have very little chance of being authentic. The fact that Debussy allowed these dates to be printed in the early catalogs proves nothing, since he gave unreliable dates to his youthful works in other instances, and he was not at all attentive to this sort of detail.

His first compositional efforts most likely date from 1879. Furthermore, this is the year mentioned in the memoirs of Paul Vidal, who never tired of hearing particularly “Madrid, princesse des Espagnes” and the “Ballade à la lune.” Although the first of these songs, whose text is drawn from Alfred de Musset's Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie, has been rediscovered, the second is unknown to us, as are other songs based on Musset poems that Vidal suggested were written under the influence of Edmond Missa, a fellow student in Massenet's class. With Pierné and Passérieu, Vidal heard Achille sing his own works, which “filled us with enthusiasm.” As Vidal pestered him to play some other songs, Achille played a trick on him by memorizing several of Émile Pessard's Joyeusetés de bonne compagnie and passing them off as his own. The following year, when he arrived at Nadezhda von Meck's home, Achille surely had a number of his own compositions in his portfolio.

First Prize in Accompanying

In the meantime, the Chenonceaux dream had faded: Debussy had to come back to Paris and face family worries again, as well as to return—for the seventh year—to the Conservatoire. Since his previous failure barred him from enrolling in a composition class, he focused on the class in piano accompaniment that had been established the previous year by Auguste Bazille, an organist and former rehearsal coach for singers at the Opéra-Comique. A specialist in orchestral reductions at the piano, Bazille praised Léo Delibes's music because it was easy to reduce: “It's the kind of orchestral writing that falls naturally under the fingers,” he used to say.