Jeux, L.126

The ballet is a single scene without acts. The music begins softly and mysteriously, as dusk falls over a garden. A tennis ball bounces in, and a young man and two young women come looking for it. Debussy's music keeps changing speed and mood: sudden rushes, hushed pauses, bits of waltz that come and go without ever settling into a full tune. The three dancers flirt, quarrel and make up, switching partners. Strings shimmer, harps and winds flick small bright figures, and the pulse keeps starting and stopping like a game. Another ball drops from the darkness, startling them. They hurry away, and the music dissolves into quiet.

In the concert hall, orchestras play the whole score without the dancers. Listen for the way the music never repeats a tune for long, and for the sensual swell near the middle.

Debussy wrote Jeux in 1912 for the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, who also choreographed it. The Ballets Russes first danced it in Paris in May 1913, only two weeks before The Rite of Spring, and the same scandalous season overshadowed it. The ballet itself was soon dropped, but the score lived on in concert halls and is now admired for its fluid, constantly changing sound.