No. 1 "Noctuelle" (Moth)

Dedicated to the poet Léon-Paul Fargue (1867-1947). The piece itself is said to have been inspired by Fargue's poetry. It is in D-flat major and follows an A-B'-A' form, but it is written to sound improvisatory through the combination of changing meters (often including quintuple meter variations) and melodic patterns with differing periodicities. Section A can be divided into 9-bar, 11-bar, and 16-bar segments, separated by rests that abruptly halt the musical motion. In the opening 9 bars, a jerky motif in quadruple meter, characterized by chromatic horizontal movement and double stops of thirds and fourths, is combined with smoothly arcing eighth and sixteenth notes in triple meter, depicting the appearance of a moth fluttering its wings at night. The following 11 bars begin with similar motion, but eventually, something resembling a melodic line emerges. In the subsequent 16 bars, notes of relatively longer duration appear in the left hand, leading into Section B. Section B modulates from D-flat major to its parallel minor, B-flat minor, where the dominant F and tonic B-flat are persistently repeated with syncopation. A long phrase, seemingly the main melody and containing many non-harmonic tones, appears in the right hand. This phrase is eventually fragmented and reduced to the motifs used in Section A, leading to Section A'. Section A' is shorter than Section A and proceeds without breaks, concluding with an 11-bar coda.