I hated Debussy for years, but I started coming around a decade or so ago, when I began to appreciate his atmospherics more than I had before. La mer is, quite simply, a musical depiction of the sea, in three parts:

“From dawn to noon on the sea” or “From dawn to midday on the sea” – very slow – animate little by little (B minor)
“Play of the Waves” – allegro (with a very versatile rhythm) – animated (C sharp minor)
“Dialogue of the wind and the sea” or “Dialogue between wind and waves” – animated and tumultuous – give up very slightly (C sharp minor)

Debussy’s intent is not at all to meditate on humans and their relationship with the sea, but on the sea itself. Like a lot of Debussy, the work is haunting and evocative, sweeping the listener along on a series of orchestral “images”.

Here is La mer.

Closely related to the tone poem is the Concert overture, which is the forerunner of the tone poem in many ways. Also a single movement work, a concert overture was often intended to kick off a program of symphonic music, much in the way a standard overture does for an opera. Here is one of the finest such concert overtures: the Academic Festival Overture by Brahms.

Brahms composed this work as a “thank you” gesture to the University of Breslau, after the school awarded him an honorary degree. Displaying humor that’s fairly rare for Brahms, the work is mainly a collection of light-hearted tunes and even drinking songs, richly orchestrated in vigorous fashion. I can never help, when I hear this piece, wishing that Brahms had managed to tap into this part of his own psyche a little more often. Alas!