these preludes took me a long time to "get into". i picked them up on one disc for a buck at a garage sale many years ago. the disc itself is some kind of emi import from france, oddly enough, and contains a recording from the 1950s.the general approach to this collection of piano preludes is to start off with a lecture on symbolism and then try and analyze each one from an impressionist perspective, pointing out the precise imagery that debussy meant to invoke, according to some people that have analyzed his work and his life. i'm not going to do that.......because you shouldn't listen to those who would try and tell you what to think and envision when listening. if you're going to do that, why bother listening in the first place? why not just watch a film or something?is the music designed to get you daydreaming? absolutely. should your daydreams be dictated by the whims of people that are not you? absolutely not. construct your own daydreams; independently determine what the pieces mean to you.i'll even go so far as to argue that the imagery that the pieces invoke is barely noticeable. sure, it's there. at times, it's pretty heavy-handed. the track title of the seventh prelude in the first book along with the way the track sounds leave little room for interpretation and it's hard not to follow the goal that was clearly set out by the composer. however, some are much less clear. what, precisely, is the girl with flaxen hair about? the girl? the hair? a picture of a girl with flaxen hair? what's she doing? is what she's doing related to the colour of her hair? why is she doing what she's doing? does it matter?is there really any reason that the song must be about a girl with flaxen hair? why can't it be about a heron landing majestically in a lake? there's no context either way. one interpretation over another, then, is ultimately merely arbitrary. debussy could have named the piece, which is one of the weaker in the collection due to it's total lack of intensity and passion, "the rock with the fiery tail" and it would have made it sound no more like a comet entering the earth's atmosphere than a girl with blonde hair. the title, then, is inconsequential.it could be argued that the song is about a girl with golden hair because the composer wanted it to be that way and he has ultimate authority in the matter. but, to attempt to create a sound that captures a feeling or an idea is not the same thing as succeeding in doing so. personally, i would have never come to the conclusion that the song is about a girl with golden hair on my own. so, of what consequence is the composer's authority if the composer does not succeed in accomplishing the task?the work must stand on it's own, independent of it's title or any ideas that the composer may or may not have had about what images it invokes in his own mind.so, if the imagery is ultimately so weak it's barely discernible and this indicates a failure on the composer's part, what is the attraction to the record? why do you hold this collection of preludes in such high regard, j?this collection represents one of the highest points of independent thought and creativity in the history of music.