I love the mixture of pentatonic, modal, tonal, and atonal in the works of Debussy. He toes the line of modernity with wit, charm, and absolute beauty. For wit,

I love the mixture of pentatonic, modal, tonal, and atonal in the works of Debussy. He toes the line of modernity with wit, charm, and absolute beauty. For wit, check out Gradus ad Parnassum, a super bouncy piece in a beginner-friendly key. For charm, go with Arabesque No 1. Absolute beauty lies in store in Claire de Lune, yes, but also in The Sunken Cathedral, in the string quartet, and in the vocal music. He has astonishing creativity, look at his Preludes, his opera, or his Afternoon of a Faun for that, wow, sheer creativity. Debussy (or perhaps Ravel) may be the one composer who most successfully commanded the widest range of tonal devices, before the modernists like Stravinsky and Schoenberg pushed tonality to its breaking point/broke it. Debussy was not the only innovator, as we saw innovation and creativity from Bach to Mozart, Debussy to Chopin, however I'd argue Debussy was the true bridge into modernity. Debussy harmonic analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbjWgfNoO2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbjWgfNoO2U