usually as per my one movement a day custom I would try to separate the "sacred" and "secular" (for that's what "profane" means in this case), because they are actually two separate movements, but in the first place it's extremely difficult to find a recording which only does one of the two, and in the second place the two combined are only about 10 minutes long. so this counts as a double post.
probably the most interesting thing about this very serene, fairly conventional piece is that it was originally written for the chromatic harp, i.e. a harp with a string for every chromatic note, 12 strings per octave instead of the usual 7, and no pedals to change said keys. this thing took, as you might imagine, a ridiculous amount of time to tune, and was soon abandoned after its 1904 debut. but this piece isn't actually so unplayable on a conventional harp. debussy wrote it on commission from pleyel, the company which was producing the newly minted chromatic harps.
the first movement is usually described as modal, perhaps inspired by debussy's impressions of music from the greco-roman period. it's a slow and ritualistic contrast to the second movement, which is a graceful d major waltz.
next in a continuing series of lazy-entries...
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