He broke with German Romanticism and introduced new qualities of melody and harmony based on the whole-tone scale, evoking oriental music. His work includes Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune/Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun 1894, illustrating a poem by Mallarme, and the opera Pelleas et Melisande 1902. Among his other works are numerous piano pieces, songs, orchestral pieces such as La Mer 1903-05, and the ballet Jeux 1910-13. Debussy also published witty and humorous critical writing about the music of his day, featuring the fictional character Monsieur Croche "antidilettante" (professional debunker), a figure based on Erik Satie.
