ABSTRACT
In truth, monsoons and trade-winds serve the pleasure of Albert Roussel’s ship. A retired mariner, now a famous composer, he steers his own course; many younger and bolder adventurers of music get their bearings by his steady progress. But in his music Roussel has not glorified the sea of his youthful travels. While Debussy, a notorious landlubber, created an epic of the sea, Roussel’s “wettest” work is “Le Jardin Mouillé.” Let the psychologists decide why it is so. However, Rimsky-Korsakov, also a marine officer, wrote many a page of ocean-music.
