Danseuses de Delphes is the first piece of Book I of the Préludes by Claude Debussy and represents a sort of initiatory rite in the performative experience of the corpus of the Préludes. The archetypal quality of the writing and the richness of the available performative exemples make this Prelude an icon of Debussy's poetics of evocation. The sound images slowly emerge from the silence, replace and transcend the narrative function, and create a sort of choreography that proceeds through evocations and internal resonances. This stylistic profile is what the pianist should grasp, from an interpretative point of view, to recreate a contemplative scenario, and to seek an ideal balance between immanence of sound and transparency of timbre, between depth of attack and evocative lightness. The continuity and essentiality of the pianistic gesture suggests a stable, almost sculptural posture, reflecting the verticality and monumentality of the caryatids of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, which Debussy admired in a reproduction at the Louvre.

The Prelude shows evident peculiar elements: a) from the harmonic point of view, it proposes a dialectic between modality and functional tonality, shifting towards Dorian or Lydian modes to blur the traditional tonal perception, b) the central section introduces a more defined melodic profile, where the upper line moves by joint degrees, articulated within a limited register, suggesting an idea of "motionless dance", consistent with the iconographic subject, c) the use of the sustain pedal, embedded in the writing and in the structural nature of the chords, contributes to creating a layered sound environment, with an intrinsically intertwined harmonic and timbral profile. Starting from these premises, the study analyses 25 performances selected among the most accredited from an interpretative point of view and best recorded from a technological point of view between 1913 and 1999.

The interpretations therefore cover a time span of 86 years between Debussy's rolls recordings and Maurizio Pollini's digital recording. The aim of the study is to highlight and describe the stylistic traits of a performance style, that is characteristic of a type of performance in which the narrative aspect is replaced and/or transformed by a choreographic and evocative profile.

The methodology used to analyse the 25 performances is a mixed and transdisciplinary method. It started from a morphological analysis and proceeded with the analysis of the secondary parameters of the sound: rhythmic-pulsive aspects, variations in pulsation, minimums and maximums of dynamics, points of greatest tension as opposed to those of greatest relaxation, use of the sustain pedal. The study correlates the over 10,000 data points collected in the analysis of secondary parameters with multivariate and longitudinal statistical analysis techniques, as well as metric and phenomenological music analyses. Through these analytical techniques, which combine the level of statistical significance with the phenomenological observation of interpretative choices, the study traces the choices outlining a peculiar interpretative style, evident and pervasive in this Prelude, but certainly traceable and relevant in other piano repertoires.