Claude Debussy is being honored by Google with an animated doodle set to one of his best known pieces, Claire de lune (Moonlight), in the wake of the 151st anniversary since his birth.

The doodle which is on Friday's homepage of Google is a moonlit riverside scene which progresses to the sound of the piece, the third movement of his most famous piano suites, Suite bergamasque (1890-1905). If viewers press the play button, lights came be in the streets and houses flicker on and off to the music as the silhouettes of cars, boats and cyclists pass by, smoke rises from chimneys and rain begins to fall.

Debussy was born in Sainte Germai-en-Laye near Paris on August 22, 1862. He was the eldest of five children and he began taking piano lessons at only the age of seven. At 10 years old, he began studying at the Paris Conservatoire.

His other major works include Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, 1894), the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), and La Mer (The Sea, 1905).

Suite Bergmanasque took him years to complete, in which he bgan writing it in 1890, but did not complete it until 1905.

In 1918, Debussy died of colon cancer at his home in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. He was only 55.

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