Musicians - Claude Debussy

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	Musicians - Claude Debussy

Achille-Claude Debussy () (August 22, 1862 – March 25, 1918) was a composer of European classical music. He developed the style commonly referred to as impressionist music, a term which he dismissed. Debussy was not only one of the most important French composers but was also one of the most important figures in music at the turn of the last century; his music represents the transition from late-romantic music to 20th century modernist music.

Life and Work

Early life and studies

Debussy began music instruction when he was nine years old, but his talents soon became evident and at age ten Debussy entered the Paris Conservatoire. Debussy studied with Ernest Guiraud, Cesar Franck and others at the Paris Conservatoire (1872-84). As the winner of the Prix de Rome, he received a scholarship by the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which included a four-year residence at the Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome to further his studies (1885-7). According to letters from this period, Debussy often was depressed and unable to compose, but he also met Franz Liszt, and finally composed four pieces, which were sent to the Academy; the symphonic ode Zuleima (after a text by Heinrich Heine), the orchestral piece Printemps, and the cantata La damoiselle élue (1887-88), which was criticized by the Academy as "bizarre" and in which some stylistic features of Debussy's later style emerged for the first time. The fourth piece was the Fantaisie for piano and orchestra, which was still indebted to Cesar Franck's music and withdrawn by the composer himself.

With his visits to Bayreuth (1888, 1889) Debussy was exposed to Wagnerian opera, which was to have a lasting impact on his work. Later, in Paris, during the Exposition Universelle (1889) Debussy heard Javanese music. Wagner's influence is evident in the La damoiselle élue and the Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire (1889) but other songs of the period, notably the settings of Verlaine (Ariettes oubliées, Trois mélodies, Fêtes galantes, set 1) are in a more capricious style.

The first masterpieces

Beginning in the 1890s, Debussy developed his own musical language largely independent of Wagner's style and heavy emotionalism. In reaction to the enormous works of Wagner and other late-romantic composers, Debussy chose to write in smaller, more accessible forms. Debussy's String Quartet in G minor (1893) paved the way for his later, more daring harmonic exploration. In this work he utilized the Phrygian mode as well as less standard modes, such as the whole-tone scale, which creates a sense of floating, ethereal harmony.

Influenced by the contemporary symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé Debussy wrote one of his most famous works, the revolutionary Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. In contrast to the large late-romantic orchestra, Debussy wrote this piece for a smaller ensemble, emphasizing orchestral colours and timbres of the instruments. Even if Mallarmé himself and Debussy's colleague and friend Paul Dukas were impressed by this piece, the work caused controversy at its premiere; the composer Camille Saint-Saëns for example thought it "pretty" but lacking any "style". It subsequently launched Debussy into the spotlight as one of the leading composers of the era.

Pelléas et Mélisande

In reaction to Wagner and his overblown late-romantic operas, Debussy wrote the mellow, symbolist opera Pelléas et Mélisande, which would be his only finished opera. Based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, the opera proved to be immensely influential to younger French composers, including Maurice Ravel. Pelléas, with its rule of understatement and deceptively simple declamation, also brought an entirely new tone to opera — but an unrepeatable one. These works brought a fluidity of rhythm and colour quite new to Western music.

Orchestral music: Les nocturnes, La Mer, Images

Among Debussy's major orchestral works are the three Nocturnes (1899), characteristic studies in veiled harmony and texture ('Nuages'), exuberant ('Fêtes'), and whole-tone ('Sirènes'). La Mer (1903-1905) essays a more symphonic form, with a finale that works themes from the first movement, although the middle movement (Jeux de vagues) proceeds much less directly and with more variety of colour.

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