His music was to a considerable extent a reaction against Wagner and the German musical tradition. In his final years, he focused on chamber music, completing three of six planned sonatas for different combinations of instruments. Claude Debussy (born August 22, 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France—died March 25, 1918, Paris) was a French composer whose works were a seminal force in the music of the 20th century. He developed a highly original system of harmony and musical structure that expressed in many respects the ideals to which the Impressionist and Symbolist painters and writers of his time aspired. As well as Maeterlinck for Pelléas et Mélisande, he drew on Shakespeare and Dickens for two of his Préludes for piano – “La Danse de Puck” (Book 1, 1910) and “Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C.” (Book 2, 1913). He wrote incidental music for King Lear and planned an opera based on As You Like It, but abandoned that once he turned his attention to setting Maeterlinck’s play.
Arabesque No.1 in E major
Another major influence on his style was the Javanese gamelan, an orchestra comprising bells, gongs, and percussions, which he became familiar with in 1889 thanks to his artistic contacts in Paris. He was the only composer to use the whole-tone scale, made up entirely of whole tones and the octave divided into six equal parts, to such an extent and with such artistry. This enabled him to convey nebulous and haunting melodies, whose textures, sensations, images, and nuances in sound were unprecedented in his time. The composer’s greatest works are built on a classical structure, such as a sonata, but they also appear to have been structured around mathematical models, as Howat observed.
Debussy: Syrinx for Flute
It is clear that he was torn by influences from many directions; these stormy years, however, contributed to the sensitivity of his early style. Lesure writes, “The development of free verse in poetry and the disappearance of the subject or model in painting influenced him to think about issues of musical form.” Debussy was influenced by the Symbolist poets. Debussy was much in sympathy with the Symbolists’ desire to bring poetry closer to music, became friendly with several leading exponents, and set many Symbolist works throughout his career. Estampes for piano (1903) gives impressions of exotic locations, with further echoes of the gamelan in its pentatonic structures. The central “Jeux de vagues” section has the function of a symphonic development section leading into the final “Dialogue du vent et de la mer”, “a powerful essay in orchestral colour and sonority” (Orledge) which reworks themes from the first movement. In 1903 there was public recognition of Debussy’s stature when he was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur, but his social standing suffered a great blow when another turn in his private life caused a scandal the following year.
He suggests that some of Debussy’s pieces can be divided into sections that reflect the golden ratio, frequently by using the numbers of the standard Fibonacci sequence. At times these divisions seem to follow the standard divisions of the overall structure; elsewhere they appear to mark out other significant features of the music. In this, he was a profound influence on composers as diverse as Bartok, Webern, Arnold Schoenberg, and Varese. The sonatas, written during the war, seem to outline a new, more concise, almost elliptical style, perhaps due to a new vision, or just because he was in pain when he wrote them.
Who Was Claude Debussy?A Brief Introduction
Ravel once remarked that upon hearing Debussy’s music, he first understood what real music was.. He did find Debussy displeasing, though, not only for his philosophy when it came to human relationships but also because of Debussy’s recognition as the composer who developed Avant-Garde music, which Ravel maintained was plagiarism of his own Habanera. Nevertheless, Debussy protested his label as “Father of Impressionism in music,” and academic circles too believe that the term might be a misnomer. He dedicated Children’s Corner for piano to his daughter, whose sweetness and love would quell his depressions. Since his death, France has celebrated him as one of the most distinguished ambassadors of its culture, and his music is repeatedly heard in film and television. At Casinojoy casino the 1889 Exposition Universelle, he heard gamelan music from Java and the sometimes violent music of the Annamite Theatre of Vietnam.
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- Here again he bids farewell to a large late-Romantic orchestra, favoring a smaller ensemble that lends itself to an exploration of orchestral colors and timbres of the instruments.
- In May 1898 he made his first contacts with André Messager and Albert Carré, respectively the musical director and general manager of the Opéra-Comique, Paris, about presenting the opera.
- Debussy became a close friend of a wealthy composer and member of Franck’s circle, Ernest Chausson.
- Debussy’s orchestral works include Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894), Nocturnes (1897–1899) and Images (1905–1912).
- A contemporary influence was Erik Satie, according to Nichols Debussy’s “most faithful friend” amongst French musicians.
- His music was to a considerable extent a reaction against Wagner and the German musical tradition.
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String Quartet in G Minor and the orchestral prelude “L’Apres midi d’un faune,” composed between 1893 and 1894, were the first masterpieces of the new style. This early style is well illustrated in one of Debussy’s best-known compositions, Clair de lune. Bartók first encountered Debussy’s music in 1907 and later said that “Debussy’s great service to music was to reawaken among all musicians an awareness of harmony and its possibilities”. Not only Debussy’s use of whole-tone scales, but also his style of word-setting in Pelléas et Mélisande, were the subject of study by Leoš Janáček while he was writing his 1921 opera Káťa Kabanová. The application of the term “Impressionist” to Debussy and the music he influenced has been much debated, both during his lifetime and since. Although considering Images “the pinnacle of Debussy’s achievement as a composer for orchestra”, Trezise notes a contrary view that the accolade belongs to the ballet score Jeux.
Style & Works
From around 1900 Debussy’s music became a focus and inspiration for an informal group of innovative young artists, poets, critics, and musicians who began meeting in Paris. Although they did not make any great impact with the public they were well reviewed by musicians including Paul Dukas, Alfred Bruneau and Pierre de Bréville. In May 1898 he made his first contacts with André Messager and Albert Carré, respectively the musical director and general manager of the Opéra-Comique, Paris, about presenting the opera.
Entre Ardenne et Bretagne
Claude-Emma, affectionately known as “Chouchou”, was a musical inspiration to the composer (she was the dedicatee of his Children’s Corner suite). He originally studied the piano, but found his vocation in innovative composition, despite the disapproval of the Conservatoire’s conservative professors. He took many years to develop his mature style, and was nearly 40 when he achieved international fame in 1902 with the only opera he completed, Pelléas et Mélisande. Some of it is difficult to play like the Études and pieces such as L’isle joyeuse (The Happy Island). He wrote for orchestra–Fêtes galantes and a work called La Mer (The Sea)–which he wrote while he lived in Brighton, England.
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Debussy: 20 facts about the great composer
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- The academic and journalist Stephen Walsh calls Pelléas et Mélisande (begun 1893, staged 1902) “a key work for the 20th century”.
- He aimed to design a new style that would not emulate those of the acclaimed composers, yet his music also reflects that of Wagner, whose operas he heard on visits to Bayreuth, Germany in 1888 and 1889.
- Wagner fulfilled the sensuous ambitions not only of composers but also of the Symbolist poets and the Impressionist painters.
- He suggests that some of Debussy’s pieces can be divided into sections that reflect the golden ratio, frequently by using the numbers of the standard Fibonacci sequence.
- Above all he went to Bayreuth—the great German Wagner festival—and heard Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde for the first time.
- From around 1900 Debussy’s music became a focus and inspiration for an informal group of innovative young artists, poets, critics, and musicians who began meeting in Paris.
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Above all he went to Bayreuth—the great German Wagner festival—and heard Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde for the first time. He had long known and been fascinated by these works in the published scores but resisted the Wagnerism that was infecting much French music of the day. Less individual, for good reasons, are the cantatas he wrote as set pieces for the Prix de Rome.
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Best classical music
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- In Paris during this time he fell in love with a singer, Blanche Vasnier, the beautiful young wife of an architect; she inspired many of his early works.
- According to Pierre Louÿs, Debussy “did not see ‘what anyone can do beyond Tristan’,” although he admitted that it was sometimes difficult to avoid “the ghost of old Klingsor, alias Richard Wagner, appearing at the turning of a bar”.
- Repelled by the gossip and scandal arising from this situation, he sought refuge for a time at Eastbourne, on the south coast of England.
- In his work, as in his personal life, he was anxious to gather experience from every region that the imaginative mind could explore.
- It was in this spirit that Debussy wrote the symphonic poem Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894).
- He developed a highly original system of harmony and musical structure that expressed in many respects the ideals to which the Impressionist and Symbolist painters and writers of his time aspired.
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In 1890 he began work on an orchestral piece inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher and later sketched the libretto for an opera, La chute de la maison Usher. Another project inspired by Poe – an operatic version of The Devil in the Belfry did not progress beyond sketches. With the advent of the First World War, Debussy became ardently patriotic in his musical opinions. A contemporary influence was Erik Satie, according to Nichols Debussy’s “most faithful friend” amongst French musicians. In May 1893 Debussy attended a theatrical event that was of key importance to his later career – the premiere of Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Pelléas et Mélisande, which he immediately determined to turn into an opera. He travelled to Maeterlinck’s home in Ghent in November to secure his consent to an operatic adaptation.