Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy (born Achille-Claude Debussy) was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His mature compositions, distinctive and appealing, combined modernism and sensuality so successfully that their sheer beauty often obscures their technical innovation. Debussy is considered the founder and leading exponent of musical Impressionism (although he resisted the label), and his adoption of non-traditional scales and tonal structures was paradigmatic for many composers who followed.
The son of a shopkeeper and a seamstress, Debussy began piano studies at the Paris Conservatory at the age of 11. While a student there, he encountered the wealthy Nadezhda von Meck (most famous as Tchaikovsky's patroness), who employed him as a music teacher to her children; through travel, concerts and acquaintances, she provided him with a wealth of musical experience. Most importantly, she exposed the young Debussy to the works of Russian composers, such as Borodin and Mussorgsky, who would remain important influences on his music.
Debussy began composition studies in 1880, and in 1884 he won the prestigious Prix de Rome with his cantata L'enfant prodigue. This prize financed two years of further study in Rome -- years that proved to be creatively frustrating. However, the period immediately following was fertile for the young composer; trips to Bayreuth and the Paris World Exhibition (1889) established, respectively, his determination to move away from the influence of Richard Wagner, and his interest in the music of Eastern cultures.
After a relatively bohemian period, during which Debussy formed friendships with many leading Parisian writers and musicians (not least of which were Mallarmé, Satie, and Chausson), the year 1894 saw the enormously successful premiere of his Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) -- a truly revolutionary work that brought his mature compositional voice into focus. His seminal opera Pelléas et Mélisande, completed the next year, would become a sensation at its first performance in 1902. The impact of those two works earned Debussy widespread recognition (as well as frequent attacks from critics, who failed to appreciate his forward-looking style), and over the first decade of the 20th century he established himself as the leading figure in French music -- so much so that the term "Debussysme" ("Debussyism"), used both positively and pejoratively, became fashionable in Paris. Debussy spent his remaining healthy years immersed in French musical society, writing as a critic, composing, and performing his own works internationally. He succumbed to colon cancer in 1918, having also suffered a deep depression brought on by the onset of World War I.
Debussy's personal life was punctuated by unfortunate incidents, most famously the attempted suicide of his first wife, Lilly Texier, whom he abandoned for the singer Emma Bardac. However, his subsequent marriage to Bardac, and their daughter Claude-Emma, whom they called "Chouchou" and who became the dedicatee of the composer's Children's Corner piano suite, provided the middle-aged Debussy with great personal joys.
Debussy wrote successfully in most every genre, adapting his distinctive compositional language to the demands of each. His orchestral works, of which Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and La mer (The Sea, 1905) are most familiar, established him as a master of instrumental color and texture. It is this attention to tone color -- his layering of sound upon sound so that they blend to form a greater, evocative whole -- that linked Debussy in the public mind to the Impressionist painters.
His works for solo piano, particularly his collections of Préludes and Etudes, which have remained staples of the repertoire since their composition, bring into relief his assimilation of elements from both Eastern cultures and antiquity -- especially pentatonicism (the use of five-note scales), modality (the use of scales from ancient Greece and the medieval church), parallelism (the parallel movement of chords and lines), and the whole-tone scale (formed by dividing the octave into six equal intervals).
Pelléas et Mélisande and his collections of songs for solo voice establish the strength of his connection to French literature and poetry, especially the symbolist writers, and stand as some of the most understatedly expressive works in the repertory. The writings of Mallarmé, Maeterlinck, Baudelaire, and his childhood friend Paul Verlaine appear prominently among his chosen texts and joined symbiotically with the composer's own unique moods and forms of expression.
© Allen Schrott /TiVo
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Start 2022 with Debussy
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 8 Jan 2022
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Claude Debussy Etudes
Classical - Released by Naxos Sweden - Haddock on 1 Jan 2012
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Debussy: Estampes, Suite bergamasque - Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit, Miroirs
Peter Toperczer, Leonard Hokanson, Dieter Goldmann
Classical - Released by Blaricum CD Company (B.C.D.) B.V. on 3 May 2014
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Debussy: String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10 & Ravel: String Quartet in F Major, M. 35
Chamber Music - Released by VDE-GALLO on 25 May 2013
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Debussy: In Symphony Orchestra
Orchestre de Radio France, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Radio Suisse Romande
Classical - Released by Plaza Mayor Company, Ltd. on 21 May 2012
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Absolutely the Best of Debussy
Classical - Released by Worldwide Records on 17 Jan 2011
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Fleurs de printemps
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 9 May 2024
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Hommage à Rameau, from Images 1st book (Images, Claude Debussy, Classic Piano)
Classical - Released by Ars Classica on 10 Jun 2023
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Prélude X - (... La cathedrale engloutie) (Claude Debussy Preludes 1)
Classical - Released by Ars Classica on 5 Jun 2023
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Debussy: String Quartet No. 1, Op. 10 & Ravel: String Quartet in F Major, Op. 35
Chamber Music - Released by Lodia Music International on 1 Jan 1986
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Arabesque in E major-03 (Classic Piano Music, Claude Debussy, Arabesques)
Classical - Released by Ars Classica on 1 Feb 2023
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The Legendary Pianist Mindru Katz Plays French Master Works by Fauré, Debussy and Ravel
Classical - Released by Cembal d'amour CD 138 on 1 Jun 2008
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3 chansons de bilitis
Classical - Released by Audiofonic Records on 7 Oct 2019
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Ariettes oubliées
Classical - Released by Audiofonic Records on 9 Oct 2019
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The Masters of the Roll – Claude Archille Debussy
Classical - Released by James Stewart Music on 17 Jul 2015
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Les plus belles musiques de Ballet
Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Pyotr Illitch Tchaïkovski, Claude Debussy
Classical - Released by Music Blast on 31 Jan 2017
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Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen
Classical - Released by Signum Records on 11 Dec 2012
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Debussy: In Melody Music
Suzanne Danco, Walter Gieseking, Arthur Rubinstein, Pierre Monteux
Chamber Music - Released by Plaza Mayor Company, Ltd. on 18 Jun 2012
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Frederick Hollster Al Piano
Classical - Released by Music Hit Factory on 1 Dec 2008
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Epigraphes. Piano Music by Bach, Debussy & Sibelius
Irene Cantos, Claude Debussy, Johann Sebastian Bach, Jean Sibelius, Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Classical - Released by Novus Promusica on 2 Apr 2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo