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
-
Grandi Pianisti Alexis Weissenberg
Alexis Weissenberg, Claude Debussy
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Jul 2, 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Relaxing 2021
Claude Debussy, Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Jan 2, 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wan An De Biao Xi
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Apr 26, 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
French Piano and Choral Music
Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on May 19, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Debussy: A Musical Genius
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Oct 2, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Debussy: Classical Moments
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Oct 29, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Debussy - Suite Bergamasque
Radio Symphony Orchestra from Paris, Peter Schmalfuss, Jadwiga Kotnowska
Classical - Released by ClassicalPirosDigital on Jul 13, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Debussy: Piano Music II
Classical - Released by Onyx Classics on Jan 29, 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
French Piano Culture
Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Aug 20, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
A Night of Classical: French Composers
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Dec 29, 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Relaxing Piano
Claude Debussy, Frédéric Chopin
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Jan 1, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Debussy: As Performed By Cristina Ortiz
Claude Debussy, Cristina Ortiz
Classical - Released by GTUK on Dec 14, 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Debussy : Préludes, Ballade, Masques, Rêverie, L'Isle Joyeuse
Classical - Released by Groupe Analekta, Inc. on Jan 1, 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Claude Debussy Plays His Own Works
Classical - Released by Tratore on May 30, 1913
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Classical Piano: Impressions
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Dec 1, 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Debussy: Jeux, Preludes - Matthews: Postlude
Classical - Released by Halle Concerts Society on Feb 2, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
French Piano Duets
Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Jul 8, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
50 Classics for Relaxation
Chamber Music - Released by Stradivari Classics on Jan 27, 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Piano à 4 Mains
Classical - Released by Claves Records on Jan 1, 1987
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Welte Mignon Mystery, Vol. 12
Classical - Released by TACET Musikproduktion on Jan 22, 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Favorites from the Classics, Vol. 1: Debussy's Greatest Hits
Classical - Released by Reader's Digest on Sep 12, 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo