Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy Claude Achille Debussy (Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Seine-et-Oise thans Yvelines), 22 augustus 1862 Parijs, 25 maart 1918) was een Frans componist die vernieuwing bracht binnen de klassieke muziek. "Bach, die Onze Lieve Heer van de muziek tot wie elke componist zou moeten bidden alvorens aan het werk te gaan, om zich voor middelmatigheid te behoeden." Debussy (in een recensie van de premire in 1902 van de 2de orgelsymfonie van en door Louis Vierne) Inhoud [verbergen] 1 Biografie 2 Stijl 3 Oeuvrelijst o 3.1 Piano o 3.2 Twee piano's of een piano -quatre mains o 3.3 Opera o 3.4 Cantates o 3.5 Werken voor orkest o 3.6 Muziek voor solo-instrumenten en orkest o 3.7 Kamermuziek 4 Films 5 Trivia 6 Externe links [bewerken]Biografie Hoewel Claude van eenvoudige komaf was en er binnen het gezin Debussy weinig aan muziek werd gedaan, werd zijn talent al vroeg ontdekt. Dankzij bemiddeling van de schoonmoeder van de dichter Paul Verlaine, madame Maut, mocht hij in 1873 naar het Conservatoire de Paris, waar hij pianoles kreeg van Antoine Franois Marmontel en harmonieleer van mile Durand. Ook volgde hij korte tijd lessen bij Csar Franck. In 1879 vroeg de weldoenster van Tsjaikovski, gravin Nadjezjda Filaretovna von Meck, aan Marmontel of hij een geschikte jonge pianist wist voor haar huistrio. Hij maakte haar attent op Debussy. Zijn spel viel zodanig in de smaak dat hij in 1882 met de familie von Meck naar Rusland ging.

Na terugkeer volgde hij compositielessen bij Ernest Guiraud, die hem adviseerde eenvoudiger te schrijven, wilde hij in aanmerking komen voor de Prix de Rome. In 1884 lukte hem dit met zijn cantate L'enfant prodigue, hoewel de componist Charles Gounod, die hem als genie beschouwde, voor hem in de bres moest springen. De toekenning van de prijs stelde Debussy in staat twee jaar in Rome te werken en te studeren. Dit overigens niet naar eigen genoegen, want het verblijf aldaar werd door hem als een kwelling ervaren. Hij zei niet tegen het klimaat te kunnen, zich niet te interesseren voor de antieke kunst en zich regelrecht te ergeren aan de feesten die hij moest bijwonen. Hier schreef hij het orkeststuk Printemps, dat door de jury in Parijs werd weggehoond. De secretaris van de Acadmie schreef in zijn rapport dat het zeer wenselijk zou zijn als Debussy zich niet verloor in dit soort impressionisme, dat hij als een van de gevaarlijkste vijanden van kunstwerken beschouwde. Debussy was inmiddels bezig aan een derde werk, getiteld La Demoiselle lue, op een vertaalde tekst van Dante Gabriel Rossetti, maar voor hij het voltooid had was hij al uit Rome vertrokken, nog voor de twee jaren voorbij waren. De jury weigerde Printemps uit te voeren, waarop Debussy zich verzette tegen een uitvoering van La Demoiselle lue. Hiermee was de breuk tussen hem en de leiders van de Acadmie volkomen. Gedurende een bezoek aan Bayreuth (1888-89) kwam Debussy in contact met de muziek van Richard Wagner, die een dwingende greep op zijn werk leek te krijgen. Tijdens de Wereldtentoonstelling van Parijs in 1889 raakte hij echter onder de bekoring van Spaanse en vooral ook Javaanse muziek, met name van de klanken van de gamelan. Hierdoor lukte het hem onder de invloed van Wagner uit te komen en een hoogst oorspronkelijke, eigen klanktaal te ontwikkelen. In 1899 huwde Debussy met Rosalie Texier, een meisje van eenvoudige komaf, dat hem voorbeeldig terzijde stond in de moeilijke tijd voordat hij bekendheid begon te genieten. In 1904 wenste Debussy echter van haar te scheiden om te kunnen trouwen met hun gezamenlijke vriendin Emma Bardac-Moyse. Door dit tweede huwelijk kwam hij in aanraking met de "betere kringen", hoewel dit niet betekende dat er een einde kwam aan zijn financile zorgen. In 1901 werd Debussy muziekrecensent voor de Revue Blanche. Later schreef hij ook voor andere bladen. Een bloemlezing hiervan werd na zijn dood gebundeld onder de titel Monsieur Croche Antidilettante. Vanaf 1909 wist Debussy dat hij aan kanker leed. Daarnaast was het uitbreken van de Eerste Wereldoorlog een grote domper, waardoor hij het maandenlang niet kon opbrengen te componeren. Toch wist hij zich hiervan te herstellen. In deze tijd schreef hij nog werken als de Douze tudes en de Six sonates pour divers instruments, waarvan hij er overigens slechts drie kon voltooien. Debussy stierf tijdens het laatste Duitse offensief toen Parijs met langeafstandsgeschut en vanuit luchtschepen werd gebombardeerd. Omstandigheden noopten tot een informele begrafenis op het kerkhof van Passy. Debussy heeft de muziek in heel nieuwe banen geleid. Met zijn aparte klankcombinaties en harmonien schreef hij tal van originele werken, waaronder: Prlude l'aprs-midi d'un faune (1894) Pellas et Mlisande (1902) La Mer (1903-1905) Ibria (1908) Jeux (1913) [bewerken]Stijl

Claude Debussy aan de piano in 1893 De term "impressionisme" wordt vaak gebruikt om muziek van Debussy te omschrijven, hoewel dit door sommigen (ook de toondichter zelf) werd betwist. De term had de negatieve klank van vaagheid en gebrek aan structuur. In een brief uit 1908, schreef de componist: "Ik probeer 'iets anders' te doen een soort realiteiten wat door imbecielen 'impressionisme' wordt genoemd". Elders merkte Debussy eens op: "Muziek is gemaakt van kleuren en afgepaste ritmes". Enkele kenmerken zijn: Veelvuldig gebruik van pedaalnoten; Passages en figuraties die afleiden van het ontbreken van tonaliteit; Veelvuldig gebruik van parallelle akkoorden; Bitonaliteit; Gebruik van de hele-toonstoonladder of de chromatische in plaats van de diatonische toonladder (ook Debussy-toonladder genoemd); Schijnbaar abrupte modulaties, zonder enige aanwijsbare harmonische connectie. Timbre: grote klankverscheidenheid door het gebruik van de hele tessituur, door een grote verscheidenheid aan speelwijzen te vermengen en af te wisselen, door een genuanceerd en zeer intenspedaalgebruik. Invloeden van exotische culturen en schilderingen van legendes, zoals in Pagodes , Ondine en de Prlude l'aprs-midi d'un faune [bewerken]Oeuvrelijst Voor de complete lijst met Debussy's composities (volgens de nummering van Franois Lesure en tevens geordend op bezetting): Zie Oeuvre van Claude Debussy voor het hoofdartikel over dit onderwerp. Beschrijvingen van zijn composities zijn te vinden in de Categorie:Compositie van Debussy. [bewerken]Piano Deux Arabesques (1888) Suite bergamasque (1890,met Clair de Lune) Rverie (1890) Pour Le Piano (1899) Estampes (1903) L'Isle Joyeuse (1904) Images, 1 en 2 (1905, 1907) Le petit Ngre (1908) Children's Corner Suite (1909)

Prludes (in totaal 24 composities), boek-1 en -2 (1910-1913: met La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin, La Cathdrale Engloutie en Canope). Alle 24 prludes zijn door de Nederlandse componist Willem Strietman, door de Engelse componist Colin Matthews en door de Belg Luc Brewaeys voor groot symfonieorkest gezet. En enkele dirigenten en arrangeurs hebben een of meer prludes voor orkest bewerkt. (Leopold Stokowski arrangeerde bijvoorbeeld La cathdrale engloutie voor symfonieorkest). Berceuse hroique (1914), later bewerkt voor orkest Douze tudes, verdeeld over boek-1 en -2 (1915) [bewerken]Twee piano's of een piano -quatre mains Petite Suite voor twee piano's (1889), later door Henri Bsser voor orkest bewerkt) Six pigraphes antiques voor piano quatre mains (1914, uit de muziek voor Chansons de Bilitis) En blanc et noir voor twee piano's (1915) [bewerken]Opera Rodrigue et Chimne (1890-1892) onvoltooide opera in drie akten op tekst van Catulle Mends Pellas et Mlisande (opera) (1893-1902) La chute de la maison d'Usher (1908-1916), onvoltooid. Gebaseerd op een verhaal van Edgar Allan Poe. In 1973 naar aantekeningen voltooid door Juan Allende Blim. In arrangement, zonder bronvermelding, te vinden als Fall of the House of Usher op het album Tales of Mystery and Imagination van The Alan Parsons Project [bewerken]Cantates L'enfant prodigue voor sopraan, bariton, tenor en orkest (1884) La demoiselle lue voor two solisten, dameskoor, en orkest (1887-1888, tekst van Dante Gabriel Rossetti) Ode la France voor sopraan, gemengd koor en orkest (1916-1917, voltooid door Marius Franois Gaillard) [bewerken]Werken voor orkest Le printemps met vierstemmig koor (1884) Prlude l'aprs-midi d'un faune, (voorspel voor een gedicht op muziek van Mallarm), voor orkest (1894) Nocturnes voor orkest en koor (1899) Muziek voor Le roi Lear, twee stukken voor orkest (1904) La Mer, esquisses symphoniques (Symfonische schetsen) voor orkest (1903-1905) Ibria (1908) Images pour orchestre (1905-1911) Le martyre de St. Sbastien, fragments symphoniques pour orchestre (toneelmuziek voor bij het gelijknamige stuk van Gabriele D'Annunzio, 1911) Khamma, ballet (1911-1912, georkestreerd door Charles Koechlin op verzoek van de componist) Jeux, ballet (1913) La bote joujoux, ballet (1913, georkestreerd door Andr Caplet op verzoek van de componist) Berceuse hroique voor orkest (1915) [bewerken]Muziek voor solo-instrumenten en orkest Fantaisie voor piano en orkest (1889-1890) Premire Rhapsodie voor klarinet en orkest (of piano) (1909-1910) Petite pice voor klarinet en orkest (of piano) (1910) Rhapsodie pour saxophone alto et orchestre (of piano) (1901-1911) Zie Elisa Hall voor de ontstaansgeschiedenis. Danses sacre et profane voor harp en strijkorkest (1904) [bewerken]Kamermuziek L 3 - 1879 Trio, in g-kleine terts voor piano, viool en cello L 27 - 1882 Intermezzo voor cello en piano (of orkest) L 26 - 1882 Nocturne en Scherzo voor cello en piano

 L 85 - 1893 Strijkkwartet in g-kleine terts L 120 - 1910 'Petite pice' voor klarinet en piano (of orkest) L 129 - 1913 Syrinx voor fluitsolo L 135 - 1915 Sonate voor cello en piano (eerste sonate) L 137 - 1915 Sonate voor fluit, altviool en harp (tweede sonate) L 140 - 1916-1917 Sonate voor viool en piano (derde sonate) [bewerken]Films Zoals veel muziek van andere componisten is ook muziek van Debussy gebruikt in speelfilms, documentaires en commercials. Een paar voorbeelden: Clair de Lune is o.a. gebruikt in de remake van Ocean's Eleven tegen het einde van de film als de hoofdrolspelers Brad Pitt en Matt Damon weglopen na een geslaagde casinoroof. Clair de Lune wordt ook gebruikt in de Film Twilight naar een boek van Stephenie Meyer, The Blue Lagoon (1980) en in een parfumreclame van Chanel no. 5 met Nicole Kidman en Rodrigo Santoro. In de film Seven Years in Tibet (1997)vormt een speeldoos die Clair de Lune speelt een rode draad. Claire de Lune komt ook voor in de film The Notebook, Atonement en The Darjeeling Limited. In de Hitchcock-film The Birds speelt Tippi Hedren de eerste Arabesque. Golliwog's cake-walk uit children's corner wordt gebruikt als titelsong in de Amerikaanse serie "Glee". [bewerken]Trivia Toen Debussy daags nadat hij in Parijs was teruggekeerd, van het bijwonen van een voorstelling elders van zijn opera 'Pellas et Mlisande' met zijn 'wijkende' en diffuse inslag, werd gevraagd wat hij van die uitvoering vond zei hij:Verschrikkelijk, je kon alles horen

Claude Debussy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the classical composer. For the crater, see Debussy (crater). For the heights, see Debussy Heights. For the asteroid, see 4492 Debussy.

Claude Debussy (1908)

Twenty-franc banknote, 1997 Claude-Achille Debussy (French pronunciation: [klod ail dbysi]) (August 22, 1862 March 25, 1918) was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his [3] compositions. Debussy is among the most important of all French composers, and a central figure in [4] European music of the turn of the 20th century. He was made Chevalier de la Lgion d'honneur in 1903. His music is noted for its sensory component and how it is not often formed around one key or pitch. Often Debussy's work reflected the activities or turbulence in his own life. His music virtually defines the transition from late-Romantic music to 20th century modernist music. In French literary circles, the style of this period was known as symbolism, a movement that directly inspired Debussy both as a composer and as an active [5] cultural participant. Contents [hide] 1 Biography o 1.1 Early life and studies o 1.2 Private life o 1.3 Death 2 Musical style o 2.1 List of works o 2.2 Early works o 2.3 Middle works
[1][2]

o 2.4 Late works o 2.5 Mathematical structuring o 2.6 Influences o 2.7 Influence on later composers 3 Media o 3.1 Eponyms o 3.2 Recordings 4 References 5 Sources 6 Further reading 7 External links o 7.1 Music scores [edit]Biography [edit]Early life and studies Claude Debussy was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, August 22, 1862, the eldest of five children. His father, Manuel-Achille Debussy, owned a shop where he sold china and crockery, and his mother, Victorine Manoury Debussy, was a seamstress. They moved to Paris in 1867. In 1870, his pregnant mother sought refuge from the Franco-Prussian war with a paternal aunt of Claude's in Cannes and it was here that he began piano lessons when he was seven years old with an elderly Italian violinist named Cerutti; his lessons were paid for by [6] his aunt. In 1871, the young Debussy gained the attention of Marie Maut de Fleurville, who claimed to have been a pupil of Frdric Chopin, and Debussy always believed her, although there is no independent evidence [7] that she was. His talents soon became evident, and in 1872, at age ten, Debussy entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he spent eleven years. During his time there he studied composition with Ernest Guiraud, [8] music history/theory with Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray, harmony with mile Durand, piano with Antoine Franois Marmontel, organ with Csar Franck, and solfge with Albert Lavignac, as well as other significant figures of the era. He also became lifelong friend of fellow student and noted pianist Isidor Philipp. After Debussy's death, many pianists sought out Philipp for advice on playing his music. From the start, though clearly talented, Debussy was also argumentative and experimental, and he challenged the rigid teaching of the Academy, favoring instead dissonances and intervals which were frowned upon at the time. Like Georges Bizet, Debussy was a brilliant pianist and an outstanding sight reader, who could have had a [9] professional career as such had he so wished. The pieces he played in public at this time included sonata movements by Beethoven, Schumannand Weber; and Chopin - the Ballade No. 2, a movement from the Piano Concerto No. 1, and the Allegro de concert, a relatively little-known piece but one requiring an advanced [10] technique (it was originally intended to be the opening movement of a third piano concerto). During the summers of 1880, 1881, and 1882 Debussy accompanied the wealthy patroness of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Nadezhda von Meck, as she traveled with her family in Europe and Russia. The young composer's many musical activities during these vacations included playing four-hand pieces with von Meck at the piano, giving her children music lessons, and performing in private concerts with some of her musician [11] friends. Despite von Meck's closeness with Tchaikovsky, the Russian master appears to have had little or no effect on Debussy. In September 1880 she sent Debussy's Danse bohmienne for Tchaikovsky's perusal. A month later Tchaikovsky wrote back to her, "It is a very pretty piece, but it is much too short. Not a single idea is expressed fully, the form is terribly shriveled, and it lacks unity". Debussy did not publish the piece; the manuscript remained in the von Meck family, and it was sold to B. Schott's Sohne in Mainz, and published by [12] them in 1932. More influential was Debussy's close friendship with Madame Vasnier, a singer he met when he began working as an accompanist to earn some money. She and her husband gave Debussy emotional and professional support. Monsieur Vasnier introduced him to the writings of influential French writers of the time, which gave rise to his first songs, settings of poems by Paul Verlaine, his former teacher Mme. Maut de Fleurville's son-in-law.

Debussy at the Villa Medici in Rome, 1885, at centre in the white jacket As the winner of the 1884 Prix de Rome with his composition L'enfant prodigue, he received a scholarship to the Acadmie des Beaux-Arts, which included a four-year residence at the Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome, to further his studies (18851887). According to letters to Madame Vasnier, perhaps in part designed to gain her sympathy, he found the artistic atmosphere stifling, the company boorish, the food bad, and the [13] monastic quarters "abominable". Neither did he delight in the pleasures of the "Eternal City", finding the Italian opera of Donizetti and Verdi not to his taste. Debussy was often depressed and unable to compose, but he was inspired by Franz Liszt, whose command of the keyboard he found admirable. In June 1885, Debussy wrote of his desire to follow his own way, saying, "I am sure the Institute would not approve, for, naturally it regards the path which it ordains as the only right one. But there is no help for it! I am [14] too enamoured of my freedom, too fond of my own ideas." Debussy finally composed four pieces that were sent to the Academy: the symphonic ode Zuleima, based on a text by Heinrich Heine; the orchestral piece Printemps; the cantata La damoiselle lue(18871888), which was criticized by the Academy as "bizarre"; and the Fantaisie for piano and orchestra. The third piece was the first in which stylistic features of Debussy's later style emerged. The fourth piece was heavily based on Csar Franck's music and Debussy withdrew it. The Academy chided him for "courting the unusual" and hoped for something better from the gifted student. Even though Debussy works showed the influence of Jules Massenet, [15] Massenet concluded, "He is an enigma." In his visits to Bayreuth in 1888-9, Debussy was exposed to Wagnerian opera, which had a lasting impact on his [citation needed] work. Richard Wagner had died in 1883 and the cult of Wagnerism was still in full swing. Debussy, like many young musicians of the time, responded positively to Wagner's sensuousness, mastery of form, and striking harmonies, but ultimately Wagner's extroverted emotionalism was not to be Debussy's way [citation needed] either. Wagner's influence is evident in La damoiselle lue and the 1889 piece Cinq pomes de Charles Baudelaire|Baudelaire. Other songs of the period, notably the settings of VerlaineAriettes oublies, Trois mlodies, and Ftes galantesare all in a more capricious style. Around this time, Debussy met Erik Satie, who proved a kindred spirit in his experimental approach to composition and to naming his pieces. During this period, both musicians were bohemians enjoying the same cafe society and struggling to [citation needed] stay afloat financially. During 1889, at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, Debussy heard Javanese gamelan music. Although direct citations of gamelan scales, melodies, rhythms, or ensemble textures have not been identified in any of Debussy's compositions, the equal-tempered pentatonic scale appears in his music of this time and [citation needed] afterward.

Debussy, by Marcel Baschet, 1884 [edit]Private life Debussy's private life was often turbulent. At the age of 18 he began an eight-year affair with Blanche Vasnier, wife of a wealthy Parisian lawyer. The relationship eventually faltered following his winning of the Prix de Rome and obligatory incarceration in the eponymous city. On his permanent return to Paris in 1889, he began a tempestuous nine-year relationship with Gabrielle ('Gaby') Dupont, a tailor's daughter from Lisieux, with whom he cohabited on the Rue Gustave Dor. During this time he also had an affair with the singer Thrse Roger, to whom he was briefly engaged. He left Dupont for her friend Rosalie ('Lily') Texier, a fashion model whom he married in 1899. Although Texier was affectionate, practical, straightforward, and well-liked by Debussy's friends and associates, he became increasingly irritated by her intellectual limitations and lack of musical sensitivity. In 1904, Debussy was introduced to Emma Bardac, wife of Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac, by her son Raoul, one of his [16] students. In contrast to Texier, Bardac was a sophisticate, a brilliant conversationalist, and an accomplished singer. Debussy soon abandoned Texier; distraught, like Dupont before her, she attempted suicide, shooting herself in the chest while standing in the Place de la Concorde. She survived, although the bullet remained lodged in her vertebrae for the rest of her life. The scandal obliged Debussy and Bardac (already carrying his child) to elope to England, via Jersey, in April 1905. The couple ultimately settled at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, where Debussy was to complete his [17] symphonic suite La mer, and celebrate his divorce from Texier on August 2, 1905. Claude and Emma returned to Paris that autumn in time for the birth of their child, a daughter (and the composer's only child), Claude-Emma, on 30 October. More affectionately known as 'Chouchou', Claude-Emma was the dedicatee of Debussy's Children's Corner suite; she outlived her father by scarcely a year, succumbing to the diphtheria epidemic of 1919. Her parents were eventually married in 1908, their troubled union enduring until Debussy's death in 1918. Interestingly, Emma Bardac's earlier daughter Hlne, known as Dolly, was also immortalised in music, in the Dolly Suite by Gabriel Faur, Emma's lover at the time (1897). [edit]Death

Debussy's grave at Cim. de Passy Claude Debussy died of rectal cancer in Paris on March 25, 1918 , in the midst of the aerial and artillery bombardment of the city during the Spring Offensive of World War I. The funeral procession made its way through deserted streets to Pre Lachaise cemetery as shells from the German guns ripped into his beloved city. At this time, the military situation in France was desperate, and circumstances did not permit the honour of a public funeral or ceremonious graveside orations. It was just eight months before France would celebrate victory. Debussy's body was reinterred shortly afterwards in the small Cimetire de Passy sequestered behind the Trocadro; his wife and daughter are buried with him. [edit]Musical style
[18]

Chords, featuring chromatically altered sevenths and ninths and progressing unconventionally, explored by [19] Debussy in a, "celebrated conversation at the piano with his teacher Ernest Guiraud". Rudolph Rti points out these features of Debussy's music, which "established a new concept of tonality in European music": 1. Glittering passages and webs of figurations which distract from occasional absence of tonality; 2. Frequent use of parallel chords which are "in essence not harmonies at all, but rather 'chordal melodies', enriched unisons"; 3. Bitonality, or at least bitonal chords; 4. Use of the whole-tone and pentatonic scale; 5. Unprepared modulations, "without any harmonic bridge." He concludes that Debussy's achievement was the synthesis of monophonic based "melodic tonality" with [20][page needed] harmonies, albeit different from those of "harmonic tonality". The application of the term "impressionist" to Debussy and the music he influenced is a matter of intense debate within academic circles. One side argues that the term is a misnomer, an inappropriate label which Debussy himself opposed. In a letter of 1908, he wrote "I am trying to do 'something different'--an effect of reality...what the imbeciles call 'impressionism', a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by the critics, since they do not hesitate to apply it to Turner, the finest creator of mysterious effects in all the world [21] of art." The opposing side argues that Debussy may have been reacting to unfavorable criticism at the time, and the negativity that critics associated with impressionism. It can be argued that he would have been pleased with application of the current definition of impressionism to his music. [edit]List of works List of compositions by Claude Debussy by category. List of compositions by Claude Debussy by Lesure Numbers [edit]Early works

Debussy at the piano, in front of the composer Ernest Chausson, 1893 Beginning in the 1890s, Debussy developed his own musical language largely independent of Wagner's style, colored in part from the dreamy, sometimes morbid romanticism of the Symbolist Movement. Debussy became a frequent participant at Stphane Mallarm's Symbolist gatherings, where Wagnerism dominated the discussion. In contrast to the enormous works of Wagner and other late-romantic composers, however, around this time Debussy chose to write in smaller, more accessible forms. The Deux Arabesques is an example of one of Debussy's earliest works, already developing his musical language. Suite bergamasque (1890) recalls rococo decorousness with a modern cynicism and puzzlement. This suite contains one of Debussy's most popular pieces, Clair de Lune. 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 scales, such as the whole-tone, which creates a sense of floating, ethereal harmony. Debussy was beginning to employ a single, continuous theme and break away from the traditional A-B-A form, with its restatements and amplifications, which had been a mainstay of classical music since Haydn. Influenced by Mallarm, Debussy wrote one of his most famous works, the revolutionary Prlude l'aprs-midi d'un faune, truly original in form and execution. In contrast to the large orchestras so favoured by lateromanticism, Debussy wrote this piece for a smaller ensemble, emphasizing instrumental colour and timbre. Despite Mallarm himself, and colleague and friend Paul Dukas having been impressed by the piece, it was controversial at its premiere. Prlude subsequently placed Debussy into the spotlight as one of the leading composers of the era. [edit]Middle works The three Nocturnes (1899), include characteristic studies in veiled harmony and texture as demonstrated in Nuages; exuberance in Ftes; and whole-tones in Sirnes. Contrasting sharply with Wagnerian opera, Debussy's Pellas et Mlisande premiered in 1902, after ten years of work. It would be his only complete opera. Based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, the opera proved to be an immediate success and immensely influential to younger French composers, including Maurice Ravel. These works brought a fluidity of rhythm and colour quite new to Western music. La Mer (19031905) 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. Again, the reviews were sharply divided. Some critics thought the treatment to be less subtle and less mysterious than his previous works and even a step backward. Pierre Lalo complained "I neither hear, nor see, nor feel the sea". Others extolled its "power and charm", its "extraordinary verve and brilliant fantasy", and its [22] strong colors and definite lines. During this period Debussy wrote much for the piano. The set of pieces entitled Pour le piano (1901) utilises rich harmonies and textures which would later prove important in jazz music. His first volume of Images pour piano (19041905) combine harmonic innovation with poetic suggestion: Reflets dans l'eau is a musical description of rippling water; Hommage Rameau, the second piece, is slow and yearningly nostalgic. It takes as its inspiration a melody from Jean-Philippe Rameau's Castor et Pollux.

The evocative Estampes for piano (1903) give impressions of exotic locations. Debussy came into contact with Javanese gamelan music during the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle. Pagodes is the directly inspired [23] result, aiming for an evocation of the pentatonic structures employed by the Javanese music. Debussy wrote his famous Children's Corner Suite (1908) for his beloved daughter, Claude-Emma, whom he nicknamed Chouchou. The suite recalls classicismthe opening piece Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum refers to Muzio Clementi's collection of instructional piano compositions Gradus ad Parnassum, as well as a new wave of American ragtime music. In the popular final piece of the suite, Golliwogg's Cakewalk, Debussy also pokes fun at Richard Wagner by mimicking the opening bars of Wagner's prelude to Tristan und Isolde. The first book of Prludes (1910), twelve in total, proved to be his most successful work for piano. The Preludes are frequently compared to those of Chopin. Debussy's preludes are replete with rich, unusual and daring harmonies. They include the popular La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair) and La Cathdrale Engloutie (The Engulfed Cathedral). Debussy wanted people to respond intuitively to these pieces and so he placed the titles at the end of each one in the hope that listeners would not make stereotype images as they listened. Larger scaled works included his orchestral piece Iberia (1907), began as a work for two pianos, a triptych medley of Spanish allusions and fleeting impressions and also the music for Gabriele d'Annunzio's mystery play Le martyre de Saint Sbastien (1911). A lush and dramatic work, written in only two months, it is remarkable in sustaining a late antique modal atmosphere that otherwise was touched only in relatively short piano pieces. During this period, as Debussy gained more popularity, he was engaged as a conductor throughout Europe, most often performing Pellas, La Mer, and Prlude l'aprs-midi d'un faune. He was also an occasional music critic to supplement his conducting fees and piano lessons. Debussy avoided analytical dissection and attempts to force images from music, "Let us at all costs preserve this magic peculiar to music, since of all the arts it is most susceptible to magic." He could be caustic and witty, sometimes sloppy and ill-informed. Debussy was for the most part enthusiastic about Richard Strauss and Stravinsky, worshipful of Chopin, Bach and Mozart, and found both Liszt and Beethoven geniuses who sometimes lacked "taste". He also admired the works of Charles[24] Valentin Alkan. Schubert and Mendelssohn fared much worse, the latter being described as a "facile and [25] elegant notary". [edit]Late works This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2010) Debussy's harmonies and chord progressions frequently exploit dissonances without any formal resolution. Unlike in his earlier work, he no longer hides discords in lush harmonies. The forms are far more irregular and fragmented. These chords that seemingly had no resolution were described by Debussy himself as "floating chords", and were used to set tone and mood in many of his works. The whole tone scale dominates much of Debussy's late music. His two last volumes of works for the piano, the tudes (1915) interprets similar varieties of style and texture purely as pianistic exercises and includes pieces that develop irregular form to an extreme as well as others influenced by the youngIgor Stravinsky (a presence too in the suite En blanc et noir for two pianos, 1915). The rarefaction of these works is a feature of the last set of songs, the Trois pomes de Mallarm (1913), and of the Sonata for flute, viola and harp (1915), though the sonata and its companions also recapture the inquisitive Verlainian classicism. With the sonatas of 19151917, there is a sudden shift in the style. These works recall Debussy's earlier music, in part, but also look forward, with leaner, simpler structures. Despite the thinner textures of the Violin Sonata (1917) there remains an undeniable richness in the chords themselves. This shift parallels the movement commonly known as neo-classicism which became popular after Debussy's death. Debussy planned a set of six sonatas, but this plan was cut short by his death in 1918 so that he only completed three (cello, flute-viola-harp and violin sonatas).

Caplet and Debussy The last orchestral work by Debussy, the ballet Jeux (1912) written for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, contains some of his strangest harmonies and textures in a form that moves freely over its own field of motivic connection. At first Jeux was overshadowed by Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, composed in the same year as Jeux and premiered only two weeks later by the same ballet company. Decades later, composers such as Pierre Boulez and Jean Barraqu pointed out parallels to Anton Webern's serialism in this work. Other late stage works, including the ballets Khamma(1912) and La bote joujoux (1913) were left with the orchestration incomplete, and were later completed by Charles Koechlin and Andr Caplet, who also helped Debussy with the orchestration ofGigues (from Images pour orchestre) and Le martyre de St. Sbastien. The second set of Preludes for piano (1913) features Debussy at his most avant-garde, where he utilizes dissonant harmonies to evoke specific moods and images. Debussy consciously gives titles to each prelude that amplify the preludes tonal ambiguity and dissonance. He utilizes scales such as the whole tone scale, musical modes, and the octatonic scale in his preludes that exaggerate this tonal ambiguity, making the key of each prelude almost indistinguishable at times. The second book of Preludes for piano represents Debussys strong interest in the indefinite and esoteric. Although Pellas was Debussy's only completed opera, he began several opera projects which remained unfinished, his fading concentration, increasing procrastination, and failing health perhaps the reasons. He had finished some partial musical sketches and some unpublished libretti for operas based on Poe's The Devil in the Belfry (Le diable dans le beffroi, 1902-?1912) and The Fall of the House of Usher (La chute de la maison Usher, 19081917) as well as considered projects for operas based on Shakespeare's As You Like It and Joseph Bedier's La Legende de Tristan. Further plans, such as an American tour, more ballet scores, and revisions of Chopin and Bach works for republication, were all cut short by the outbreak of World War I and the onset of colorectal cancer, which required morphine injections to relieve the pain. Debussy underwent one of the first colostomy operations ever performed in December 1915, but this achieved only a temporary respite and occasioned him considerable frustration; he was to liken dressing in the morning to "all the labours of Hercules in one". [edit]Mathematical structuring Given that Debussy's music is apparently so concerned with mood and colour, one may be surprised to discover that, according to Howat, many of his greatest works appear to have been structured around mathematical models even while using an apparent classical structure such as sonata form. Howat suggests that some of Debussy's pieces can be divided into sections that reflect thegolden ratio, frequently by using the numbers of [26] the standard Fibonacci sequence. Sometimes these divisions seem to follow the standard divisions of the overall structure. In other pieces they appear to mark out other significant features of the music. The 55 barlong introduction to 'Dialogue du vent et la mer' in La Mer, for example, breaks down into 5 sections of 21, 8, 8,

5 and 13 bars in length. The golden mean point of bar 34 in this structure is signalled by the introduction of the trombones, with the use of the main motif from all three movements used in the central section around that [26][page needed] point. The only evidence that Howat introduces to support his claim appears in changes Debussy made between finished manuscripts and the printed edition, with the changes invariably creating a Golden Mean proportion where previously none existed. Perhaps the starkest example of this comes with La cathdrale engloutie. Published editions lack the instruction to play bars 7-12 and 22-83 at twice the speed of the remainder, exactly as Debussy himself did on a piano-roll recording. When analysed with this alteration, the piece follows Golden Section proportions. At the same time, Howat admits that in many of Debussy's works, he has been unable to find evidence of the Golden Section (notably in the late works) and that no extant manuscripts or sketches contain any evidence of calculations related to it. [edit]Influences Debussy had a wide range of influences. Among the Russian composers of his time, the most prominent [27] influences on Debussy were Tchaikovsky, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky. It can be inferred that from the Russians Debussy acquired his taste for ancient and oriental modes and for vivid [27] colorations, and a certain disdain for academic rules. Specifically, Mussorgskys opera Boris Godunov directly influenced one of Debussys most famous works, Pellas et Mlisande. In addition to the Russian composers, one of Debussys biggest influences was Richard Wagner. According to Pierre Louys, Debussy did [27] not see what anyone can do beyond Tristan. After Debussys Wagner phase, he started to become immensely interested in non-western music. He was drawn to unorthodox approaches to composition that non-western music utilized. Specifically, he was drawn to a Javanese Gamelan, which was a musical ensemble from the island of Java that played an array of unique instrumentation. He first heard the gamelan at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Debussy was not as interested in directly citing his non-western influence in his music, but instead used his non-western influence to shape his unique musical style in more of a general way. Debussy was just as influenced by other art forms as he was by music, if not more so. He took a strong interest in literature and visual art and used these mediums to help shape his unique musical style. Debussy was heavily influenced by the French symbolist movement, which was an art movement in 1885 that influenced art forms such as poetry, visual art, and theatre. He shared the movements interest in the esoteric and indefinite and rejection of naturalism and realism. Specifically, the development of free verse in poetry and the disappearance of the subject or model in painting influenced Debussy to think about issues of musical [27] form. Debussy became personally acquainted with writers and painters of the movement and based his own works off of those of the symbolists. One of Debussys main influences was the famous poet Stphane [27] Mallarm, who held the idea of a musicalization of poetry. In other words, Mallarm drew strong connections between music and his poetry. Debussy wrote "Prlude l'aprs-midi d'un faune", which was directly influenced by Mallarms poem Afternoon of a Faun. Like the symbolists in respect to their own art forms, Debussy aimed to reject common techniques and approaches to composition and attempted to evoke more of a sensorial experience for the listener with his works. Since his time at the Paris Conservatoire, Debussy believed he had much more to learn from artists than from musicians who were primarily interested in their musical careers. Contemporary painter James McNeill Whistler who lived in France for a period of time had a profound influence on Debussy. In 1894, Debussy wrote to violinist Eugene Ysaye describing his Nocturnes as "an experiment in the different combinations that can be obtained from one color - what a study in grey would be [28] in painting." Although it is not known what it is meant by this statement, one can observe in his music a careful use of orchestral, textural, and harmonic 'shading'. [edit]Influence on later composers Claude Debussy is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. His harmonies, considered radical in his day, were influential to almost every major composer of the 20th century, especially the music ofMaurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Olivier Messiaen, Bla Bartk, Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, and the minimalist music of Steve Reich and Philip Glass as well as the influential Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. He also influenced many important figures in Jazz, most notably George Gershwin, Bill Evans, George Shearing, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Antnio Carlos Jobim, Herbie Hancock and Jimmy Giuffre. Furthermore, he had a profound impact on contemporary soundtrack composers such as John Williams because Debussy's colorful and suggesting style translated easily into an emotional language for use in motion picture scores. In 1999, The Art of Noise released a concept album titled The

Seduction of Claude Debussy. The group blended the music of Debussy with drum and bass, opera, hip hop, jazz, and narration, and described the album as "the soundtrack to a film that wasn't made about the life of Claude Debussy". In 2000, the band released Reduction, a limited-edition album composed mainly of outtakes from this album. Leopold Stokowski, in an article, pointed out the identification of composers including Debussy with the music of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, providing an inspiration for non-contrapuntal music.