Claude Debussy

**Achille-Claude Debussy** (born Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, 22 August 1862; died Paris, France, 25 March, 1918) was a French composer who was one of the most important composers of the early 20th century. Most of his compositions are for orchestra or for piano. He also wrote some songs, chamber music and one opera. He made his music very different from the Romantic style, which other composers used at the time.

He is called an Impressionistic composer {citation needed: by who?} because he was influenced by the group of painters called the "Impressionists". They were less interested in making their paintings look exactly like the real world but preferred to paint things such as the effect of the sunlight shining on water. Debussy often did so in his music, which creates a special atmosphere.

## Life

Claude's father was a travelling salesman, and his mother worked as a seamstress. He learned the piano when he was young and joined into the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 11. He did not do well enough in his examination to qualify as a concert pianist. After winning the Prix de Rome, he went to Rome for two years. He visited Bayreuth in 1888 and 1889 to hear Richard Wagner’s operas. He preferred sounds of the Javanese gamelan, which he heard in Paris at the World Exhibition.

In 1899, he married Rosalie Texier. He was also employed as music critic of a journal called _La revue blanche_, and wrote his opera _Pélleas et Mélisande_, which was performed at the Opéra-Comique. The opera was performed 100 times there during the next ten years. He wrote for orchestra--_Fêtes galantes_ and a work called _La Mer_ (_The Sea_)--which he wrote while he lived in Brighton, England.

Debussy was starting to become very famous. His personal life changed. He left his wife because he had fallen in love with Emma Bardac who was an amateur singer for whom Gabriel Fauré had written a song cycle: _La Bonne Chanson_. Her husband was a banker. Bardac bought an apartment, where Debussy lived with her for the rest of his life. They had a daughter, called Chou-Chou, who was born in 1905. They married in 1908.

Debussy’s next orchestral work was called _Images_. He began composing a set of preludes for piano. Other works followed: _Khamma_, _Le martyre de St Sébastian_ and the ballet _Jeux_, which was produced in 1913 by Segei Dyagilev’s company. People soon forgot about that work because only two weeks later, the same ballet company produced Igor Stravinsky’s _Rite of Spring,_ which caused a riot.

By this time Debussy was ill with colorectal cancer. His visit to London in 1914 was his last trip to another country. He wrote more piano works: a set of _Études_ and a piano duet called _En blanc et noir_ (_In White and Black_). He planned to write six sonatas, each for a different group of instruments, but he only wrote three of them: one for cello and piano, one for flute, viola and harp and one for violin and piano. The _Sonata for violin and piano_ (1917) was the last work that he played in public; he played the piano. He died of colorectal cancer in 1918.

## Music

Camille Saint-Saëns, for example, did not understand the way that Debussy's musical ideas flowed gently into one another. He was always an opponent of Debussy.

There is a lot of variety in Debussy’s piano music. Some of it is difficult to play like the _Études_ and pieces such as _L’isle joyeuse_ (_The Happy Island_). Other collections are much simpler like _Suite bergamasque_, which includes the very popular piece _Clair de lune_ (M_oonlight_). He wrote two books of preludes. Each of the pieces has a title, but it is printed at the end of each piece, as if he did not want the listener to know what it was about until afterwards.

Debussy wrote wonderfully for the voice, making the music just right for the rhythm of French. That can be heard in his songs and his opera. Using melodies and harmonies which are often quite simple he creates a special kind of dream-world which can be very powerful. He often uses the whole-tone scale and the pentatonic scale which give the music a hazy feeling because it does not seem to be clearly in one particular key. He liked to use unusual chords for their own sake, not for them to lead to a particular key. He also used old scales known as the church modes.

Debussy’s music had a great influence on many 20th-century composers. John Cage, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Frederico Mompou all learned from listening to his music.

## References

Groves Dictionary of Music Online