Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Born: August 22, 1862, St. Germaine-en-Laye, France

Died: March 5, 1918, Paris

In his own words....

"A symphony is usually built on a melody heard by the composer as a child. The first section is the customary presentation of a theme on which the composer proposes to work; then begins the necessary dismemberment; the second section seems to take place in an experimental laboratory; the third section cheers up a little in a quite childish way, interspersed with deep sentimental phrases during which the melody recedes, as is more seemly; but it reappears and the dismemberment goes on...I am more and more convinced that music is not, in essence, a thing which can be cast into a traditional and fixed form. It is made up of colors and rhythms."

French composer and critic. Debussy's music is often associated with the contemporary impressionist movement in painting, and his approach shares some characteristics of this style.

"The primary aim of French music," Claude Debussy wrote in 1904, "is to give pleasure." Debussy, more than anything, was interested in the sensuous quality of music. Even as a student he let his concept of sound override many of the rules he was so assiduously taught by his teachers (much to their consternation). From this he developed a style that was wholly his own, but that also owed much to a wide variety of disparate influences. He also was a passionate champion of a purely French style, and he proudly referred to himself as "Claude Debussy, musicien fran?ais."

Debussy was educated at the Paris Conservatory, and in 1885 he won the coveted Prix de Rome. His period in Rome, however, was not pleasant for Debussy and he longed to return to Paris. His early works show his desire to break the constraints of Western harmony and form (he especially disliked sonata-allegro form, which he came to see as overly Germanic and not fitting for a French composer). His Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun" departs from any sense of development, relying instead on a series of free repetitions and variations of the basic themes.

As a student and a young composer, Debussy was also an ardent Wagnerite, seeing in the German composer the future of music, specifically musical drama. He later turned away from Wagner, describing him as "a beautiful sunset mistaken for a dawn." Yet his one completed opera, Pelléas et Mélisande , owes much of its conception to this influence, even if the musical language is markedly different. The other strong influences on Debussy at this time were the symbolist and decadent movements in poetry, with their concern for sound and abstract meaning. While Pelléas was his only opera, he worked on various subjects by Edgar Allan Poe, one of his favorite writers and a strong influence on the symbolist writers.

Debussy's interest in the exquisite and sensual also led him to an appreciation of the music of other cultures, and his use of various scales beyond the traditional major and minor ones shows the influence of Oriental and Russian music. A decisive influence was the Paris Exhibition of 1889, where he first encountered the music of the Indonesian gamelan orchestra. The different scales, as well as the floating qualities of form and rhythm, would find their way into his work, especially his piano music.

Late in his life, Debussy turned his interests to abstract forms, producing three remarkable sonatas (he had originally conceived of six for various instruments, with the final one planned for all the instruments of the previous five). In these works, Debussy's rich melodic and harmonic language found a new and intriguing expression. Sadly, this endeavor was cut short by the composer's death at the height of World War I. The conflict of German and French civilization was for him a violent reflection of the musical conflict he dealt with his entire life.

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