Claude Debussy, along with other notable composers such as Igor Stravinsky, sought to explore new and innovative ways to expand harmonic language and in so doing move away from the Germanic influence of the previous two centuries. It was their view that Western harmony had exhausted it potentialities as a potent emotive syntax by the end of the nineteenth century. Like Stravinsky, he looked for inspiration in non-European harmonies, which he incorporated in his music, without rendering it « heathenish, » in the sense of undermining its synchronization with the physics of sound. The three Nocturnes for Orchestra, Pelleas and Melisande, La Mer, and Images established his reputation as one of the most influential composers in post-Wagnerian and the twentieth century music.
Debussy Sonata for Violin and Piano
His works have strongly influenced a wide range of composers including Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, George Gershwin, Olivier Messiaen, George Benjamin, and the jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans. He aimed to design a new style that would not emulate those of the acclaimed composers, yet his music also reflects that of Wagner, whose operas he heard on visits to Bayreuth, Germany in 1888 and 1889. Based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, it caught the attention of the younger French composers, including Maurice Ravel. Its understatement and deceptively simple declamation also brought an entirely new tone to opera — but an unrepeatable one. He criticized Realism and programmatic writing, instead envisioning a style that would be to music what Manet, Renoir, and Cezanne were to painting and Stéphane Mallarmé to poetry.
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He made his music very different from the Romantic style, which other composers used at the time. The main musical influence in Debussy’s work was the work of Richard Wagner and the Russian composers Aleksandr Borodin and Modest Mussorgsky. Wagner fulfilled the sensuous ambitions not only of composers but also of the Symbolist poets and the Impressionist painters.
Debussy Sonata for Cello and Piano
It is clear that he was torn by influences from many directions; these stormy years, however, contributed to the sensitivity of his early style. Lesure writes, « The development of free verse in poetry and the disappearance of the subject or model in painting influenced him to think about issues of musical form. » Debussy was influenced by the Symbolist poets. Debussy was much in sympathy with the Symbolists’ desire to bring poetry closer to music, became friendly with several leading exponents, and set many Symbolist works throughout his career. Estampes for piano (1903) gives impressions of exotic locations, with further echoes of the gamelan in its pentatonic structures. The central « Jeux de vagues » section has the function of a symphonic development section leading into the final « Dialogue du vent et de la mer », « a powerful essay in orchestral colour and sonority » (Orledge) which reworks themes from the first movement. In 1903 there was public recognition of Debussy’s stature when he was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur, but his social standing suffered a great blow when another turn in his private life caused a scandal the following year.
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- This enabled him to convey nebulous and haunting melodies, whose textures, sensations, images, and nuances in sound were unprecedented in his time.
- The composer’s greatest works are built on a classical structure, such as a sonata, but they also appear to have been structured around mathematical models, as Howat observed.
- It is clear that he was torn by influences from many directions; these stormy years, however, contributed to the sensitivity of his early style.
- He wrote for orchestra–Fêtes galantes and a work called La Mer (The Sea)–which he wrote while he lived in Brighton, England.
- His early mélodies, inspired by Marie Vasnier, are more virtuosic in character than his later works in the genre, with extensive wordless vocalise; from the Ariettes oubliées (1885–1887) onwards he developed a more restrained style.
- His works have strongly influenced a wide range of composers including Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, George Gershwin, Olivier Messiaen, George Benjamin, and the jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans.
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He wrote his own poems for the Proses lyriques (1892–1893) but, in the view of the musical scholar Robert Orledge, « his literary talents were not on a par with his musical imagination ». Later commentators have rated some of the late works more highly than Newman and other contemporaries did, but much of the music for which Debussy is best known is from the middle years of his career. Debussy’s last orchestral work, the ballet Jeux, written for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, contains some of his strangest harmonies and textures in a form that moves freely Casinojoy casino over its own field of motivic connection.
- Some praised the work, but Pierre Lalo, critic of Le Temps, hitherto an admirer of Debussy, wrote, « I do not hear, I do not see, I do not smell the sea ».[n 12] In the same month the composer’s only child was born at their home.
- Lesure writes, « The development of free verse in poetry and the disappearance of the subject or model in painting influenced him to think about issues of musical form. » Debussy was influenced by the Symbolist poets.
- Although considering Images « the pinnacle of Debussy’s achievement as a composer for orchestra », Trezise notes a contrary view that the accolade belongs to the ballet score Jeux.
- Since his death, France has celebrated him as one of the most distinguished ambassadors of its culture, and his music is repeatedly heard in film and television.
- Another project inspired by Poe – an operatic version of The Devil in the Belfry did not progress beyond sketches.
- Claude-Emma, affectionately known as « Chouchou », was a musical inspiration to the composer (she was the dedicatee of his Children’s Corner suite).
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Claude Debussy (1862–
According to Pierre Louÿs, Debussy « did not see ‘what anyone can do beyond Tristan’, » although he admitted that it was sometimes difficult to avoid « the ghost of old Klingsor, alias Richard Wagner, appearing at the turning of a bar ». In 1889, Debussy held conversations with his former teacher Guiraud, which included exploration of harmonic possibilities at the piano. A further improvisation by Debussy during this conversation included a sequence of whole tone harmonies which may have been inspired by the music of Glinka or Rimsky-Korsakov which was becoming known in Paris at this time. Debussy’s musical development was slow, and as a student he was adept enough to produce for his teachers at the Conservatoire works that would conform to their conservative precepts. His early mélodies, inspired by Marie Vasnier, are more virtuosic in character than his later works in the genre, with extensive wordless vocalise; from the Ariettes oubliées (1885–1887) onwards he developed a more restrained style.
Claude-Emma, affectionately known as « Chouchou », was a musical inspiration to the composer (she was the dedicatee of his Children’s Corner suite). He originally studied the piano, but found his vocation in innovative composition, despite the disapproval of the Conservatoire’s conservative professors. He took many years to develop his mature style, and was nearly 40 when he achieved international fame in 1902 with the only opera he completed, Pelléas et Mélisande. Some of it is difficult to play like the Études and pieces such as L’isle joyeuse (The Happy Island). He wrote for orchestra–Fêtes galantes and a work called La Mer (The Sea)–which he wrote while he lived in Brighton, England.
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What was Claude Debussy’s early life like?
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- Nevertheless, Debussy protested his label as « Father of Impressionism in music, » and academic circles too believe that the term might be a misnomer.
- Yet he had no real desire to spend three years in Rome, writing more music to please the Conservatoire moguls while unable to visit his mistress.
- In addition to the composers who influenced his own compositions, Debussy held strong views about several others.
- He wrote to his wife on 11 August from Dieppe, telling her that their marriage was over, but still making no mention of Bardac.
- At the 1889 Exposition Universelle, he heard gamelan music from Java and the sometimes violent music of the Annamite Theatre of Vietnam.
- Not only Debussy’s use of whole-tone scales, but also his style of word-setting in Pelléas et Mélisande, were the subject of study by Leoš Janáček while he was writing his 1921 opera Káťa Kabanová.
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It was in this spirit that Debussy wrote the symphonic poem Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894). His single completed opera, Pelléas et Mélisande (first performed in 1902), demonstrates how the Wagnerian technique could be adapted to portray subjects like the dreamy nightmarish figures of this opera who were doomed to self-destruction. In his work, as in his personal life, he was anxious to gather experience from every region that the imaginative mind could explore. In the music of Palestrina, Debussy found what he called « a perfect whiteness », and he felt that although Palestrina’s musical forms had a « strict manner », they were more to his taste than the rigid rules prevailing among 19th-century French composers and teachers. Debussy’s orchestral works include Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894), Nocturnes (1897–1899) and Images (1905–1912).
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Recent analysts have found it a link between traditional continuity and thematic growth within a score and the desire to create discontinuity in a way mirrored in later 20th century music. The academic and journalist Stephen Walsh calls Pelléas et Mélisande (begun 1893, staged 1902) « a key work for the 20th century ». The composer Olivier Messiaen was fascinated by its « extraordinary harmonic qualities and … transparent instrumental texture ». The opera is composed in what Alan Blyth describes as a sustained and heightened recitative style, with « sensuous, intimate » vocal lines. In October 1905 La mer, Debussy’s most substantial orchestral work, was premiered in Paris by the Orchestre Lamoureux under the direction of Camille Chevillard; the reception was mixed. Some praised the work, but Pierre Lalo, critic of Le Temps, hitherto an admirer of Debussy, wrote, « I do not hear, I do not see, I do not smell the sea ».[n 12] In the same month the composer’s only child was born at their home.