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Claude Debussy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Achille-Claude Debussy (French: [ail klod dbysi],[1] 22 August 1862 25

March 1918), known since the 1890s as Claude-Achille Debussy or Claude
Debussy,[2] was a French composer. He and Maurice Ravel were the most
prominent figures associated with Impressionist music, though Debussy disliked
the term when applied to his compositions.[3] He was made Chevalier of the
Legion of Honour in 1903.[4] He was among the most influential composers of
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his use of non-traditional scales and
chromaticism influenced many composers who followed.[5]

Debussy's music is noted for its sensory content and frequent usage of
nontraditional tonalities.[6] The prominent French literary style of his period was
known as Symbolism, and this movement directly inspired Debussy both as a
composer and as an active cultural participant.[7]
Claude Debussy in 1908

Contents
1 Early life
1.1 Musical development
2 Personal life
3 Death
4 Music
4.1 Style
4.2 List of works
4.3 Early works
4.4 Middle works
4.5 Late works
4.6 Mathematical structuring
4.7 Influences
4.8 Influence on later composers
5 Eponyms
6 Recordings
7 References
8 Sources
9 Further reading
10 External links

Early life
Debussy, the eldest of five children, was born Achille-Claude Debussy (he later reversed his forenames)[2] on
22 August 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. His father, Manuel-Achille Debussy, owned a china shop
there; his mother, Victorine Manoury Debussy, was a seamstress. The family moved to Paris in 1867, but in
1870 Debussy's pregnant mother fled with Claude to his paternal aunt's home in Cannes to escape the Franco-
Prussian War. At the age of seven, he began piano lessons with an Italian violinist in his early 40s named Jean

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Cerutti, and his aunt paid for his lessons. In 1871 he drew the attention of Marie
Maut de Fleurville,[8] who claimed to have been a pupil of Frdric Chopin.
Debussy always believed her, although there is no independent evidence to
support her claim.[9] His talents soon became evident, and in 1872, at age ten,
Debussy entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he spent the next 11 years.
During his time there he studied composition with Ernest Guiraud, music
history/theory with Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray, harmony with mile
Durand,[10] 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 a lifelong friend of fellow student and distinguished pianist
Isidor Philipp. After Debussy's death, many pianists sought Philipp's advice on
playing his works.

Musical development

Debussy was experimental from the outset, favouring dissonances and intervals Street where Debussy was
that were not taught at the Academy. Like Georges Bizet, he was a brilliant born
pianist and an outstanding sight reader, who could have had a professional
career had he so wished.[11] The pieces he played in public at this time included
sonata movements by Beethoven, Schumann and Weber, and Chopin's Ballade No. 2, a movement from the
Piano Concerto No. 1, and the Allegro de concert.[12]

During the summers of 1880, 1881, and 1882, he accompanied Nadezhda von Meck, the wealthy patroness of
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, as she travelled with her family in Europe. The young composer's many musical
activities during these vacations included playing four-hand pieces with von Meck at the piano, giving music
lessons to her children, and performing in private concerts with some of her musician friends.[13] Despite von
Meck's closeness to Tchaikovsky, the Russian master appears to have had minimal effect on Debussy. In
September 1880 she sent his 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, and the manuscript remained in the von
Meck family; it was eventually sold to B. Schott's Sohne in Mainz, and published by them in 1932.[14]

A greater influence was Debussy's close friendship with Marie-Blanche Vasnier, a singer he met when he began
working as an accompanist to earn some money, embarking on an eight-year affair together. She and her
husband, Parisian civil servant Henri, gave Debussy emotional and professional support. Henri 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 (the son-in-law of his former teacher Mme. Maut de Fleurville).

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 Marie-Blanche Vasnier, perhaps in part
designed to gain her sympathy, he found the artistic atmosphere stifling, the company boorish, the food bad, and
the monastic quarters "abominable".[15] Neither did he delight in Italian opera, as he found the operas 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, he 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 too enamoured of my freedom, too fond of my
own ideas!"[16]

Debussy finally composed four pieces that were sent to the Academy: the symphonic ode Zuleima (based on a

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text by Heinrich Heine); the orchestral piece Printemps; the cantata La

Damoiselle lue (18871888) (which was criticized by the Academy as
"bizarre", although it was the first piece in which the stylistic features of
his later style began to emerge); and the Fantaisie for piano and
orchestra, which was heavily based on Csar Franck's music and
therefore eventually withdrawn by Debussy. The Academy chided him
for "courting the unusual" and hoped for something better from the
gifted student. Although Debussy's works showed the influence of Jules
Massenet, Massenet concluded, "He is an enigma."[17]

Debussy at the Villa Medici in Rome, During his visits to

1885, at centre in the white jacket Pieces from Ariettes oublies
Bayreuth in 18889,
Debussy was No. 2: "Il pleure dans mon cur"
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exposed to Wagnerian opera, which would have a lasting 0:00

impact on his work. Like many young musicians of the time,

he responded positively to Richard Wagner's sensuousness, No 4: "Chevaux de bois"
mastery of form, and striking harmonies.[18] Wagner's 0:00 MENU
extroverted emotionalism was not to be Debussy's way, but
the German composer's influence is evident in La damoiselle No. 6: "Aquarelles II. Spleen"
lue and the 1889 piece Cinq pomes de Charles 0:00 MENU
Baudelaire. Other songs of the period, notably the settings All performed by Xiaobo Su, soprano;
of Verlaine Ariettes oublies, Trois mlodies, and Ftes Giorgi Latso, piano
galantes are all in a more capricious style.
Problems playing these files? See media help.
Around this time he met Erik Satie, who proved a kindred
spirit in his experimental approach to composition and to naming his pieces. Both musicians were bohemians
during this period, enjoying the same cafe society and struggling to stay afloat financially.[19]

In 1889, at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, Debussy first heard Javanese gamelan music. He incorporated
gamelan scales, melodies, rhythms, and ensemble textures into some of his compositions, most notably Pagodes
from his piano collection Estampes.[20]

Personal life
Debussy's private life was often turbulent. At the age of 18 he began an eight-
year affair with Marie-Blanche Vasnier, the wife of Parisian civil servant Henri
Vasnier. The relationship eventually faltered following his winning of the Prix de
Rome in 1884 and obligatory residence in Rome.

On his permanent return to Paris and his parents' home on the rue de Berlin
(now rue de Lige) he began a tempestuous relationship with Gabrielle ('Gaby')
Dupont, a tailor's daughter from Lisieux, soon living with her on the rue de
Londres, and later the rue Gustave Dor. During this time he also had an affair
with the singer Thrse Roger, to whom he was briefly engaged. Such cavalier
behaviour was widely condemned, and precipitated the end of his long
friendship with Ernest Chausson.
Debussy, by Marcel Baschet,
He ultimately left Dupont for her friend Rosalie ('Lilly') Texier, a fashion model 1884
whom he married in 1899, after threatening suicide if she refused him.[21]
However, although Texier was affectionate, practical, straightforward, and well liked by Debussy's friends and

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associates, he became increasingly irritated by her intellectual limitations and lack of musical sensitivity.
Moreover, her looks had prematurely aged, and she was unable to bear children.[22]

In 1904 Debussy was introduced to Emma Bardac, wife of Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac, by her son Raoul,
who was one of his students.[23] In contrast to Texier, Bardac was a sophisticate, a brilliant conversationalist,
and an accomplished singer. After dispatching Lilly to her father's home at Bichain in Villeneuve-la-Guyard on
15 July 1904, Debussy secretly took Bardac to Jersey for a holiday. On their return to France, he wrote to Texier
on 11 August from Dieppe, informing her that their marriage was over, but still making no mention of Bardac.
He briefly moved to an apartment at 10 avenue Alphand. On 14 October, five days before their fifth wedding
anniversary, Texier attempted suicide, shooting herself in the chest with a revolver 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
ensuing scandal was to alienate Debussy from many of his friends, whilst Bardac was disowned by her
family.[24]

In the spring of 1905, finding the hostility towards them intolerable, Debussy
and Bardac (now pregnant) fled to England, via Jersey.[26] Bardac's divorce was
finalized in May.[27] The couple settled at the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, from 24
July to 30 August 1905,[28] where Debussy corrected proofs to his symphonic
suite La mer,[4][24] celebrating his divorce from Texier on 2 August.

Debussy's last home, now 23
Square Avenue Foch,
Paris[25]
After a brief visit to London, the couple returned to Paris in September, buying a
house in a courtyard development off the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne (now
Avenue Foch) where Debussy resided for the rest of his life.[29] Their daughter
(the composer's only child) Claude-Emma was born there on 30 October.[24] Her
parents eventually married in 1908, their troubled union enduring until
Debussy's death in 1918. Claude-Emma, more affectionately known as
'Chouchou', was a great musical inspiration to the composer (she was the
dedicatee of his Children's Corner suite). Claude-Emma outlived her father by
scarcely a year, succumbing to the diphtheria epidemic of 1919 after her doctor
administered the wrong treatment.[30]

Mary Garden, who played the part of Melisande in the original production of Pellas et Mlisande in 1902, was
to write of him: "I honestly dont know if Debussy ever loved anybody really. He loved his music and perhaps
himself. I think he was wrapped up in his genius... He was a very, very strange man." [31]

Death
Debussy died of rectal cancer at his Paris home on 25 March 1918,[32] at
the age of 55. He had been diagnosed with the cancer in 1909[24] after
experiencing bleeding, and in December 1915 underwent one of the
earliest colostomy operations ever performed. The operation 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"). His death occurred in the midst of the aerial and artillery
bombardment of Paris during the German Spring Offensive of World
War I. The funeral procession made its way through deserted streets to
Pre Lachaise Cemetery as the German guns bombarded the city. The
Debussy's grave at Passy Cemetery in
military situation in France was critical, and did not permit the honour of
Paris
a public funeral with ceremonious graveside orations. His body was
reinterred the following year in the small Passy Cemetery sequestered

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behind the Trocadro, fulfilling his wish to rest "among the trees and the birds"; his wife and daughter are buried
with him.[27]

Music
Style

Rudolph Reti points out the following 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
Chords, featuring chromatically altered
unisons", described by some writers as non-functional
sevenths and ninths and progressing
harmonies;
3. Bitonality, or at least bitonal chords; unconventionally, explored by Debussy in a
4. Use of the whole-tone and pentatonic scale; "celebrated conversation at the piano with
5. Unprepared modulations, "without any harmonic bridge". his teacher Ernest Guiraud"[33]

He concludes that Debussy's achievement was the synthesis of

monophonic based "melodic tonality" with harmonies, albeit different from those of "harmonic tonality".[34]

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 the composer
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 [J.M.W.] Turner, the finest creator of mysterious effects in all the world
of art."[35]

List of works
List of compositions by Claude Debussy by genre
(with audio) Clair de Lune
List of compositions by Claude Debussy by Lesure 0:00 MENU

number (without audio) Composed in 1890, performed by

Laurens Goedhart in 2011 (5:04)
Early works Premire Arabesque (4:53)
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From the 1890s Debussy began to develop his own musical
language, which was largely independent of Wagner's style,
Deuxime Arabesque (4:00)
coloured in part from the dreamy, sometimes morbid
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romanticism of the Symbolist movement. He became a
frequent participant at Stphane Mallarm's Symbolist Both arabesques performed in 2016 by
Patrizia Prati on piano
gatherings, where Wagnerism dominated the discussion.
However, in contrast to the enormous works of Wagner and
other late romantic composers around this time, he chose to Problems playing these files? See media help.
write in smaller, more accessible forms.

The Deux arabesques is an example of one of his earliest works, already developing his musical language. Suite

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bergamasque (1890) recalls rococo decorousness with a modern

cynicism and puzzlement, and contains one of his most popular pieces,
Clair de Lune. His String Quartet in G minor (1893) paved the way for
his later more daring harmonic exploration, using the Phrygian mode as
well as less standard scales such as the whole-tone, which creates a
sense of floating, ethereal harmony. He was beginning to employ a
single, continuous theme, breaking away from the traditional ABA
form with its restatements and amplifications, which had been a
mainstay of classical music since Joseph Haydn.

Debussy wrote one of his most famous works under the influence of
Mallarm, the revolutionary Prlude l'aprs-midi d'un faune, which is
truly original in form and execution. In contrast to the large orchestras so
Debussy at the piano, in front of the favoured by late romanticism, he wrote this piece for a smaller
composer Ernest Chausson, 1893 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, but nevertheless established Debussy as one of the
leading composers of the era.

Middle works

The three Nocturnes (1899) include characteristic studies: in Nuages, using veiled harmony and texture; Ftes,
in exuberance; and Sirnes, using whole-tones. Debussy's only complete opera Pellas et Mlisande premiered
in 1902, after ten years of work, and contrasted sharply with Wagnerian 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.
The reviews were once again sharply divided. Some critics thought the treatment to be less subtle and less
mysterious than his previous works, and even a step backward, with Pierre Lalo complaining "I neither hear, nor
see, nor feel the sea." Others extolled its "power and charm", its "extraordinary verve and brilliant fantasy", and
its strong colors and definite lines.[36]

He wrote much for the piano during this period. His first volume of Images pour piano (19041905) combines
harmonic innovation with poetic suggestion: Reflets dans l'eau is a musical description of rippling water, while
the second piece Hommage Rameau is slow and yearningly nostalgic, taking a melody from Jean-Philippe
Rameau's 1737 Castor et Pollux as its inspiration.

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 result,
aiming for an evocation of the pentatonic structures employed by Javanese music.[37]

He wrote his famous Children's Corner Suite (1908) for his beloved daughter, Claude-Emma, whom he
nicknamed Chouchou. The suite recalls classicism the 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.

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The first book of Prludes (1910), twelve in total, proved to

Pieces from first book of Preludes
be his most successful work for piano. The Preludes are
frequently compared to those of Chopin. Debussy's preludes La fille aux cheveux de lin
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are replete with rich, unusual and daring harmonies. They 0:00

include the popular La fille aux cheveux de lin (The Girl Performed by Mike Ambrose
with the Flaxen Hair) and La Cathdrale Engloutie (The
La cathdrale engloutie
Engulfed Cathedral), although since he wanted people to
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respond intuitively to these pieces, their titles were placed at
the end of each one in the hope that listeners would not Performed by Ivan Ilic
make stereotype images as they listened.
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Larger scale works included his orchestral piece Iberia
(1907), a triptych medley of Spanish allusions and fleeting impressions which was begun as a work for two
pianos, 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 was otherwise touched only in relatively short piano pieces.

As Debussy's popularity increased, he was often engaged as a conductor throughout Europe during this period,
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, writing under the pseudonym "Monsieur
Croche". He avoided analytical dissection and attempts to force images from music, saying "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. He was for the most part enthusiastic about Richard Strauss[38]
and Stravinsky, and worshipful of Chopin and Bach, the latter being acknowledged as "the one great master."[39]
His relationship to Beethoven was a complex one; he was said to refer to him as "le vieux sourd" (the old deaf
one)[40] and adjured one young pupil never to play Beethoven's music for "it is like somebody dancing on my
grave."[40] It was said that "Debussy liked Mozart, and he believed that Beethoven had terrifically profound
things to say, but that he did not know how to say them, because he was imprisoned in a web of incessant
restatement and of German aggressiveness."[40] He also admired the works of Charles-Valentin Alkan.[41]
Schubert and Mendelssohn fared much worse, the latter being described as a "facile and elegant notary".[42]

Late works

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,[43] and the forms are far more irregular
and fragmented.[44] 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 his late music.

His two final volumes of works for the piano, the tudes (1915), interpret similar varieties of style and texture
purely as pianistic exercises, and include pieces that develop irregular form to an extreme, as well as others
influenced by the young Igor Stravinsky (a presence too in the suite En blanc et noir for two pianos, 1915).[45]
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 his death in 1918. He planned a set of six

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sonatas, but had only completed three (cello, flute-viola-harp, and violin) before
he died.

The final orchestral work by Debussy, the ballet Jeux (1912) written for Sergei
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, which
was composed in the same year as Jeux, and was 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 him with the Caplet and Debussy
orchestration of Gigues (from Images pour orchestre) and Le martyre de St.
Sbastien.[46]

The second set of Prludes for piano (1913) features Debussy at his most avant-garde, where he uses dissonant
harmonies to evoke specific moods and images. He consciously gives titles to each prelude which amplify the
preludes' tonal ambiguity and dissonance. He uses scales such as the whole tone scale, musical modes, and the
octatonic scale in his preludes which exaggerate this tonal ambiguity, making the key of each prelude almost
indistinguishable at times. The second book of Preludes for piano represents his strong interest in the indefinite
and esoteric.

Although Pellas was Debussy's only completed opera, he

Pieces from second book of Preludes
began several opera projects which remained unfinished,
perhaps due to his fading concentration, increasing Brouillards
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procrastination, and failing health. He had finished some 0:00

partial musical sketches and some unpublished libretti for

operas based on Poe's The Devil in the Belfry (Le diable Feuilles mortes
dans le beffroi, 1902?1912) and The Fall of the House of 0:00 MENU
Usher (La chute de la maison Usher, 19081917) as well as
considering projects for operas based on Shakespeare's As La puerta del Vino
You Like It and Joseph Bedier's La Legende de Tristan. 0:00 MENU

Further plans, such as an American tour, more ballet scores, Les fes sont d'exquises danseuses
and revisions of Chopin and Bach works for re-publication, 0:00 MENU
were all cut short by poor health and the outbreak of World
War I.
Bruyres

Mathematical structuring 0:00 / 0:00

Some people have contended that Debussy structured parts

of his music mathematically.[47][48] Roy Howat, for instance, Gnral Lavine eccentric
has published a book contending that Debussy's works are
0:00 / 0:00
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 La terrasse des audiences du clair de
sections that reflect the golden ratio, frequently by using the lune

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numbers of the standard Fibonacci sequence.[49]

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Influences
Ondine
Debussy's influences were wide-ranging. He acquired a taste
for parallel motion in fifths, fourths and octaves from 0:00 / 0:00
medieval music, and an appreciation for figuration and
arabesque from the Baroque masters. He especially had a
great love for the French clavier composers Couperin and Hommage S. Pickwick Esq.
Rameau, as well as J. S. Bach. Chopin and Liszt were also P.P.M.P.C.
powerful influences, not only in terms of pianistic layout and 0:00 / 0:00
harmonic ingenuity, but also because of their willingness to
create new forms to accommodate their material.
Canope
Among the Russian composers of his time, the most
prominent influences were Tchaikovsky, Balakirev, Rimsky- 0:00 / 0:00
Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky.[18][50] It can be inferred
that from the Russians "Debussy acquired his taste for
Les tierces alternes
ancient and oriental modes and for vivid colorations, and a
certain disdain for academic rules".[18] Mussorgsky's opera 0:00 / 0:00
Boris Godunov directly influenced one of Debussy's most
famous works, Pellas et Mlisande. In addition to the
Russian composers, one of Debussy's biggest influences was Feux d'artifice
Richard Wagner. According to Pierre Louys, Debussy "did
not see 'what anyone can do beyond Tristan.' "[18] 0:00 / 0:00

After Debussy's Wagner

phase, he started to become Problems playing these files? See media help.
immensely interested in non-
Western music and its unorthodox approaches to composition. Specifically, he
was drawn to the Javanese Gamelan:[51] a musical ensemble from the island of
Java that played an array of unique instrumentation, including gongs and
metallophones. He first heard the gamelan at the 1889 Paris Exposition. He was
not interested in directly quoting his non-Western influences, but instead
allowed this non-Western aesthetic to generally influence his own musical work,
for example, by frequently using quiet, unresolved dissonances, coupled with the
damper pedal, to emulate the "shimmering" effect created by a gamelan
ensemble.
Claude Debussy, by Donald
Sheridan 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. He was heavily influenced by
the French symbolist movement of the 1880s, which encompassed poetry, visual art, and theatre. He shared the
movement's interest in the esoteric and indefinite and their rejection of naturalism and realism. Specifically, "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."[18] He became personally acquainted with writers and painters of the
movement, and based some of his own works on those of the symbolists. The poet Stphane Mallarm was a
major influence, who in talking of "a 'musicalization' of poetry"[18] laid claim to a strong connection between
music and his own poetry. His Prlude l'aprs-midi d'un faune was directly influenced by Mallarm's poem
"Afternoon of a Faun". Like the symbolists in respect to their own art forms, Debussy aimed to reject common

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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, he believed he had much more to learn from
artists than from musicians, who were primarily interested in their musical careers.

Above all, Debussy was inspired by nature and the impression it made on the mind, making a pantheistic
profession of faith when he called "mysterious Nature" his religion. 'I do not practice religion in accordance with
the sacred rites. I have made mysterious Nature my religion. I do not believe that a man is any nearer to God for
being clad in priestly garments, nor that one place in a town is better adapted to meditation than another. When I
gaze at a sunset sky and spend hours contemplating its marvellous ever-changing beauty, an extraordinary
emotion overwhelms me. Nature in all its vastness is truthfully reflected in my sincere though feeble soul.
Around me are the trees stretching up their branches to the skies, the perfumed flowers gladdening the meadow,
the gentle grass-carpeted earth, ... and my hands unconsciously assume an attitude of adoration. ... To feel the
supreme and moving beauty of the spectacle to which Nature invites her ephemeral guests! ... that is what I call
prayer.'[52]

Contemporary painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler (who lived in France between 1855 and 1859) had a
profound influence on the composer. In 1894, Debussy wrote to violinist Eugne Ysae describing his
Nocturnes as "an experiment in the different combinations that can be obtained from one color what a study
in grey would be in painting."[53]

Influence on later composers

Debussy is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.[54] His innovative
harmonies were influential to almost every other major 20th-century composer, particularly Maurice Ravel, Igor
Stravinsky, Olivier Messiaen, Bla Bartk, Pierre Boulez, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Henri Dutilleux, Ned Rorem,
George Gershwin, and the minimalist music of Steve Reich and Philip Glass as well as the influential Japanese
composer Toru Takemitsu. He also influenced many jazz musicians, including Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke,
Branford Marsalis, and Steve Kuhn.[55] He also had a profound impact on modern soundtrack composers such
as John Williams, because Debussy's colourful and evocative style translated easily into an emotional language
for use in motion picture scores.

Eponyms
A number of posthumous discoveries bear Debussy's name. These
include:

Debussy Heights, a minor mountain range on Alexander Island,

Antarctica, which was discovered in 1960 including Ravel Peak
Debussy, an impact crater on Mercury which was discovered in
1969
Debussy, an Irish thoroughbred race horse A twenty-franc banknote from 1997,
4492 Debussy, a main belt asteroid which was discovered in 1988 depicting Debussy

Recordings
In 1904, Debussy participated in a handful of recordings made together with Scottish soprano Mary Garden. He
also made some piano rolls for Welte-Mignon in 1913.[56]

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1. Claude Debussy (http://www.forvo.com/search/debussy) pronunciation at Forvo.com
2. Born Achille-Claude Debussy, he was known as "Achille" during his student days, changed his forename
to "Claude-Achille" around 1890, and after 1894 was known simply as "Claude Debussy" (Fulcher, Jane
F. Debussy and His World (https://books.google.com/books?id=BDcOwiD4h6MC&pg=PA101). Princeton
University Press, 2001. p. 101.).
3. Politoske, Daniel T.; Martin Werner (1988). Music, Fourth Edition. Prentice Hall. p. 419.
ISBN 0-13-607616-5.
4. "Claude Debussy Biographie : 19031909 Centre de documentation Claude Debussy"
(http://www.debussy.fr/cdfr/bio/bio5_03-09.php). Debussy.fr. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
5. Claude Debussy Biography (http://www.allmusic.com/artist/claude-debussy-mn0000768781/biography)
at AllMusic
6. Schmitz, E. Robert. The Piano Works of Claude Debussy (https://books.google.com
/books?id=_r2fAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA23). Duell, Sloan & Pierce, 1950. pp. 2326.
7. Hartmann, Arthur; Hsu, Samuel; Grolnic, Sidney; Peters, Mark A. (2003). "Claude Debussy as I Knew
Him" and Other Writings of Arthur Hartmann (https://books.google.com/books?id=fp5pM0oiUucC).
Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 1-58046-104-2.
8. Leon Vallas (March 2007). Claude Debussy: His Life and Works (https://books.google.com
/books?id=shLCyqsb4qoC&pg=PA4). Lightning Source Inc. pp. 4. ISBN 978-1-4067-5912-9. Retrieved
27 April 2011.
9. David Mason Greene (2007). Greene's biographical encyclopedia of composers
(https://books.google.com/books?id=m3S7PIxe0mwC&pg=PA904). Reproducing Piano Roll Fnd.
pp. 904. ISBN 978-0-385-14278-6. Retrieved 27 April 2011.
10. "Centre de documentation Claude Debussy" (http://www.debussy.fr/encd/bio/bio1_62-82.php).
Debussy.fr. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
11. Harold C. Schonberg, The Great Pianists, p. 343
12. "Concerts where Debussy appeared as a pianist" (http://www.djupdal.org/karstein/debussy
/concerts.shtml). Djupdal.org. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
13. Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy: His Life and Mind, vol. 1, The Macmillan Company, 1962, pp 4047.
14. Alexander Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, p. 375
15. Thompson, p. 70
16. Thompson, p. 77
17. Thompson, p. 82
18. Franois Lesure and Roy Howat. "Debussy, Claude." (http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber
/article/grove/music/07353)Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 14 December 2009
19. Moore, Stephen (1999). Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall. Oxford University Press.
p. 172.
20. Brent Hugh. "Claude Debussy and the Javanese Gamelan" (http://brenthugh.com/debnotes/gamelan.html).
brenthugh.com. Retrieved 2 July 2014.
21. Nichols, R. (1998) The Life of Debussy. Cambridge University Press, 196 pages.
22. Orledge, R. 'Debussy the man', in Trezise, S. (ed.) (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Debussy. p.4.
Cambridge University Press, UK. ISBN 9780521654784
23. Leon Vallas (March 2007). Claude Debussy: His Life and Works (https://books.google.com
/books?id=shLCyqsb4qoC&pg=PA169). Lightning Source Inc. pp. 169. ISBN 978-1-4067-5912-9.
Retrieved 27 April 2011.
24. Diane Enget Moore (2005). Debussy in Jersey. The Centenary, 19042004 [1] (http://www.litart.co.uk/).
25. "23 Square Avenue Foch 75116 Paris, France" (https://maps.google.com
/maps?&q=23+Square+Avenue+Foch,+75116+Paris,+%C3%8Ele-de-France,+France). Google Maps.
Retrieved 11 June 2015.

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26. Claude Achille Debussy (http://www.rodoni.ch/opernhaus/pelleas/Debussy2.pdf) Archived

(https://web.archive.org/web/20150317060604/http://www.rodoni.ch/opernhaus/pelleas/Debussy2.pdf) 17
March 2015 at the Wayback Machine.
27. Simeone, N. (2000). Paris A musical Gazetteer. Yale University Press, USA.
28. Eastbourne Local Historian (Eastbourne Local History Society) Nr 157 (Autumn 2010).
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31. Garden, M. & Biancolli, L. (1951). Mary Garden's Story. 302 p. Simon & Schuster, New York.
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Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Columbia University Press. Retrieved 12 July 2010.
33. Edward Lockspeiser (1962). Debussy: His Life and Mind, p. 207. ISBN 0-304-91878-4 for Vol. 1. cited in
Roland Nadeau (1979), "Debussy and the Crisis of Tonality", p. 71, Music Educators Journal, Vol. 66,
No. 1 (September), pp. 6973.
34. Rudolph Reti, Tonality, Atonality, Pantonality, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-20478-0.
35. Thompson, p. 161
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Debussy
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/rec.music.classical.recordings/msg/df2590598c44ed9e?dmode=source&output=gplain&noredirect).
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42. Thompson, pp. 18085
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44. Mark McFarland, "Debussy: The Origins of a Method," Journal of Music Theory 48 no. 2 (Fall 2004):
295324
45. Mark McFarland, "Debussy and Stravinsky: Another Look into their Musical Relationship," Cahiers
Debussy 24 (2000): 79112
46. Barraqu, Jean (1977). Debussy (Solfges). Paris: Editions du Seuil. ISBN 2-02-000242-6.
47. "Golden Ratio" (http://web.hep.uiuc.edu/home/karliner/golden.html). Web.hep.uiuc.edu. Retrieved
22 August 2013.
48. [3] (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/oct/15/fibonacci-golden-ratio)
49. Howat, Roy (1983). Debussy in Proportion: A musical analysis. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 0-521-31145-4.
50. Poleshook, Oksana. 2011 Russian Musical Influences of The Five on piano and vocal works of Claude
Debussy LAP Lambert Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8443-1643-8
51. Ross, Alex (2008). The Rest Is Noise. London: Fourth Estate. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-84115-475-6.
52. Lon Vallas (1933). Claude Debussy: His Life and Works. Oxford University Press, H. Milford. p. 225.
53. Weintraub, Stanley. 2001. Whistler: A Biography (New York: Da Capo Press). ISBN 978-0-306-80971-2.
p. 351
54. The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time, p. 117 (https://books.google.com
/books?id=DbucAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA117) (Britannica Educational Publishing, Gini Gorlinski, ed., 2009).
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(https://books.google.com/books?id=DHiAPGOM7_EC&pg=PA3). Indiana University Press, 2012. pp.
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Claude Debussy - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy

56. "Steve's Debussy Page" (http://www.stevepur.com/music/debussy_plays.html). 1 November 1913.

Retrieved 10 December 2015.

Sources
Thompson, Oscar, Debussy: Man and Artist, Tudor Publishing Company, 1940.

Further reading
Fulcher, Jane (ed.) (2001). Debussy and His World (The Bard Music Festival). Princeton: Princeton
University Press. ISBN 0-691-09042-4.
Lcke, Hendrik (2005): Mallarm, Debussy: Eine vergleichende Studie zur Kunstanschauung am
Beispiel von L'Aprs-midi d'un Faune. Schriftenreihe Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 4. Hamburg: Dr.
Kovac. ISBN 3-8300-1685-9.
Nichols, Roger (1998). The Life of Debussy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521578875.
Parks, Richard S. (1989). The Music of Claude Debussy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
ISBN 978-0300044393.
Pasler, Jann (December 2013). "Debussey: the Man, his Music, and His Legacy: an overview of current
Research". Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association. 69 (2): 197216.
Poleshook, Oksana (2011). Russian Musical Influences of The Five on piano and vocal works of Claude
Debussy. LAP Lambert Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8443-1643-8.
Roberts, Paul (ed.) (2001). Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy. Amadeus Press.
ISBN 1-57467-068-9.
Roberts, Paul (ed.) (2007). Claude Debussy (20th Century Composers). Phaidon Press Ltd.
ISBN 0-7148-3512-9.
Ross, James. 1998. "Pellas et Mlisande: The 'Nouveau Prophete'? Crisis and Transformation: French
Opera, Politics and the Press" D.Phil. Thesis, Oxford University. pp. 164208.
Smith, Richard Langham, ed. (1997). Debussy Studies. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 978-0521460903.
Trezise, Simon (ed.) (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Debussy. Cambridge Companions to Music.
Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-65478-5.
Cobb, Margaret (ed.) (2005). Debussy's Letters to Inghelbrecht The Story of a Musical Friendship.
University of Rochester Press. ISBN 1-58046-174-3.
Miller, Richard (ed.) (Editor: Cobb, Margaret) (1982). Poetic Debussy 2nd Edition. University of
Rochester Press. ISBN 1-878822349.

External links
Claude Debussy (https://dmoztools.net/Arts/Music/Composition/Composers/D/Debussy%2C_Claude-
Achille/) at DMOZ
"Debussy material" (http://bbc.co.uk/debussy). BBC Radio 3 archives.
Claude Debussy (http://www.allmusic.com/artist/q7223) at AllMusic
Claude Debussy Catalogue chronologique (http://www.uquebec.ca/musique/catal/debussy/debccat.htm)
(in French)
Documentary film about Claude Debussy (http://debussypiano.com/)
Works by Claude Debussy (https://www.gutenberg.org/author/Debussy,+Claude) at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Claude Debussy (https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28+Debussy+%29) at
Internet Archive
Works by Claude Debussy (https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL152949A) at Open Library

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Claude Debussy - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy

Free scores by Claude Debussy (http://openmusiclibrary.org/person/27328/?content=score) in the Open

Music Library (http://openmusiclibrary.org)
Free scores by Claude Debussy at the International Music Score Library Project
Free scores by Claude Debussy in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)

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