Debussy in 1910: although by this time an established composer, he was plagued by debt and poor health.
The most influential French composer of the 20th century, Debussy actually lived most of his life in the 19th century. Achille-Claude Debussy was born on August 22, 1862, in St. Germain-en-Laye, just west of Paris, where his parents ran a china shop. The family moved into Paris itself when Debussy was still an infant, and that city would remain Debussy’s home for much of his life, from the turbulent period of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), through the cultural blossoming and social upheaval of the period known as “La Belle Epoque,” to the grim catastrophe of World War I (1914–18).
The Debussy family was poor, but a prosperous aunt was able to pay for the young Claude’s first piano lessons. His teacher was Mauté de Fleurville, a lady who claimed to have been a pupil of Chopin (1810–49), and who was mother-in-law to the poet Paul Verlaine. She proved an excellent teacher; so much so, that, at the very early age of ten, Debussy won a place at the prestigious Paris Conservatoire. Two years later, he was already able to play Chopin’s notoriously difficult Concerto in F Minor, and he seemed set for a career as a virtuoso pianist. However, in 1880, at age 18, he abandoned his piano studies and joined the Conservatoire’s composition classes, where he proved a brilliant if rebellious student. In 1884, he won the coveted Prix de Rome for composition, with his cantata L’enfant prodigue (“The prodigal son”)—for once, he had taken care not to upset the jury with too many radical ideas.
His prize entitled him to three years’ residence at the Villa Medici in Rome to give him the opportunity to compose. But he was deeply unhappy there, and returned to Paris after only two years.
Paris in the late 1880s and 1890s was a ferment of new musical, literary and artistic ideas. In his native city, Debussy absorbed many disparate influences, including the exotic sounds of a Javanese GAMELAN ensemble that he heard at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1889; the Symbolist poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine; the Impressionist paintings of Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir; the decorative nuances of Art Nouveau; and the graphic simplicity of Japanese prints.
Debussy in 1910: although by this time an established composer, he was plagued by debt and poor health.
In this hothouse of influences, Debussy’s own unique musical style began to emerge tentatively. The symphonic suite Printemps (“Spring”) of 1887 was the first of his works to attract criticism for its “vague impressionism.” It was followed by works such as the cantata La demoiselle élue (“The blessed damozel”), written in 1887 and performed in 1893— causing a minor scandal because he had not added the usual overture—and the Suite Bergamasque of 1890, which includes the beautiful and well-loved piece “Clair de lune” (“Moonlight”). In 1894, came the radically new String Quartet, whose harmonies and rhythms would influence such 20th-century composers as Anton WEBERN and Béla BARTÓK.
This early creative period coincided, ironically, with a time of personal turmoil. In 1889, he began a long-term affair with Gabrielle Dupont. Their relationship was often turbulent due mostly to financial circumstances. In 1892, he befriended composer Ernest Chausson and through him met Thérèse Roger. Debussy left Dupont and became engaged to Thérèse Roger in 1894. The engagement, however, was short-lived and Debussy returned to Dupont. Chausson, angered at Debussy’s behaviour, ended their friendship.
Yet in the midst of these complicated emotional entanglements, Debussy wrote an orchestral master-piece, the prelude L’après-midi d’un faune (“The afternoon of a faun”), one of the great turning points in the history of music. Its inspiration was a poem (1876) by Mallarmé describing the daydreams of a faun who drowses through the heat of a summer afternoon. In the poem, Mallarmé used words and phrases to suggest moods and feelings rather than actually describe a scene or event. Debussy’s music does much the same thing. He opens with what is perhaps the most famous flute solo in concert music—the soft sound of the instrument evoking a languorous, relaxed mood. As the piece proceeds, the other instruments of the orchestra—from the rich woodwind section to the scant five notes of two antique cymbals—open up an entirely new world of sound. Despite the revolutionary nature of the work, it was a popular and critical success, although Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)—a composer who belonged to the previous generation—described it “as much a piece of music as the palette a painter has worked from is a painting.” Pierre BOULEZ, writing half a century later, however, said that “modern music was awakened by L’après-midi d’un faune.”
Other examples of orchestral mood painting followed. The most remarkable of his three Nocturnes (1897–98) is probably the first, “Nuages” (“Clouds”), whose string- and horn-based textures are suggestive of clouds slowly drifting across the sky—the melancholy mood reflective, perhaps, of Debussy’s despair over his relationship with Dupont, who had attempted suicide in 1897. La mer (“The Sea”), written in 1903–05, is subtitled “Three Symphonic Sketches,” and is the closest that Debussy came to writing a symphony. Its three movements capture, in a kaleidoscope of orchestral sound and harmony, every image and mood of the sea, from dead calm to raging storm.
La mer was written near the close of another tumultuous emotional time for Debussy. He had married Rosalie (Lily) Texier in 1897, a friend of Dupont, but the couple separated in 1904 when Debussy moved in with Emma Bardac, who was married at the time to a banker. The relationship caused such a scandal that Debussy lost many of his friends. To escape the condemnation of Paris, Debussy and Emma spent the first six months of 1905 travelling in England. Later that year, the couple returned to Paris and Emma gave birth to Debussy’s daughter. Three years later, the couple married, remaining together until his death.
In the early 1890s, Debussy confided to one of his teachers at the Conservatoire that he thought there was too much music in opera. In his own only completed opera, therefore, he strove above all for economy and simplicity, introducing a new psychological depth to the form to expose, in Debussy’s words, “the naked flesh of emotion.” Pelléas et Mélisande, on which Debussy worked for almost a decade (1893–1902), was based on the 1892 play of the same name by Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck. Nothing could be further from the spectacular and “noisy” operas of Wagner and Verdi: the plot is simple; the orchestration is sparing; and there are no great arias or choruses.
Unlike L’après-midi d’un faune, Pelléas et Mélisande (first performed in 1902, at the Paris Opéra-Comique) met with critical and public hostility and incomprehension—in fact the director of the Paris Conservatoire, Théodore Dubois, went so far as to forbid his music students from seeing it. However, the reaction was not all bad, for a few who heard the opera Debussy had created the musical masterpiece of the Symbolist movement.
During the controversy surrounding Pelléas et Mélisande, Debussy was not only able to distance himself from the criticism but he was able to write piano music that was every bit as visionary and evocative as was his music for the concert hall and opera house. These short pieces, collected together in volumes that included Estampes (“Engravings,” 1903), Images (1905–07), and Préludes (1910–13), create an enchanting world of musical moods and impressions, of places, effects, and people. “Jardins sous la pluie” (“Gardens in the rain”) from Estampes, “Poissons d’or” (“Goldfish”) from Images, and “Feux d’artifices” (“Fireworks”) from Préludes, are popularly considered to be examples of musical Impressionism. Pieces like “Des pas sur la neige” (“Footsteps in the snow”) and “Feuilles mortes” (“Dead leaves”), again from the Préludes, are penetrating studies in mood music; while others such as “La Fille aux cheveux de lin” (“The girl with the flaxen hair”) and “General Lavine—eccentric,” both from Préludes, are intelligently observed portraits in sound. Piano compositions such as these, with their new, bold use of the pedals, their wide distribution of notes (now bunched together; now at the extreme ends of the keyboard), and their wide-ranging dynamics, revolutionised the whole technique of playing and composing for the piano.
During these years, Debussy was at the height of his creative powers. In 1903, he accepted the Legion of Honour from the French government in recognition of his contribution to music, and in 1908 he was appointed a member of the advisory board of the Paris Conservatoire. Tragically, however, Debussy was also ill with rectal cancer, the effects of which seemed to worsen with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Nevertheless, his last group of compositions show that his creative mind was as active as ever. En blanc et noir (“In white and black,” 1915) for two pianos; the Cello Sonata (1915) and Violin Sonata (1917); and the Etudes (“Studies,” 1915), show him moving toward a more abstract, less Impressionistic form of composition.
The Violin Sonata was Debussy’s final composition. He died on March 25, 1918, just as the last great German offensive of the war was approaching the outskirts of Paris. Consequently, few people were able to attend the funeral of the composer who had humbly but patriotically called himself musicien français (“a musician of France”).
Debussy has often been called a musical Impressionist. Some of his compositions do sound something like the musical equivalent of paintings by Impressionist painters such as Claude Monet or Pierre-Auguste Renoir, with their allusions to wind, rain, tempest, reflections in water, and bright sunlight. But Debussy himself did not much care for this view of his music. He was, in fact, much closer in spirit to the Symbolists in wanting his music to go far beyond mere pictorial effect. By the use of radical and unconventional musical elements, he hoped to engage the emotions and imagination of the listener. Inspired by the myriad sensations conjured up by the weather, the landscape, and particularly seascapes, Debussy interwove musical colours and textures with unconventional harmonies and rhythms to create an avant-garde music that upset the musical establishment of his day.
Debussy broke nearly every textbook rule, and at the same time created one of the most original and subtle styles of composition in the whole history of music. His notions of harmony, timbre, and rhythm, and even his bold use of silence as part of the musical effect, have had an unsurpassed influence on 20th-century music. Composers indebted to him include not only symphonic composers (from Bartók to John CAGE and Karlheinz STOCKHAUSEN) but also jazz musicians such as Gary BURTON and Bix BEIDERBECKE.
Alan Blackwood
SEE ALSO:
BALLET AND MODERN DANCE MUSIC; IMPRESSIONISM IN MUSIC; OPERA; ORCHESTRAL MUSIC; RAVEL, MAURICE; SATIE, ERIK; STRAVINSKY, IGOR; VOCAL AND CHORAL MUSIC
FURTHER READING
Parks, Richard S. The Music of Claude Debussy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989);
Roberts, Paul. Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy (Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1996);
Thompson, Wendy. Claude Debussy (New York: Viking, 1993).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Cello Sonata; Deux arabesques; En blanc et noir; Estampes; Etudes; Images; Nocturnes (“Nuages,” “Fêtes,” “Sirènes,” 1994); Pelléas et Mélisande; Petite Suite; Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune; String Quartet; Suite Bergamasque; Syrinx; Violin Sonata.