Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy studied piano amongst others with Antoine Francois Marmontel, and composition with Ernest Guiraud (1837-1892) and César Franck. In 1884 he was awarded the Rome-Prize. After a two-year stay in Rome he settled in Paris but travelled regularly to places like Bayreuth, London, Italy, Russia and the Netherlands. Besides his own work as composer, Debussy performed as pianist and conductor, he arranged works of other composers and wrote numerous essays and reviews.
Debussy’s work heralds music’s transition from the 19th century to the expanded modes of expression of New Music. His early pieces mostly stand in the tradition of French music of the second half of the 19th century by composers like Alexis Emanuel Chabrier, Léo Delibes, Gabriel Fauré, Charles Gounod, Jules Massenet and Édouard Lalo as well as Robert Schumann and Fryderyk Chopin; his harmonics are influenced by Richard Wagner. Inspired by Symbolism in literature as well as Impressionism in painting his musical language also becomes more “impressionistic” during the years 1889 – 1903. Russian composers like Aleksander Borodin and Modest Mussorgsky as well as far-Eastern traditions with which he familiarized himself during the Paris World Exhibition 1889, further influenced his style. By denying that music is the expression of theoretical concepts he departs from the Romantic tradition, especially Wagner’s art. His acute sense of musical colour which he refines to reflect the most delicate nuances, as well as his highly differentiated rhythms, dynamics and variations in tempo are specific for his new “language”. His harmonics still remain within the traditional major/minor tonality, but they include dissonances, pentatonics, whole tone and church mode and often use parallel movements of chords for example in fourth, fifth, septimal and nones intervals. Motifs and themes lose importance in this kind of musical construction. The idiosyncrasies of his musical language seem virtually to abolish traditional ideas of consonance and tonality.
During his middle period, starting around 1903, the formal contours are more clearly modeled – especially by emphasizing melodic lines and an even more pronounced rhythm. This tendency is further developed in Debussy’s late works (from 1911/12). Even though one can discern a turn towards a new classicism, including a recourse to stylistic elements of works by French writers for the clavichord like Francois Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, Debussy’s late works unite various means of expressions such as parody, Jazz forms and expressionism.
Debussy’s work heralds music’s transition from the 19th century to the expanded modes of expression of New Music. His early pieces mostly stand in the tradition of French music of the second half of the 19th century by composers like Alexis Emanuel Chabrier, Léo Delibes, Gabriel Fauré, Charles Gounod, Jules Massenet and Édouard Lalo as well as Robert Schumann and Fryderyk Chopin; his harmonics are influenced by Richard Wagner. Inspired by Symbolism in literature as well as Impressionism in painting his musical language also becomes more “impressionistic” during the years 1889 – 1903. Russian composers like Aleksander Borodin and Modest Mussorgsky as well as far-Eastern traditions with which he familiarized himself during the Paris World Exhibition 1889, further influenced his style. By denying that music is the expression of theoretical concepts he departs from the Romantic tradition, especially Wagner’s art. His acute sense of musical colour which he refines to reflect the most delicate nuances, as well as his highly differentiated rhythms, dynamics and variations in tempo are specific for his new “language”. His harmonics still remain within the traditional major/minor tonality, but they include dissonances, pentatonics, whole tone and church mode and often use parallel movements of chords for example in fourth, fifth, septimal and nones intervals. Motifs and themes lose importance in this kind of musical construction. The idiosyncrasies of his musical language seem virtually to abolish traditional ideas of consonance and tonality.
During his middle period, starting around 1903, the formal contours are more clearly modeled – especially by emphasizing melodic lines and an even more pronounced rhythm. This tendency is further developed in Debussy’s late works (from 1911/12). Even though one can discern a turn towards a new classicism, including a recourse to stylistic elements of works by French writers for the clavichord like Francois Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, Debussy’s late works unite various means of expressions such as parody, Jazz forms and expressionism.