Claude Debussy 20th Century Composers

An intimate biography of this innovative and troubled composer.

Collects the essays and reviews of the great French composer, together with interviews with him, in which he comments on the composers and musical events of his day and on his own philosophy of music.

These 24 works reveal Debussy's genius: "La Cathedrale engloutie," "Ondine," "La fille aux cheveux de lin," "Feuilles mortes," "Ce qu'a vu le Vent d'Ouest," many more. Glossary of French terms.

"The thesis of this book may be simply stated: Debussy's importance lies in his contribution to the central issues of twentieth-century music. Debussy's influence was not limited to a few new idioms which lesser composers could imitate. Rather, Debussy's music offered a new way of thinking about music in general. His greatest influence has been not on his immediate contemporaries but on composers since 1945, when a revolution in thinking about musical time permitted a truer evaluation of Debussy's achievement and a new exploration of his tonal resources. The liberation of the musical moment, the new emphasis on timbre, and the concept of rhythm as duration rather than relation, all depend on Debussy's work, as contemporary composers have demonstrated both in their remarks about music and in their interest in reanalyzing Debussy's late music in light of contemporary techniques. Our picture of Debussy has come full circle. Perceived as a radical composer in the 1890s, as a charming, but minor, figure in the decades following his death, Debussy now emerges as a true revolutionary whose subtle overturning of musical conventions has had as great an effect on the music of our time as the more celebrated revolutions of Stravinsky and Schoenberg." --Preface.

Beginning with Deux Arabesques (1888), this excellent collection also includes Suite bergamasque (1890-1905), Masques (1904), the first series of Images, and 12 others, all in corrected editions.

Debussy's life is of extraordinary interest because, like Wagner and Stravinsky, he crossed artistic boundaries, associating as much with poets and artists as with musicians. His father was active in the 1871 Paris Commune and the composer's childhood was thus unsettled, his musical preparation erratic, and his subsequent lifestyle somewhat bohemian by the bourgeois norms of the French musical establishment. He never went to a proper school, but was enough of a pianist to enter the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 10. Whilst still a student he rebelled against the academy-taught "rules of composition" and constructed a language of his own, in constant rebellion against the heavy Wagnerian influence prevalent at that time.In the early 1900s he worked in Paris as a music critic. His own music during these years includes some of the greatest and most influential works of the early twentieth century: the opera Pelléas et Mélisande, his orchestral masterpieces La Mer and Images, a series of profoundly original piano works (including two books of Préludes), and the ballet Jeux, premiered in Diaghilev's 1913 season just before Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (which Debussy attended). His later years were plagued by the rectal cancer that eventually killed him in 1918. But he continued to compose until 1917This was a period of political and cultural turmoil in French life, the Franco-Prussian war and its aftermath, the Dreyfus affair with its religious and military undercurrents, the general instability of the Third Republic, and the First World War. Stephen Walsh's study combines chronological biography with a contextualised picture placing Debussy in the broad artistic and social environment of turn-of-the-century France, making this a significant contribution to the cultural history of the time.

Claude-Achille Debussy (1862 – 1918) was a seminal French composer. He is considered to be one of the most important pioneers of Impressionist music and was among the most popular composers during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Debussy's work is famous for its sensory style and use of unconventional tonalities. Featuring large, clear note heads and wide margins, this edition is perfect for studying and following the music. Classic Music Collection constitutes an extensive library of the most well-known and universally-enjoyed works of classical music ever composed, reproduced from authoritative editions for the enjoyment of musicians and music students the world over.