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113-444: ( Achille ) Claude Debussy ( French: [aʃil klod dəbysi] ; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born to a family of modest means and little cultural involvement, Debussy showed enough musical talent to be admitted at

226-482: A 1908 letter he wrote "imbeciles call [what I am trying to write in Images ] 'impressionism', a term employed with the utmost inaccuracy, especially by art critics who use it as a label to stick on Turner , the finest creator of mystery in the whole of art!") and Ravel displayed discomfort with it, at one point claiming that it could not be adequately applied to music at all. Debussy's Impressionist works typically "evoke

339-411: A 1911 interview with Henry Malherbe : I have made mysterious Nature my religion ... 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

452-645: 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 ), Debussy's home for the rest of his life. 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

565-424: A contrary view that the accolade belongs to the ballet score Jeux . The latter failed as a ballet because of what Jann Pasler describes as a banal scenario, and the score was neglected for some years. 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. In this piece, Debussy abandoned

678-637: A decade director of the European Academy of Music (French: Académie européenne de musique ) at the Aix-en-Provence Festival , was appointed as the Conservatoire's first woman director on 14 December 2019. Currently, the conservatories train more than 1,200 students in structured programs, with 350 professors in nine departments. A concert hall, designed by the architect François-Jacques Delannoy  [ fr ] ,

791-410: A deeper sort". In a 2004 study, Mark DeVoto comments that Debussy's early works are harmonically no more adventurous than existing music by Fauré; in a 2007 book about the piano works, Margery Halford observes that Two Arabesques (1888–1891) and "Rêverie" (1890) have "the fluidity and warmth of Debussy's later style" but are not harmonically innovative. Halford cites the popular "Clair de Lune" (1890),

904-482: A diploma. Historically, students who failed to pass the exam on the first attempt would return for another one to two years additional study and try a second time. A student failing to earn either level diploma after two additional attempts would be terminated from the program. CNSMDP moved to its new facilities in the Cité de la Musique in September 1990. After over two centuries of male directors, Émilie Delorme , for

1017-453: A five-act musical play to a text by Gabriele D'Annunzio that took nearly five hours in performance, was not a success, and the music is now more often heard in a concert (or studio) adaptation with narrator, or as an orchestral suite of "Fragments symphoniques". Debussy enlisted the help of André Caplet in orchestrating and arranging the score. Two late stage works, the ballets Khamma (1912) and La boîte à joujoux (1913), were left with

1130-463: A flat in a different arrondissement . On 14 October, five days before their fifth wedding anniversary, Lilly Debussy attempted suicide, shooting herself in the chest with a revolver; she survived, although the bullet remained lodged in her vertebrae for the rest of her life. The ensuing scandal caused Bardac's family to disown her, and Debussy lost many good friends including Dukas and Messager. His relations with Ravel, never close, were exacerbated when

1243-410: A great blow when another turn in his private life caused a scandal the following year. One of his pupils was Raoul Bardac , son of Emma and her husband, Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac. Raoul introduced his teacher to his mother, to whom Debussy quickly became greatly attracted. She was sophisticated, a brilliant conversationalist, an accomplished singer, and relaxed about marital fidelity, having been

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1356-511: A job as pianist in the household of Nadezhda von Meck , the patroness of Tchaikovsky . He travelled with her family for the summers of 1880 to 1882, staying at various places in France, Switzerland and Italy, as well as at her home in Moscow. He composed his Piano Trio in G major for von Meck's ensemble, and made a transcription for piano duet of three dances from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake . At

1469-477: A kind of art, in fact, which seemed to reach out into all aspects of experience". In 1988 the composer and scholar Wilfrid Mellers wrote of Debussy: Because of, rather than in spite of, his preoccupation with chords in themselves, he deprived music of the sense of harmonic progression, broke down three centuries' dominance of harmonic tonality, and showed how the melodic conceptions of tonality typical of primitive folk-music and of medieval music might be relevant to

1582-699: A mood, feeling, atmosphere, or scene" by creating musical images through characteristic motifs, harmony, exotic scales (e.g., whole-tone and pentatonic scales), instrumental timbre, large unresolved chords (e.g., 9ths, 11ths, 13ths), parallel motion, ambiguous tonality, extreme chromaticism, heavy use of the piano pedals, and other elements. “The perception of Debussy’s compositional language as decidedly post-romantic/Impressionistic—nuanced, understated, and subtle—is firmly solidified among today’s musicians and well-informed audiences." Some Impressionist composers, Debussy and Ravel in particular, are also labeled as symbolist composers . One trait shared with both aesthetic trends

1695-576: A more restrained style. 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". The musicologist Jacques-Gabriel Prod'homme wrote that, together with La Demoiselle élue , the Ariettes oubliées and the Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire (1889) show "the new, strange way which

1808-502: A new ballet score, Jeux . That, and the three Images , premiered the following year, were the composer's last orchestral works. Jeux was unfortunate in its timing: two weeks after the premiere, in March 1913, Diaghilev presented the first performance of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring , a sensational event that monopolised discussion in musical circles, and effectively sidelined Jeux along with Fauré's Pénélope , which had opened

1921-565: A pedagogic exterior, these 12 pieces explore abstract intervals, or – in the last five – the sonorities and timbres peculiar to the piano." In 1914 Debussy started work on a planned set of six sonatas for various instruments . His fatal illness prevented him from completing the set, but those for cello and piano (1915), flute, viola and harp (1915), and violin and piano (1917 – his last completed work) are all concise, three-movement pieces, more diatonic in nature than some of his other late works. Le Martyre de saint Sébastien (1911), originally

2034-613: A printing factory. In 1870, to escape the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War , Debussy's pregnant mother took him and his sister Adèle to their paternal aunt's home in Cannes , where they remained until the following year. During his stay in Cannes, the seven-year-old Debussy had his first piano lessons; his aunt paid for him to study with an Italian musician, Jean Cerutti. Manuel Debussy remained in Paris and joined

2147-403: A prominent civil servant, and much younger than her husband. She soon became Debussy's lover as well as his muse. Whether Vasnier was content to tolerate his wife's affair with the young student or was simply unaware of it is not clear, but he and Debussy remained on excellent terms, and he continued to encourage the composer in his career. At the Conservatoire, Debussy incurred the disapproval of

2260-443: A railway station, and, once inside, would mistake it for a Turkish bath"), conductors (" Nikisch is a unique virtuoso, so much so that his virtuosity seems to make him forget the claims of good taste"), musical politics ("The English actually think that a musician can manage an opera house successfully!"), and audiences ("their almost drugged expression of boredom, indifference and even stupidity"). He later collected his criticisms with

2373-614: A superfluous note"; Pierre Boulez observed, "Modern music was awakened by Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune ". Most of the major works for which Debussy is best known were written between the mid-1890s and the mid-1900s. They include the String Quartet (1893), Pelléas et Mélisande (1893–1902), the Nocturnes for Orchestra (1899) and La mer (1903–1905). The suite Pour le piano (1894–1901) is, in Halford's view, one of

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2486-546: A view to their publication as a book; it was published after his death as Monsieur Croche, Antidilettante . In January 1902 rehearsals began at the Opéra-Comique for the opening of Pelléas et Mélisande . For three months, Debussy attended rehearsals practically every day. In February there was conflict between Maeterlinck on the one hand and Debussy, Messager and Carré on the other about the casting of Mélisande. Maeterlinck wanted his mistress, Georgette Leblanc , to sing

2599-438: A week before. In 1915 Debussy underwent one of the earliest colostomy operations. It achieved only a temporary respite, and occasioned him considerable frustration ("There are mornings when the effort of dressing seems like one of the twelve labours of Hercules"). He also had a fierce enemy at this period in the form of Camille Saint-Saëns , who in a letter to Fauré condemned Debussy's En blanc et noir : "It's incredible, and

2712-424: A year, succumbing to the diphtheria epidemic of 1919. Mary Garden said, "I honestly don't know if Debussy ever loved anybody really. He loved his music – and perhaps himself. I think he was wrapped up in his genius", but biographers are agreed that whatever his relations with lovers and friends, Debussy was devoted to his daughter. Debussy and Emma Bardac eventually married in 1908, their troubled union enduring for

2825-473: Is La Damoiselle élue , recasting the traditional form for oratorios and cantatas, using a chamber orchestra and a small body of choral tone and using new or long-neglected scales and harmonies. 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

2938-659: Is "a sense of detached observation: rather than expressing deeply felt emotion or telling a story"; as in symbolist poetry , the normal syntax is usually disrupted and individual images that carry the work's meaning are evoked. In 1912, the French composer Ernest Fanelli (1860–1917) received significant attention and coverage in the Parisian press following a performance of a symphonic poem he wrote in 1886, titled Thèbes , incorporating elements associated with Impressionism, such as extended chords and whole-tone scales . Ravel

3051-412: Is also associated with Impressionism, and his tone poem The Swan of Tuonela (1893) predates Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (regarded as a seminal work of musical Impressionism) by a year. The American composer Howard Hanson also borrowed from both Sibelius and Impressionism generally in works such as his Second Symphony . One of the most important tools of musical Impressionism

3164-560: Is an independent thinker: that is to say, there is much we can expect from him, and it is with joy that we welcome his nomination." Fauré appointed forward-thinking representatives (such as Debussy, Paul Dukas , and André Messager ) to the governing council, loosened restrictions on repertoire, and added conducting and music history to the courses of study. Widor's composition students during this period included Darius Milhaud , Arthur Honegger , and Germaine Tailleferre . Other students included Lili Boulanger and Nadia Boulanger . New to

3277-486: Is not certain that Debussy, who was apt to skip classes, actually attended these. At the Conservatoire, Debussy initially made good progress. Marmontel said of him, "A charming child, a truly artistic temperament; much can be expected of him". Another teacher was less impressed: Émile Durand wrote in a report, "Debussy would be an excellent pupil if he were less sketchy and less cavalier." A year later he described Debussy as "desperately careless". In July 1874 Debussy received

3390-627: Is the use of "color", or in musical terms, timbre , which can be achieved through orchestration , harmonic usage, texture, etc. Other elements of musical Impressionism also involve new chord combinations, ambiguous tonality , extended harmonies , use of modes and exotic scales, parallel motion , extra-musicality , and evocative titles such as “ Reflets dans l'eau ” (“Reflections on the water”), “ Brouillards ” (“Mists”), etc. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are two leading figures in Impressionism, though Debussy rejected this label (in

3503-574: The 19th arrondissement of Paris as part of the Cité de la Musique , designed by Christian de Portzamparc . The new facilities were inaugurated in 1990. The organ on site was built in 1991 by the Austrian Rieger Orgelbau firm . It has 53 stops on 3 manuals and pedals. A larger organ of over 7,000 pipes with 91 stops was made in 2015 by the same company for the symphony hall of the nearby Philharmonie de Paris . A list of former students can be found at List of former students of

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3616-647: The Fantaisie for piano and orchestra, which was heavily based on Franck's music and was eventually withdrawn by Debussy. The Academy chided him for writing music that was "bizarre, incomprehensible and unperformable". Although Debussy's works showed the influence of Jules Massenet , the latter concluded, "He is an enigma". During his years in Rome Debussy composed – not for the Academy – most of his Verlaine cycle, Ariettes oubliées , which made little impact at

3729-466: The Menus-Plaisirs du Roi , proposed that Niccolò Piccinni should be appointed director of a future École Royale de Chant (Royal School of Singing). The school was instituted by a decree of 3 January 1784 and opened on 1 April with the composer François-Joseph Gossec as the provisional director. Piccinni refused the directorship, but did join the faculty as a professor of singing. The new school

3842-604: The Paris Conservatory , is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris ( CNSMDP ), it is situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris , France. The Conservatoire offers instruction in music and dance, drawing on the traditions of the 'French School'. Formerly the conservatory also included drama, but in 1946 that division

3955-603: The Symbolist poetic movement of the later 19th century. A small number of works, including the early La Damoiselle élue and the late Le Martyre de saint Sébastien have important parts for chorus. In his final years, he focused on chamber music, completing three of six planned sonatas for different combinations of instruments . With early influences including Russian and Far Eastern music and works by Chopin , Debussy developed his own style of harmony and orchestral colouring, derided – and unsuccessfully resisted – by much of

4068-461: The Trocadéro , fulfilling his wish to rest "among the trees and the birds"; his wife and daughter are buried with him. In a survey of Debussy's oeuvre shortly after the composer's death, the critic Ernest Newman wrote, "It would be hardly too much to say that Debussy spent a third of his life in the discovery of himself, a third in the free and happy realisation of himself, and the final third in

4181-459: The concours , has required students, at the end of their course of study, to perform in public a prepared set of musical pieces for a jury consisting of the professors and internationally renowned professionals on the particular instrument, the composer of the solo de concours, and the Director. Behind closed doors, the candidates would be given additional tasks to perform such as sight-reading. In

4294-571: The golden ratio , which is approximated by ratios of consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci sequence . Simon Trezise, in his 1994 book Debussy: La Mer , finds the intrinsic evidence "remarkable", with the caveat that no written or reported evidence suggests that Debussy deliberately sought such proportions. Lesure takes a similar view, endorsing Howat's conclusions while not taking a view on Debussy's conscious intentions. Impressionism in music The most prominent feature in musical Impressionism

4407-561: The whole-tone scale he had often favoured previously in favour of the octatonic scale with what the Debussy scholar François Lesure describes as its tonal ambiguities. Among the late piano works are two books of Préludes (1909–10, 1911–13), short pieces that depict a wide range of subjects. Lesure comments that they range from the frolics of minstrels at Eastbourne in 1905 and the American acrobat "General Lavine" "to dead leaves and

4520-459: The 14 performances in the first run), were loud in their support; the conservative faculty of the Conservatoire tried in vain to stop its students from seeing the opera. The vocal score was published in early May, and the full orchestral score in 1904. 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

4633-506: 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. It influenced composers as different as Stravinsky and Puccini . Orledge describes the Nocturnes as exceptionally varied in texture, "ranging from

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4746-587: The 20th century, the candidates were judged against a standard, and those who demonstrated outstanding mastery and artistry receive the Premier Prix , the equivalent of a diploma with high honor. Those who earned Deuxieme Prix, also received a diploma but could elect to remain to try again a year later for the top prize. Two lesser levels of distinction existed, the Premier Accessit and Deuxieme Accessit , equivalent to Honorable Mentions but without

4859-619: The Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP). Delvincourt was succeeded by Dupré in 1954, Raymond Loucheur in 1956, Raymond Gallois-Montbrun in 1962, Marc Bleuse in 1984, and Alain Louvier in 1986. Plans to move CNSMDP to more modern facilities in the Parc de la Villette were initiated under Bleuse and completed under Louvier. The tradition of the final or exit examination,

4972-565: The Conservatoire de Musique under the direction of Sarrette . The combined organization remained in the facilities on the rue Bergère. The first 351 pupils commenced their studies in October 1796. By 1800, the staff of the Conservatory included some of the most important names in music in Paris, including, besides Gossec, the composers Luigi Cherubini , Jean-François Le Sueur , Étienne Méhul , and Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny , as well as

5085-561: The Conservatoire de Paris on the rue du Conservatoire at rue Sainte-Cécile in the 9th arrondissement of Paris . Free public performances by students at the CNSAD are given frequently in the Conservatory of Music's former theatre. The music and dance divisions of the Conservatoire de Paris are now officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP) (National Superior Conservatory of Paris for Music and Dance). The French government built its new campus in

5198-510: The Conservatoire first applied it, opprobriously, to his early work Printemps . Langham Smith comments that Debussy wrote many piano pieces with titles evocative of nature – "Reflets dans l'eau" (1905), "Les Sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir" (1910) and "Brouillards" (1913) – and suggests that the Impressionist painters' use of brush-strokes and dots is paralleled in the music of Debussy. Although Debussy said that anyone using

5311-508: The Conservatoire was ruled by Nazi Germany and the collaborationist Vichy government during the Occupation of France of 1940–1944. Under the regime's antisemitic policies , Conservatoire administrators alternated between actively collaborating to purge the school of Jewish students (in the case of Rabaud) or working to conceal and protect Jewish students and faculty (in the case of Rabaud's successor, Claude Delvincourt ). Delvincourt

5424-583: The Musorgskian start of 'Nuages', through the approaching brass band procession in 'Fêtes', to the wordless female chorus in 'Sirènes ' ". Orledge considers the last a pre-echo of the marine textures of La mer . Estampes for piano (1903) gives impressions of exotic locations, with further echoes of the gamelan in its pentatonic structures. Debussy believed that since Beethoven, the traditional symphonic form had become formulaic, repetitive and obsolete. The three-part, cyclic symphony by César Franck (1888)

5537-613: The age of ten to France's leading music college, the Conservatoire de Paris . 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 . Debussy's orchestral works include Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894), Nocturnes (1897–1899) and Images (1905–1912). His music

5650-415: The award of deuxième accessit for his performance as soloist in the first movement of Chopin's Second Piano Concerto at the Conservatoire's annual competition. He was a fine pianist and an outstanding sight reader , who could have had a professional career had he wished, but he was only intermittently diligent in his studies. He advanced to premier accessit in 1875 and second prize in 1877, but failed at

5763-828: The committee of the Société Nationale de Musique in 1893. His String Quartet was premiered by the Ysaÿe string quartet at the Société Nationale in the same year. In May 1893 Debussy attended a theatrical event that was of key importance to his later career – the premiere of Maurice Maeterlinck 's play Pelléas et Mélisande , which he immediately determined to turn into an opera. He travelled to Maeterlinck's home in Ghent in November to secure his consent to an operatic adaptation. In February 1894 Debussy completed

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5876-633: The competitions in 1878 and 1879. These failures made him ineligible to continue in the Conservatoire's piano classes, but he remained a student for harmony, solfège and, later, composition. With Marmontel's help Debussy secured a summer vacation job in 1879 as resident pianist at the Château de Chenonceau , where he rapidly acquired a taste for luxury that was to remain with him all his life. His first compositions date from this period, two settings of poems by Alfred de Musset : "Ballade à la lune" and "Madrid, princesse des Espagnes". The following year he secured

5989-488: The composer. This too made an impression on him, and its harmonic freedom and non-Teutonic tone colours influenced his own developing musical style. Marie Vasnier ended her liaison with Debussy soon after his final return from Rome, although they remained on good enough terms for him to dedicate to her one more song, "Mandoline", in 1890. Later in 1890 Debussy met Erik Satie , who proved a kindred spirit in his experimental approach to composition. Both were bohemians , enjoying

6102-539: The curator of the museum in 1871 and did much to expand and upgrade the collection. The collection is now located in the Musée de la Musique . The dramatics arts were separated from music and dance in 1946 and are now in the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique (CNSAD) (National Superior Conservatory of the Dramatic Arts), a school for acting, drama. It is located in the original historic building of

6215-530: The door of the Institut [de France] must at all costs be barred against a man capable of such atrocities". Saint-Saëns had been a member of the Institut since 1881: Debussy never became one. His health continued to decline; he gave his final concert on 14 September 1917 and became bedridden in early 1918. Debussy died of colon cancer on 25 March 1918 at his home. The First World War was still raging and Paris

6328-547: The emphasis is on the overall impression rather than outline or clarity of detail, as in works by Monet , Pissarro , Renoir and others. Langham Smith writes that the term became transferred to the compositions of Debussy and others which were "concerned with the representation of landscape or natural phenomena, particularly the water and light imagery dear to Impressionists, through subtle textures suffused with instrumental colour". Among painters, Debussy particularly admired Turner , but also drew inspiration from Whistler . With

6441-404: The end of 1880 Debussy, while continuing his studies at the Conservatoire, was engaged as accompanist for Marie Moreau-Sainti's singing class; he took this role for four years. Among the members of the class was Marie Vasnier; Debussy was greatly taken with her, and she inspired him to compose: he wrote 27 songs dedicated to her during their seven-year relationship. She was the wife of Henri Vasnier,

6554-628: The faculty, particularly his composition teacher, Guiraud, for his failure to follow the orthodox rules of composition then prevailing. Nevertheless, in 1884 Debussy won France's most prestigious musical award, the Prix de Rome , with his cantata L'enfant prodigue . The Prix carried with it a residence at the Villa Medici , the French Academy in Rome , to further the winner's studies. Debussy

6667-485: The first draft of Pelléas and began efforts to get it staged. In May 1898 he made his first contacts with André Messager and Albert Carré , respectively the musical director and general manager of the Opéra-Comique , Paris, about presenting the opera. Debussy abandoned Dupont for her friend Marie-Rosalie Texier, known as "Lilly", whom he married in October 1899, after threatening suicide if she refused him. She

6780-427: The first draft of Act I of his operatic version of Pelléas et Mélisande , and for most of the year worked to complete the work. While still living with Dupont, he had an affair with the singer Thérèse Roger, and in 1894 he announced their engagement. His behaviour was widely condemned; anonymous letters circulated denouncing his treatment of both women, as well as his financial irresponsibility and debts. The engagement

6893-789: The first examples of the mature Debussy as a composer for the piano: "a major landmark ... and an enlargement of the use of piano sonorities". In the String Quartet (1893), the gamelan sonorities Debussy had heard four years earlier are recalled in the pizzicatos and cross-rhythms of the scherzo . Debussy's biographer Edward Lockspeiser comments that this movement shows the composer's rejection of "the traditional dictum that string instruments should be predominantly lyrical". The work influenced Ravel, whose own String Quartet , written ten years later, has noticeably Debussian features. The academic and journalist Stephen Walsh calls Pelléas et Mélisande (begun 1893, staged 1902) "a key work for

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7006-564: The first female student to win a prize on violin. In the Franco-Prussian War , during the siege of Paris (September 1870 – January 1871), the Conservatory was used as a hospital. On 13 May 1871, the day after Auber's death, the leaders of the Paris Commune appointed Francisco Salvador-Daniel as the director. Daniel was shot to death ten days later by troops of the French Army. He was replaced by Ambroise Thomas, who remained in

7119-414: The first movement. The reviews were sharply divided. Some critics thought the treatment less subtle and less mysterious than his previous works, and even a step backward; others praised its "power and charm", its "extraordinary verve and brilliant fantasy", and its strong colours and definite lines. Of the later orchestral works, Images (1905–1912) is better known than Jeux (1913). The former follows

7232-463: The following year. Like many other composers of the time, Debussy supplemented his income by teaching and writing. For most of 1901 he had a sideline as music critic of La Revue Blanche , adopting the pen name "Monsieur Croche". He expressed trenchant views on composers ("I hate sentimentality – his name is Camille Saint-Saëns "), institutions (on the Paris Opéra: "A stranger would take it for

7345-498: The forces of the Commune ; after its defeat by French government troops in 1871 he was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, of which he only served one year. His fellow Communard prisoners included his friend Charles de Sivry, a musician. Sivry's mother, Antoinette Mauté de Fleurville, gave piano lessons, and at his instigation the young Debussy became one of her pupils. Debussy's talents soon became evident, and in 1872, aged ten, he

7458-464: The hall almost continuously until 1945, when it moved to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées . The French composer Hector Berlioz premiered his Symphonie Fantastique in the conservatory's hall on 5 December 1830 with an orchestra of more than a hundred players. The concert hall is now part of CNSAD . The original library was created by Sarrette in 1801. After the construction of the concert hall,

7571-415: The latter in mind the composer wrote to the violinist Eugène Ysaÿe in 1894 describing the orchestral Nocturnes as "an experiment in the different combinations that can be obtained from one colour – what a study in grey would be in painting." Debussy strongly objected to the use of the word "Impressionism" for his (or anybody else's) music, but it has continually been attached to him since the assessors at

7684-580: The latter joined other former friends of Debussy in contributing to a fund to support the deserted Lilly. The Bardacs divorced in May 1905. Finding the hostility in Paris intolerable, Debussy and Emma (now pregnant) went to England. They stayed at the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne in July and August, where Debussy corrected the proofs of his symphonic sketches La mer , celebrating his divorce on 2 August. After

7797-428: The latter's death in 1896. Professors included Charles-Marie Widor , Gabriel Fauré , and Charles Lenepveu for composition, Alexandre Guilmant for organ, Paul Taffanel for flute, and Louis Diémer for piano. Lenepveu had been expected to succeed Dubois as director, but after the " Affaire Ravel " in 1905, Ravel 's teacher Gabriel Fauré became director. Le Courrier Musical (15 June 1905) wrote: "Gabriel Fauré

7910-403: The library moved to a large room above the entrance vestibule. In the 1830s, Berlioz became a part-time curator in the library and was the librarian from 1852 until his death in 1869, when he was succeeded by Félicien David . The Conservatory Instrument Museum, founded in 1861, was formed from the instrument collection of Louis Clapisson . The French music historian Gustave Chouquet became

8023-604: The meadow, the gentle grass-carpeted earth, ... and my hands unconsciously assume an attitude of adoration. In contrast to the "impressionistic" characterisation of Debussy's music, several writers have suggested that he structured at least some of his music on rigorous mathematical lines. In 1983 the pianist and scholar Roy Howat published a book contending that certain of Debussy's works are proportioned using 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 sections that reflect

8136-620: The mistress and muse of Gabriel Fauré a few years earlier. After despatching Lilly to her parental home at Bichain in Villeneuve-la-Guyard on 15 July 1904, Debussy took Emma away, staying incognito in Jersey and then at Pourville in Normandy. He wrote to his wife on 11 August from Dieppe , telling her that their marriage was over, but still making no mention of Bardac. When he returned to Paris he set up home on his own, taking

8249-489: The musical establishment of the day. His works have strongly influenced a wide range of composers including Béla Bartók , Olivier Messiaen , George Benjamin , and the jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans . Debussy died from cancer at his home in Paris at the age of 55 after a composing career of a little more than 30 years. Debussy was born on 22 August 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye , Seine-et-Oise , on

8362-613: The next few years Debussy developed his personal style, without, at this stage, breaking sharply away from French musical traditions. Much of his music from this period is on a small scale, such as the Two Arabesques , Valse romantique , Suite bergamasque , and the first set of Fêtes galantes . Newman remarked that, like Chopin , the Debussy of this period appears as a liberator from Germanic styles of composition – offering instead "an exquisite, pellucid style" capable of conveying "not only gaiety and whimsicality but emotion of

8475-524: The north-west fringes of Paris. He was the eldest of the five children of Manuel-Achille Debussy and his wife, Victorine, née Manoury. Debussy senior ran a china shop and his wife was a seamstress. The shop was unsuccessful, and closed in 1864; the family moved to Paris, first living with Victorine's mother, in Clichy , and, from 1868, in their own apartment in the Rue Saint-Honoré . Manuel worked in

8588-447: The orchestration incomplete, and were completed by Charles Koechlin and Caplet, respectively. The application of the term "Impressionist" to Debussy and the music he influenced has been much debated, both during his lifetime and since. The analyst Richard Langham Smith writes that Impressionism was originally a term coined to describe a style of late 19th-century French painting , typically scenes suffused with reflected light in which

8701-462: The partial, painful loss of himself". 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. The analyst David Cox wrote in 1974 that Debussy, admiring Wagner's attempts to combine all the creative arts, "created a new, instinctive, dreamlike world of music, lyrical and pantheistic, contemplative and objective –

8814-505: 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!" Debussy finally composed four pieces that were submitted to the Academy: the symphonic ode Zuleima (based on a text by Heinrich Heine ); the orchestral piece Printemps ; the cantata La Damoiselle élue (1887–1888), the first piece in which the stylistic features of his later music began to emerge; and

8927-499: The post until 1896. Thomas's rather conservative directorship was vigorously criticized by many of the students, including Claude Debussy . During this period César Franck was ostensibly the organ teacher, but was actually giving classes in composition. His classes were attended by several students who were later to become important composers, including Ernest Chausson , Guy Ropartz , Guillaume Lekeu , Charles Bordes , and Vincent d'Indy . Théodore Dubois succeeded Thomas after

9040-561: The rest of his life. The following year began well, when at Fauré's invitation, Debussy became a member of the governing council of the Conservatoire. His success in London was consolidated in April 1909, when he conducted Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and the Nocturnes at the Queen's Hall ; in May he was present at the first London production of Pelléas et Mélisande , at Covent Garden . In

9153-567: The role, and was incensed when she was passed over in favour of the Scottish soprano Mary Garden . The opera opened on 30 April 1902, and although the first-night audience was divided between admirers and sceptics, the work quickly became a success. It made Debussy a well-known name in France and abroad; The Times commented that the opera had "provoked more discussion than any work of modern times, excepting, of course, those of Richard Strauss ". The Apaches, led by Ravel (who attended every one of

9266-435: The same café society and struggling to survive financially. In the same year Debussy began a relationship with Gabrielle (Gaby) Dupont, a tailor's daughter from Lisieux ; in July 1893 they began living together. Debussy continued to compose songs, piano pieces and other works, some of which were publicly performed, but his music made only a modest impact, although his fellow composers recognised his potential by electing him to

9379-526: The same year, Debussy was diagnosed with colorectal cancer , from which he was to die nine years later. Debussy's works began to feature increasingly in concert programmes at home and overseas. In 1910 Gustav Mahler conducted the Nocturnes and Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune in New York in successive months. In the same year, visiting Budapest, Debussy commented that his works were better known there than in Paris. In 1912 Sergei Diaghilev commissioned

9492-464: The sounds and scents of the evening air". En blanc et noir (In white and black, 1915), a three-movement work for two pianos, is a predominantly sombre piece, reflecting the war and national danger. The Études (1915) for piano have divided opinion. Writing soon after Debussy's death, Newman found them laboured – "a strange last chapter in a great artist's life"; Lesure, writing eighty years later, rates them among Debussy's greatest late works: "Behind

9605-674: The staff were Alfred Cortot for piano and Eugène Gigout for organ. In 1911 the Conservatory moved to 14 rue de Madrid, into facilities that were formerly the collège of the École Saint-Ignace of the Jesuits , whose building had been purchased by the French state in 1905. Henri Rabaud succeeded Fauré in 1920 and served until April 1941. Notable students were Olivier Messiaen , Jean Langlais , and Jehan Alain . Staff included Dukas and Jean Roger-Ducasse for composition, Marcel Dupré for organ, Marcel Moyse for flute, and Claire Croiza for singing. Like all institutions in Paris,

9718-567: The term (whether about painting or music) was an imbecile, some Debussy scholars have taken a less absolutist line. Lockspeiser calls La mer "the greatest example of an orchestral Impressionist work", and more recently in The Cambridge Companion to Debussy Nigel Simeone comments, "It does not seem unduly far-fetched to see a parallel in Monet's seascapes". In this context may be placed Debussy's pantheistic eulogy to Nature, in

9831-420: The third of the four movements of Suite Bergamasque , as a transitional work pointing towards the composer's mature style. Musicians from Debussy's time onwards have regarded Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894) as his first orchestral masterpiece. Newman considered it "completely original in idea, absolutely personal in style, and logical and coherent from first to last, without a superfluous bar or even

9944-524: The time but was successfully republished in 1903 after the composer had become well known. A week after his return to Paris in 1887, Debussy heard the first act of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at the Concerts Lamoureux , and judged it "decidedly the finest thing I know". In 1888 and 1889 he went to the annual festivals of Wagner's operas at Bayreuth . He responded positively to Wagner's sensuousness, mastery of form, and striking harmonies, and

10057-402: The tripartite form established in the Nocturnes and La mer , but differs in employing traditional British and French folk tunes, and in making the central movement, "Ibéria", far longer than the outer ones, and subdividing it into three parts, all inspired by scenes from Spanish life. Although considering Images "the pinnacle of Debussy's achievement as a composer for orchestra", Trezise notes

10170-454: The twentieth century Debussy did not give his works opus numbers , apart from his String Quartet, Op. 10 in G minor (also the only work where the composer's title included a key ). His works were catalogued and indexed by the musicologist François Lesure in 1977 (revised in 2003) and their Lesure number ("L" followed by a number) is sometimes used as a suffix to their title in concert programmes and recordings. Debussy's musical development

10283-654: The violinists Pierre Baillot , Rodolphe Kreutzer , and Pierre Rode . Sarrette was dismissed on 28 December 1814, after the Bourbon Restoration , but was reinstated on 26 May 1815, after Napoleon 's return to power during the Hundred Days . After his fall, Sarrette was compelled to retire on 17 November. The school was closed in the first two years of the Bourbon Restoration, during the reign of Louis XVIII , but reopened in April 1816 as

10396-401: 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". In the same month the composer's only child was born at their home. Claude-Emma, affectionately known as "Chouchou", was a musical inspiration to the composer (she was the dedicatee of his Children's Corner suite). She outlived her father by scarcely

10509-421: The young musician will hereafter follow". Newman concurred: "There is a good deal of Wagner, especially of Tristan , in the idiom. But the work as a whole is distinctive, and the first in which we get a hint of the Debussy we were to know later – the lover of vague outlines, of half-lights, of mysterious consonances and dissonances of colour, the apostle of languor, the exclusivist in thought and in style." During

10622-482: The École Royale de Musique, with François-Louis Perne as its director. In 1819, François Benoist was appointed professor of organ. Probably the best known director in the 19th century was Luigi Cherubini, who took over on 1 April 1822 and remained in charge until 8 February 1842. Cherubini maintained high standards and his staff included teachers such as François-Joseph Fétis , Habeneck, Fromental Halévy , Le Sueur, Ferdinando Paer , and Anton Reicha . Cherubini

10735-418: Was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris , where he remained a student for the next eleven years. He first joined the piano class of Antoine François Marmontel , and studied solfège with Albert Lavignac and, later, composition with Ernest Guiraud , harmony with Émile Durand , and organ with César Franck . The course included music history and theory studies with Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray , but it

10848-545: Was affectionate, practical, straightforward, and well liked by Debussy's friends and associates, but he became increasingly irritated by her intellectual limitations and lack of musical sensitivity. The marriage lasted barely five years. From around 1900 Debussy's music became a focus and inspiration for an informal group of innovative young artists, poets, critics, and musicians who began meeting in Paris. They called themselves Les Apaches – roughly "The Hooligans" – to represent their status as "artistic outcasts". The membership

10961-603: Was also installed in the facilities of the former Menus-Plaisirs on the rue Bergère and was responsible for the training of musicians for the National Guard bands , which were in great demand for the enormous, popular outdoor gatherings put on by the revolutionary government after the Reign of Terror . On 3 August 1795, the government combined the École Royale with the Institut National de Musique, creating

11074-673: Was briefly influenced by them, but, unlike some other French composers of his generation, he concluded that there was no future in attempting to adopt and develop Wagner's style. He commented in 1903 that Wagner was "a beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn". In 1889, at the Paris Exposition Universelle , Debussy first heard Javanese gamelan music. The gamelan scales, melodies, rhythms, and ensemble textures appealed to him, and echoes of them are heard in "Pagodes" in his piano suite Estampes . He also attended two concerts of Rimsky-Korsakov 's music, conducted by

11187-472: Was broken off, and several of Debussy's friends and supporters disowned him, including Ernest Chausson , hitherto one of his strongest supporters. In terms of musical recognition, Debussy made a step forward in December 1894, when the symphonic poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune , based on Stéphane Mallarmé 's poem, was premiered at a concert of the Société Nationale. The following year he completed

11300-508: Was director from 1941 until his death in an automobile accident in 1954. Delvincourt was a progressive administrator, adding classes in harpsichord , saxophone, percussion, and the Ondes Martenot . Staff included Milhaud for composition and Messiaen for analysis and aesthetics. In 1946, the dramatic arts were transferred to a separate institution, the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique (CNSAD). Music and dance became

11413-403: Was fluid, but at various times included Maurice Ravel , Ricardo Viñes , Igor Stravinsky and Manuel de Falla . In the same year the first two of Debussy's three orchestral Nocturnes were first performed. Although they did not make any great impact with the public they were well reviewed by musicians including Paul Dukas , Alfred Bruneau and Pierre de Bréville . The complete set was given

11526-622: Was inaugurated on 7 July 1811. It is in the shape of a U (with the orchestra at the straight end). It holds an audience of 1055. The French composer and conductor Antoine Elwart described it as the Stradivarius of concert halls. In 1828 François Habeneck , a professor of violin and head of the conservatory's orchestra, founded the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire (forerunner of the Orchestre de Paris ). The society held concerts in

11639-477: Was located in buildings adjacent to the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs at the junction of the rue Bergère and the rue du Faubourg Poissonnière . In June, a class in dramatic declamation was added, and the name was modified to École Royale de Chant et de Déclamation. In 1792, Bernard Sarrette created the École Gratuite de la Garde Nationale, which in the following year became the Institut National de Musique. The latter

11752-519: Was more to his liking, and its influence can be found in La mer (1905); this uses a quasi-symphonic form, its three sections making up a giant sonata-form movement with, as Orledge observes, a cyclic theme, in the manner of Franck. 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

11865-506: Was moved into a separate school, the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique (CNSAD), for acting, theatre and drama. Today the conservatories operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Communication and are associate members of PSL University . The CNSMDP is also associated with the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon (CNSMDL). On 3 December 1783 Papillon de la Ferté , intendant of

11978-506: Was much more impressed by the music of the 16th-century composers Palestrina and Lassus , which he heard at Santa Maria dell'Anima : "The only church music I will accept". He was often depressed and unable to compose, but he was inspired by Franz Liszt , who visited the students and played for them. In June 1885, Debussy wrote of his desire to follow his own way, saying, "I am sure the Institute would not approve, for, naturally it regards

12091-452: 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 friend Georges Jean-Aubry commented that Debussy "admirably imitated Massenet's melodic turns of phrase" in the cantata L'enfant prodigue (1884) which won him the Prix de Rome. A more characteristically Debussian work from his early years

12204-477: Was succeeded by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber in 1842. Under Auber, composition teachers included Adolphe Adam , Halévy, and Ambroise Thomas ; piano teachers, Louise Farrenc , Henri Herz , and Antoine François Marmontel ; violin teachers, Jean-Delphin Alard and Charles Dancla ; and cello teachers, Pierre Chevillard and Auguste Franchomme . In 1852, Camille Urso , who studied with Lambert Massart , became

12317-541: Was the tensionless harmony. The dissonance of chords was not resolved, but was used as timbre. These chords were often shifted parallel. In the melodic field the whole tone scale, the pentatonic and church tonal turns were used. The melodics were characterized by their circular melodic movements. The timbre became the stylistic device of Impressionism instead of concise themes or other traditional forms. Conservatoire de Paris The Conservatoire de Paris ( French: [kɔ̃sɛʁvatwaʁ də paʁi] ), also known as

12430-533: Was there from January 1885 to March 1887, with three or possibly four absences of several weeks when he returned to France, chiefly to see Marie Vasnier. Initially Debussy found the artistic atmosphere of the Villa Medici stifling, the company boorish, the food bad, and the accommodation "abominable". Neither did he delight in Italian opera, as he found the operas of Donizetti and Verdi not to his taste. He

12543-461: Was to a considerable extent a reaction against Wagner and the German musical tradition. He regarded the classical symphony as obsolete and sought an alternative in his "symphonic sketches", La mer (1903–1905). His piano works include sets of 24 Préludes and 12 Études . Throughout his career he wrote mélodies based on a wide variety of poetry, including his own. He was greatly influenced by

12656-459: Was under German aerial and artillery bombardment . The military situation did not permit the honour of a public funeral with ceremonious graveside orations. The funeral procession made its way through deserted streets to a temporary grave at Père Lachaise Cemetery as the German guns bombarded the city. Debussy's body was reinterred the following year in the small Passy Cemetery sequestered behind

12769-583: Was unimpressed by Fanelli's novelties, maintaining that these were already utilized by past composers such as Franz Liszt . He also opined that Fanelli's Impressionism stemmed from Hector Berlioz rather than Liszt or Russian composers. Other composers linked to Impressionism include Lili Boulanger , Isaac Albéniz , Frederick Delius , Paul Dukas , Alexander Scriabin , Manuel de Falla , John Alden Carpenter , Ottorino Respighi , Albert Roussel , Karol Szymanowski , Charles Tomlinson Griffes , and Federico Mompou . The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius

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