Biography
Debussy was born in Paris and was something of a child prodigy.
He came from humble origins, the son of a shopkeeper, but was obviously given great encouragement by his parents: he started piano lessons at the age of seven and went on to study at the celebrated Paris Conservatoire from the age of twelve.
Ten years later he won the coveted Prix de Rome, which enabled him to spend a number of years in quiet isolation writing at the Villa Medici in Rome.
Debussy’s life was generally troublesome, particularly in his relationships with women: his wife, Lilly Texler, attempted suicide when he left her for another woman, and following their divorce in 1904 Debussy was plagued by ill health, most particularly with cancer of the rectum.
He was a master of orchestration and his music never fails to conjure up vivid images in the listener’s mind.
Much of the music is deemed to be programmatic – musical representation of a picture, a poem, a story – and obvious examples are to be found in La Mer and Nuages, where the music is unmistakably conjuring up images of the sea and of clouds sweeping across the sky.
Debussy loved the music of Wagner and so it is curious that this did not inspire him to write more than a couple of operatic works – of which ‘Pélleas et Mélisande’ is the most famous.
Debussy is best known for his wonderful orchestral works, the piano music and superb collections of songs.
Small wonder that he is regarded as being perhaps the most influential of all twentieth-century composers.
Nocturnes
Nocturnes: ‘Fêtes’
1883, Orchestral
In the 1880s, the young Claude Debussy used to regularly go to the famous Tuesday night get-togethers in the home of the poet Stephen Mallarmé, where he met artists, painters, poets and sculptors with ideas and feelings similar to his own. Debussy’s Impressionist painter friends had begun to throw away the clear and precise techniques of a previous generation, and to replace it with misty visions that dissolved in light, while his poet friends were beginning to rub over the logic of language in favour of a musically suggestive succession of words. In short, the European attitudes and approaches to art were changing, and Debussy was very much a part of it.
In his Nocturnes, Debussy took aspects of nature as his subject and sought to be inspired by them.
The music is broken into three sections, ‘Clouds’, ‘Festivals’ and ‘Sirens’, which are designed to be treated individually. Debussy described the first piece as:
’ . . . the unchanging aspect of the sky, with the slow and melancholy passage of clouds dissolving into a vague greyness, tinged with white.’
The clouds are beautifully depicted in music by high woodwinds weaving soft patterns that change slightly, like clouds, as the music progresses.
In ‘Fêtes’, we start with a burst of light and excitement, creating a real festival feel.
About halfway through there comes the sound of a very distant march over which comes a fanfare of muted trumpets.
The final section, ‘Sirens’, uses eight women’s voices to represent the original sirens who tried to lure Ulysses to their island, and is often left out from this work as the choir is used only at the end. It is best described by Debussy himself:
‘Then amid the billows silvered by the moon, the mysterious song of the Sirens is heard; it laughs and passes.’
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
1894, Orchestral
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) is a little musical tone poem based on a poem by Mallarmé of the same name. It is a bewildering mass of exotic melody and elusive harmony that remains Debussy’s most famous and popular orchestral masterpiece.
Although Mallarmé was twenty years older than Debussy, the two were good friends and kindred spirits, each devoted to destroying the conventionalities of his art, though not in a violent sense.
In 1887 a definitive edition of the poem was published, which Debussy certainly bought before becoming a regular guest at Mallarmé’s famous Tuesday evening get-togethers, which were attended by many of the great artists, critics and intellectuals of the day.
It was at these evenings that the musician and the poet discussed how music could best be used to evoke the music of Mallarmé’s words and, as a result, the prelude came into being.
It was first performed in December 1894 by the Société Nationale de Musique to a hugely receptive audience which instantly demanded an encore.
It is a misty, evocative piece which draws heavily on a main flute theme that captures the sensuous, symbolist quality of the poem’s language. The words are assumed to be those of the faun who, waking up in a sunlit forest, tries to remember a dream or experience, he doesn’t know which, of an encounter with two beautiful nymphs who resisted his embraces. Later, as he falls asleep, he murmurs: ‘Farewell! Oh Nymphs, I go to see the shades that ye already be.’
The clear flute line, probably played by the faun himself, is soon enveloped in the warmth of velvet horns, woodwinds and a harp. Later on a hush falls over the orchestra and a new, more sensuous melody is sung by the woodwinds with references to the original theme of the flute. Eventually, the whole ‘dream’ fades into thin air.
Clair de Lune
1895, Keyboard Works
Taken from ‘Suite Bergamasque’, ‘Moonlight’ is a representation through music of the pale and mystical qualities of moonlight. First the evening is still and then clouds go for a spot of rippling as they pass by.
Pelléas et Mélisande
1902, Opera
Written in 1902, this is a complete opera based on Maeterlinck’s work of the same name, being a symbolist play about a love that is doomed. It is predominantly quiet, making for hypnotic and evocative listening.
La Mer
La Mer: 1st Movement
1903, Orchestral
Debussy was always fascinated by the sea and even considered becoming a sailor when he was younger, before music captured his heart. However, in 1903, he began work on ‘La Mer’ (The Sea) with a view to putting together three separate orchestral works that would evoke all his personal feelings for the oceans. Shortly before he finished this work, he wrote to his publisher, saying ‘The sea has been very good to me. She has shown me all her moods.’
A rough draft of the music was finished at 6 ‘o clock in the evening on 6 March 1905, but it wasn’t until the summer of the same year that Debussy fully orchestrated it while on holiday in Eastbourne. Its first performance was in October 1905 in Paris and it was readily received by the audience. Shortly afterwards Debussy again wrote to his publisher about his inspiration and expressed some interesting opinions.
‘Here I am again with my old friend, the sea; it is always endless and beautiful. But people don’t respect the sea sufficiently. To wet in it bodies deformed by daily life should not be allowed. Truly, these arms and legs which move in ridiculous rhythms – it is enough to make the fish weep.’
Later he begins to give us an insight into the music, when he speaks of
’ . . . the sea which is stirred up, wants to dash across the land, tear out the rocks, and has tantrums like a little girl, singular for one of her importance.’
The music is made up of three pieces. The first section, ‘From Dawn until Noon on the Sea’, begins with low strings and harps to give the feel of the sea at day-break. As the waters begin to wake, an interesting development passage becomes quite magical, and eventually English horn and muted trumpet announce a theme that reappears in the final movement.
The second movement is called ‘The Play of the Waves’ and starts delicately before lashing into a sporting fury.
The third section, however, is the most dramatic, being called ‘Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea’. Here we hear forces beginning to gather as a storm seems about to break, but suddenly there is silence, broken by the call of an oboe, horn and bassoon. The horns answer and soon the whole orchestra joins in, building to a strong climax.