Debussy, Achille-Claude

(1862-1918)

   composer

   Born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Claude Debussy as he is known, entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 10, then at 16 became the private musician to Nadezdha van Meck, Pyotr Tchaikovsky's patroness. In that capacity he traveled to Venice, Florence, Vienna, and Moscow. While in Russia he became acquainted with the works of a number of Russian composers and with Russian and Romanian folk music. In 1884 Debussy won the Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata L'enfant prodigue. Studying in Rome, he then composed such works as the symphony suite Printemps and the cantata La demoiselle élue. During the 1890s his works were performed with increasing frequency, and despite their controversial (because of their innovations) nature, he gained a recognition. Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894) based on the poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, and Debussy's opera Pelleas et Mélisande were produced in 1902. Regarded by some critics as a perfect union of music and drama, Pelleas earned him widespread fame. From 1902 to 1910, Debussy composed mostly for the piano, but in nontradi-tional modes. (Estampes, 1903; L'Île joyeuse, 1904; Images, 1905-07; Children's Corner, 1908). He also composed 24 Préludes in homage to Frédéric chopin (1910-13). Most of Debussy's other works include chamber music, with sonatas for violin, cello, flute, and harp. other works are the orchestral poem La Mer (1905) and songs for Cinque poèmes de Baudelaire (1889). For Sergey Diaghilev, who had asked Vaslav Nijinsky to do the choreography for Prèlude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Debussy composed another ballet, Jeux (1913). Debussy's harmonic innovations helped pave the way for the great musical change of the 20th century, and he was the first composer to exploit the whole-tone scale. The dreamlike quality of Debussy's music made some critics refer to it as musical impressionism, a term still used to describe his contemporaries.