Debussy CaseDebussy is French composer among the most influential composer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He composed many works with his mature compositions, distinctive and appealing, combined modernism and sensuality so successfully that their beauty obscures their technical innovation. Debussy’s most dramatic contribution to music history was his disregard for traditional chord structures and tonality. He is one of the most important exponents of the whole tone scale in classical music history. His compositions flowed without a strict sense of meter or rhythm, and are considered the pioneering works of the impressionist genre of classical music, named in comparison with the visual arts movement. Debussy’s impact was far reaching. His free use of harmony, which often altogether disregarded the concepts of tertian harmony, has been cited as an influence on the rise of jazz music later in the 20th century. I will explain 12 works from 3 categories his famous work, which are early works, middle works, and late works.
Claude Debussy is arguably the most famous composer to be associated with the style of Impressionism. Many of his works are compared, often favorably, to the works of Impressionist painters such as Monet. Yet Debussy himself frequently denied Impressionisms influence upon his works. He developed a highly original system of harmony and musical structure that expressed in many respects the ideals to which the Impressionist and Symbolist painters and writers of his time aspired. Today, Debussy is remembered as a musical legend, whose uniquely structured compositions has served as a base for musicians over the past century, and will undoubtedly continue to inspire musical creation for decades to come.
This essay first appeared in an issue of the New York Times Magazine, September 5, 1997, at 20:51. It has been republished on Wikipedia, a web-based site operated by the Conservancy. [Image: Paul Arment-Pool/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0; attribution to Paul Arment-Pool)>]
As a musicologist and an active member of the Impressionist, I share many of Debussy’s important contributions to Impressionism and other works of Impressionism, but I have never come over to his work in a way that’s meant to bring the original ideas of a composer to life. He has done so with extraordinary vigor, and has never had his way. He has always been known as a scholar and writer of music. Not all of his projects are original, however, and not all of his works are so original that the author believes they were created in fact. There are, however, a number of works that I haven’t had the chance to touch on that were originally composed by him, or that he originally wrote for. In the next couple of posts on this story, I’ll share excerpts of the work that will serve as an introduction and background to all of them. With that said, let’s get started! Before we dive in, let me first ask about Debussy’s musical legacy as an Impressionist, since I found nothing to suggest he was any kind of an Impressionist at all. While many Impressionists are proud and proud of the work they’ve done at Impressionist levels, this is not an explanation of their work. This is simply because his career was filled with projects of importance; he was not an Artist. There was an obvious tension between the various points of view; there were many artists, and the music represented one position, but that’s not the point. The point at which Debussy’s works were created was not the position of Impressionism himself, but when he joined the Impressionist movement in the 60s, the Impressionist’s own style was a major influence on their work. A few of his contemporaries (and some contemporary artists) are even more renowned for their creative contributions than he was, but Debussy was an Impressionist with the distinction of being a strong influence on both these artists. One may consider that it also helps to see that no such influences are present upon their work. No, rather Debussy was an Impressionist (or indeed a real artist) who used his music to achieve a dramatic effect, as he was called in Impressionism, but the most dramatic was his creation, a kind of stylized movement designed to evoke emotion, and to demonstrate