What kind of music is debussy

Recognition as a composer came slowly. Though Debussy was often regarded as personally aloof, few great composers have cultivated their links with writers, artists and other composers more assiduously than he did. As his songs inspired by works of Verlaine and Baudelaire had already shown, he was totally immersed in the highly suggestive world of symbolist poetry. It proved to be his last orchestral work.

As well as Boulez, in the second half of the century Ligeti and even Steve Reich were indebted to him, and, among British composers, Oliver Knussen and George Benjamin both acknowledged how much they owe him. Debussy: where to start with his music. At age 22, he won the Prix de Rome, which financed two years of further musical study in the Italian capital. After the turn of the century, Debussy established himself as the leading figure of French music. During World War I, while Paris was being bombed by the German air force, he succumbed to colon cancer at the age of While his family had little money, Debussy showed an early affinity for the piano, and he began taking lessons at the age of 7.

By age 10 or 11, he had entered the Paris Conservatory, where his instructors and fellow students recognized his talent but often found his attempts at musical innovation strange. In , Nadezhda von Meck, who had previously supported Russian composer Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, hired Debussy to teach piano to her children.

With her and her children, Debussy traveled Europe and began accumulating musical and cultural experiences in Russia that he would soon turn toward his compositions, most notably gaining exposure to Russian composers who would greatly influence his work. In , when he was just 22 years old, Debussy entered his cantata L'Enfant prodigue The Prodigal Child in the Prix de Rome, a competition for composers.

He took home the top prize, which allowed him to study for three years in the Italian capital, though he returned to Paris after two years. Debussy returned to Paris in and attended the Paris World Exposition two years later.

At the age of 18 he began an eight-year affair with Marie-Blanche Vasnier, wife of a Parisian civil servant. The relationship eventually faltered following his winning of the Prix de Rome in and obligatory residence in Rome.

Such cavalier behaviour was widely condemned, and precipitated the end of his long friendship with Ernest Chausson. Moreover, her looks had prematurely aged, and she was unable to bear children.

In contrast to Texier, Bardac was a sophisticate, a brilliant conversationalist, and an accomplished singer. On their return to France, Debussy wrote to Texier from Dieppe on 11 August, informing her their marriage was over, but still making no mention of Bardac.

Debussy briefly moved to an apartment at 10 avenue Alphand. On 14 October, five days before their fifth wedding anniversary, Texier attempted suicide, shooting herself in the chest with a revolver while standing in the Place de la Concorde; she survived, although the bullet remained lodged in her vertebrae for the rest of her life.

The ensuing scandal was to alienate Debussy from many of his friends, whilst Bardac was disowned by her family.

In the spring of , finding the hostility towards them intolerable, Debussy and Bardac now pregnant fled to England, via Jersey. The couple settled at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne from 24 July to 30 August , where Debussy was to correct proofs to his symphonic suite La mer , and celebrate his divorce from Texier on 2 August.

After 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 , where Debussy was to reside for the rest of his life.

He loved his music — and perhaps himself. I think he was wrapped up in his genius… He was a very, very strange man. Claude-Emma outlived her father by scarcely a year, succumbing to the diphtheria epidemic of after her doctor administered the wrong treatment.

Debussy died of rectal cancer at his Paris home on 25 March , at the age of He had been diagnosed with the cancer in after experiencing haemorrhaging, and in December underwent one of the earliest colostomy operations ever performed. The military situation in France was critical, and did not permit the honour of a public funeral with ceremonious graveside orations. One side argues that the term is a misnomer, an inappropriate label which Debussy himself opposed.

It can be argued that he would have been pleased with application of the current definition of Impressionism to his music. In contrast to the enormous works of Wagner and other late-romantic composers, however, around this time Debussy chose to write in smaller, more accessible forms. Suite bergamasque recalls rococo decorousness with a modern cynicism and puzzlement.

In this work he used the Phrygian mode as well as less standard scales, such as the whole-tone, which creates a sense of floating, ethereal harmony. Debussy was beginning to employ a single, continuous theme and break away from the traditional A-B-A form, with its restatements and amplifications, which had been a mainstay of classical music since Haydn.

In contrast to the large orchestras so favoured by late-romanticism, Debussy wrote this piece for a smaller ensemble, emphasizing instrumental colour and timbre. It would be his only complete opera. Based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, the opera proved to be an immediate success and immensely influential to younger French composers, including Maurice Ravel. These works brought a fluidity of rhythm and colour quite new to Western music.

La mer — essays a more symphonic form, with a finale that works themes from the first movement, although the middle movement, Jeux de vagues , proceeds much less directly and with more variety of colour. Again, the reviews were sharply divided. Some critics thought the treatment to be less subtle and less mysterious than his previous works and even a step backward. During this period Debussy wrote much for the piano.

The set of pieces entitled Pour le piano uses rich harmonies and textures which would later prove important in jazz music. The evocative Estampes for piano give impressions of exotic locations. Debussy came into contact with Javanese gamelan music during the Paris Exposition Universelle. Pagodes is the directly inspired result, aiming for an evocation of the pentatonic structures employed by the Javanese music.

The Preludes are frequently compared to those of Chopin. Debussy wanted people to respond intuitively to these pieces so he placed the titles at the end of each one in the hope that listeners would not make stereotype images as they listened.