Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
Debussy freed harmony from classical rules and turned the piano into an instrument of colours and resonances; he opens the music of the 20th century.
Born in 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Claude Debussy entered the Paris Conservatoire at ten. A gifted pianist, he stood out for his taste for forbidden harmonies. He won the Prix de Rome in 1884.
Influenced by the Symbolist poets, by Wagner and then by the Javanese gamelan he heard at the 1889 World’s Fair, he invented a new language: the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894), the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), La Mer (1905).
His piano music is essential: the Suite bergamasque (with “Clair de lune”), Estampes, Images, Children’s Corner written for his daughter, two books of Préludes and the 1915 Études. He uses whole-tone and pentatonic scales, old modes, parallel chords and pedal resonances.
He is labelled an “Impressionist”, a tag he disliked. He died in Paris in 1918. For pianists, Debussy teaches you to listen to sound itself: the tiniest dynamics, the balance of layers and a refined use of the pedal.
Piano sheet music (12)
- Danseuses de Delphes (Préludes, Book I, No. 1) · level 6
- Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir (Préludes, Book I, No. 4) · level 6
- Deuxième Arabesque (L66 No.2) · level 6
- Arabesque No. 1 in E major · level 4
- Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum (Children’s Corner No. 1) · level 6
- Jimbo’s Lullaby (Children’s Corner No. 2) · level 4
- Sarabande (Pour le piano No. 2) · level 5
- Valse romantique · level 5
- Clair de lune (Suite bergamasque) · level 6
- Rêverie · level 4
- The Little Shepherd (Children’s Corner No. 5) · level 4
- The Girl with the Flaxen Hair (Préludes, Book I, No. 8) · level 4