| Contents |
Prelude. December 22, 1894 -- Part I. Debussy's birth to Wagner's sunset. A confluence of circumstance (1862-1884) -- Darling of the gods (1884-1887) -- Debussy and the French poets (1880-1891) -- The tyranny of Richard Wagner -- Part II. What can be done beyond Tristan?. Transitions (1887-1890) -- In the shadow of Eiffel's tower -- New friends, new directions (1890-1893) -- Maeterlinck (1891-1893) -- The Debussy festival (1893-1894) -- Mallarme and the Paris salons (1890-1893) -- The faun -- Melisande (1894-1898) -- Songs of Bilitis (1894-1898) -- Claude in love, or the hearts of artists (1890s) -- Nocturnes (1899-1901) -- Part III. A terrace at the shore of a special sea. Pelleas (1902) -- Pelleas and the French spirit -- Women and the sea (1902-1904) -- Ease, unease, disease (1904-1908) -- Debussy and the modern piano -- Part IV. The last years. The sorry, starry stage (1908-1913) -- War and suffering (1913-1916) -- Too many keys (1917-1918) -- Appendix A. People passing through -- Appendix B. The songs of Bilitis -- Appendix C. Pelleas et Melisande: synopsis. |
| Abstract |
Claude Debussy was the father of the Modern era in classical music. His innovations liberated Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Bartok to write their iconoclastic works, and is harmonic inventions are still heard in American jazz. Though he was among the most compelling figures of the Belle Epoque, his life is little known to all but scholars; and of his considerable musical output, only Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun," La Mer, and "Clair de lune" are widely known. In this book, the author addresses this cultural neglect by presenting the composer and his music, without jargon or biographical trivia, in a richly detailed, accurate narrative that reads almost like a novel. Here is the story of a poor, unschooled Parisian boy swept by odd coincidences to the Paris Conservatory at age ten. Here is a brilliant man determined to end the long-standing Germanic domination of European music, struggling to invent a tonal language capable of expressing his unique musical vision, and finding inspiration not in Bach and Beethoven but in Mallarme's poetry and the paintings of Whistler and Turner. Here is a reclusive, gentle man whose misguided love affairs ended in scandal and scorn. His hard work failed to end decades of poverty and debt, but when he died in 1918, he was--and has remained--the foremost French composer of the twentieth century and one of music history's greatest pioneers. |
