Paul Dukas wrote about Debussy that the strongest influence he experienced was that of the poets, not that of the musicians. This book undertakes to demonstrate that thesis by studying Debussy's settings of songs by Banville, Verlaine, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Louÿs, and Debussy himself. A particular insight may be gained in the comparison of six poems by Verlaine set to music by both Fauré and Debussy. The book includes a poetic/musical analysis of Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, based on the poem by Mallarmé.

One of the most revered composers of the twentieth century, Claude Debussy (1862–1918) achieved the unheard of: he reinvented the language of music without alienating the majority of music lovers. Debussy drove French music into entirely new regions of beauty and excitement at a time when old traditions threatened to stifle it. Yet despite his profound influence on French culture, Debussy’s own life was complicated and often troubled by struggles over money, women, and ill health. Here, Stephen Walsh, acclaimed author of Stravinsky, chronicles both the composer himself and the unique moment in European history that bore him. Walsh’s engagingly original approach is to enrich a lively biography with analyses of Debussy’s music: from his first daring breaks with the rules as a Conservatoire student to his achievements as the greatest French composer of his time.

English translation and revised edition of the most comprehensive and reliable biography of Claude Debussy. François Lesure's "critical biography" of Claude Debussy (Fayard, 2003) is widely recognized by scholars as the most comprehensive and reliable account of that composer's life and career as well as of the artistic milieu in whichhe worked. This encyclopedic volume draws extensively on Debussy's complete correspondence (at that time unpublished), a painstaking tracking of contemporary reviews and comments in the press, and an examination of other primary documents-including private diaries-that had not been available to previous biographers. As such, Lesure's book presents a wealth of new information while debunking a number of myths that had developed over the years since the composer's death in 1918. The present English translation and revised edition, by Debussy authority Marie Rolf, augments Lesure's numerous notes with several thousand new ones by Rolf, providing more precise information oncrucial and sometimes contentious points. It also reflects Debussy scholarship that has appeared since 2003, updating Lesure's seminal work. Rolf's translation-the first ever-will make Lesure's findings accessible to scholars, musicians, and music lovers in English-speaking lands and around the world. FRANÇOIS LESURE (1923-2001) was the Director of the Music division of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Professor of Musicology at the Université libre de Bruxelles, and Chair of Musicology at the École pratique des Hautes Études. MARIE ROLF is senior associate dean of graduate studies and professor of music theory at the Eastman School of Music and a memberof the editorial board for the Ouvres complètes de Claude Debussy.

French composer Claude Debussy (1862–1918) created music that was revolutionary, with a distinctly modern sound that highlighted the intersection of art and life. Here, in this unique biography, David J. Code explores the important moments in the development of Debussy’s literary interests that shaped his music—and in the process brings to life Debussy’s sardonic personality. Claude Debussy presents an in-depth look at how Debussy’s love for poetry influenced his musical compositions. Code explores both Debussy’s earlier years, filled with student cantatas inspired by Verlaine and Baudelaire, as well as his later works, dominated by nationalistic pieces inspired by French Renaissance poets and composed in the lead-up to World War I. Along the way, Code looks at Debussy’s orchestral compositions and operas, inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice Maeterlinck. This book will give readers a fresh way of listening to Debussy’s classic music by offering the most up-to-date critical analysis of the intersection of Debussy’s literary interests and musical compositions and will appeal to any reader with a love of Debussy, as well as modern music, literature, and the arts.

Claude Debussy’s exquisite piano works have captivated generations with their dreamlike atmosphere and mysterious soundscapes. Written in Paris at the height of the Belle Époque, the music creates a soundtrack for Parisians’ enjoyment of such delights as clowns, mermaids, eccentric dances, and the dark tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Debussy’s Paris: Piano Portraits of the Belle Époque explores how key works reflect not only the most appealing and innocent aspects of Paris but also more disquieting attitudes of the time such as racism, colonial domination, and nationalistic hostility. Debussy left no avenue unexplored, and his piano works present a sweeping overview of the passions, vices, and obsessions of the era. Pianist Catherine Kautsky reveals little-known elements of Parisian culture and weaves the music, the man, the city, and the era into an indissoluble whole. Her portrait will delight anyone who has ever been entranced by Debussy’s music or the city that inspired it.

The essential work of Mallarmé, collected in a bilingual French and English edition.

Some of Debussy's most beloved pieces, as well as lesser-known ones from his early years, set in a rich cultural context by leading experts from the English- and French-speaking worlds. The music of Claude Debussy has always been widely beloved by listeners and performers alike, more perhaps than that of any of the other pioneers of musical modernism. However rich in itself, his creative output also participated, and continues to participate, in a network of cultural connections, the scope and meaning of which can only be gleaned through multiple interpretive frameworks. Debussy's Resonance offers twenty new studies by some of themost active and respected English- and French-language scholars of French music. The book treats a large swath of the composer's music, from previously unexplored mélodies of his early years to late pieces such as the ballet Jeux and the Douze Études, and takes into consideration the numerous contexts that helped shape the works and the different ways that musicologists and critics have explained them. CONTRIBUTORS: Katherine Bergeron, Matthew Brown, David J. Code, Mark DeVoto, Michel Duchesneau, David Grayson, Denis Herlin, Jocelyn Ho, Roy Howat, Steven Huebner, Julian Johnson, Barbara L. Kelly, Richard Langham Smith, Mark McFarland, François de Médicis, Robert Orledge, Boyd Pomeroy. Caroline Rae, Marie Rolf, August Sheehy FRANÇOIS DE MÉDICIS is Professor of Music at the Université de Montréal. STEVEN HUEBNER is Professor of Music at McGill University.

Paris at the turn of the 20th century was obsessed with the interrelations of the arts. It was a time when artists and writers spoke of poetry as music, sounds as colors, and paintings as symphonies. The music of Claude Debussy, with its unique textures and dazzling colors, was the perfect counterpart to the bold new styles of painting in France. Paul Roberts probes the sources of Debussy's artistic inspiration, relating the "impressionist" titles to the artistic and literary ferment of the time. He also draws on his own performing experience to touch on all the principal technical problems for a performer of Debussy's piano music. His many suggestions about interpreting the music will be particularly valuable to performers as well as listeners.

Debussy himself had little regard for Clair de Lune, and scholars have thus far followed suit--until now. Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune is the first book wholly dedicated to an historical, cultural, and analytical investigation of the French composer's famous composition for piano. Author Gurminder Kaur Bhogal explores why, over any other piece in Debussy's repertoire for piano, Clair de Lune achieved stardom in the decades following the composer's death, and how, as the third movement of the Suite Bergamasque, it managed to almost fully eclipse the other movements. Drawing on a broad range of excerpts from classical and popular music, commercials, film, and video games, Bhogal examines the various ways in which listeners have engaged with the piece. She also places it in its proper artistic context, through analysis alongside the poetry of Paul Verlaine and the paintings of Jean-Antoine Watteau. A wide range of aural, visual, and video examples energize the narrative, and demonstrate how Clair de Lune has come to achieve an iconic status within and beyond Debussy's oeuvre.

Claude Debussy's Complete Images (Books 1 and 2), Urtext Edition. Reproduce the original intention of the composer as exactly as possible, without any added or changed material.