Debussy And His World

Download or read book Debussy and His World written by Jane F. Fulcher and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Claude Debussy's Paris was factionalised, politicised, and litigious. This text aims to capture the complexity of the composer's restless personal and artistic identity within the context of fin-de-siècle Paris.

Download or read book Debussy and His World written by Jane Fulcher and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-06 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Claude Debussy's Paris was factionalized, politicized, and litigious. It was against this background of ferment and change--which characterized French society and music from the Franco-Prussian War to World War I--that Debussy re-thought music. This book captures the complexity of the composer's restless personal and artistic identity within the new picture emerging of the musical, social, and political world of fin-de-siècle Paris. Debussy's setting did not simply mold his style. Rather, it challenged him to define a style and then to revamp it again and again as he situated himself simultaneously via the present and the past. These essays trace Debussy's perpetual reinvention, both social and creative, from his earliest to his last works. They explore tensions and contradictions in his best-known compositions and examine lesser-known pieces that reveal new aspects of Debussy's creative appropriation from poetry, painting, and non-Western music. The contributors reveal the extent to which Debussy's personal and professional lives were intertwined and sometimes in conflict. Belonging to no one group or class, but crossing many, Debussy abjured the orthodox. A maverick who reviled all convention and searched for a music that authentically reflected experience, Debussy balked at entering any situation--salons, musical societies, or factions--that would categorize and thus distort him. Because of this, music lovers still argue over the degree to which Debussy's music is Impressionist, symbolist, or even French. Aptly, the volume's editor reads Debussy's last works as a dialogue with himself that reflects his inherently pluralistic, paradoxical, negotiated, and ever-changing identity. William Austin's description of Debussy as ''one of the most original and adventurous musicians who ever lived'' is often repeated. This book illustrates how right Austin was and shows why Debussy's unclassifiable art continues to fascinate and perplex his historians even as it enthralls new listeners. The contributors are Leon Botstein, Christophe Charle, John Clevenger, Jane F. Fulcher, David Grayson, Brian Hart, Gail Hilson-Woldu, and Marie Rolf.

Download or read book Debussy written by Stephen Walsh and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-10-23 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Debussy's Paris written by Catherine Kautsky and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Claude Debussy written by François Lesure and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Debussy in Performance written by James R. Briscoe and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Claude Debussy, who composed works of major significance in a wide range of musical and theatrical genres, has exerted a fundamental influence on musicians of the twentieth century. This book explores how Debussy's compositions are brought to life in performance, investigating the composer's own expectations, the traditions surrounding the performance of his music, and the internal and contextual evidence that can give insight to performers of his works. Leading international scholars and interpreters of Debussy's music draw on his letters and music criticism as well as on the memoirs of performers close to him to discuss issues of performance forces, tempo and its flexibility, performer license, and the interpretation of expressive indications in the scores. They urge performers to recognize the symbolism and the value of silence in Debussy's work. And they show that it is particularly important to focus on aspects of timbre, voice-leading, and the musical arabesque, together with meter and phrase ambiguities, when playing his music. The book also includes the translation of an article on the opera Pelleas et Melisande In performance by one of Debussy's original conductors, Desire-Emile Inghelbrecht, and an interview with the composer-conductor Pierre Boulez on approaches to Pelleas and the orchestral works.

Download or read book Emma and Claude Debussy written by Gillian Opstad and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2022 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emma Bardac and her relationship with Claude Debussy take centre stage in this insightful exploration of their lives together. The singer Emma Bardac (1862-1934) has often been presented as a woman who ensnared Claude Debussy (1862-1918) because she wanted to be associated with his fame and to live a life of luxury. Indeed, in many biographies and composer-related studies of Debussy, the only mentions that she receives are brief and derogatory. Here Emma Bardac and her relationship with the composer take centre stage. The book traces Emma's Jewish ancestry and her background, the significant role of her wealthy uncle Osiris, her marriage at seventeen to the wealthy Jewish banker Sigismond Bardac, her affair with Gabriel Fauré and her liaison with and subsequent marriage to Debussy. As Gillian Opstad shows, the pressure and stifling effects of domestic life on Debussy's attitude to his composing were considerable. The financial consequences of their partnership were disastrous, and their circle of close friends was small. Emma suffered physically and mentally from the tensions of the marriage, particularly money worries, and the possibility that Debussy was attracted to her older daughter. She considered divorce but supported him through his deepest depression and during the First World War until he succumbed to cancer in 1918. After Debussy's death, Emma felt driven both on his behalf and for financial reasons to further performances of the composer's works and provoked the annoyance of other musicians by having early compositions resurrected, completed and performed. In this engagingly written biography, Gillian Opstad brings to light little-known facts about Emma's background and family, advances new insights into her relationship with Debussy, and provides a glimpse of an early twentieth-century Parisian milieu that experienced wide-spread antisemitism.