![\"Claude](\"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/debussy\/files\/Claude_Debussy.jpg\" "\\"Claude")
Claude Debussy<\/p><\/div>One hundred and fifty years after his birth in the Paris suburb of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Claude Debussy remains one of the most significant composers in the history of\u00a0Western music. An innately creative individual who was contemptuous of the\u00a0academicism of such institutions as the Paris Conservatoire and the Acad\u00e9mie des Beaux-Arts, Debussy epitomized modernism\u2019s commitment to innovation. Through the novel\u00a0juxtaposition of variegated musical layers, the subtle melding of disparate timbres, and\u00a0the extensive utilization of pitch collections that flout the hallowed dualism of major-minor\u00a0tonality (to cite just a few of his imaginative techniques), Debussy achieved a\u00a0unique style that continues to attract devotees the world over.<\/p>\n
In the process of attaining such originality, Debussy tapped a spectrum of\u00a0inspirational sources. Perhaps the greatest musical influence on his development was\u00a0Wagner, whose emotionally charged operas enthralled Debussy during his formative\u00a0years. But as the French composer matured, he grew disillusioned with his idol on\u00a0account of Wagner\u2019s mushrooming dominance over French culture during the final\u00a0decades of the nineteenth century. In Debussy\u2019s view, \u201cWagnermania\u201d had the harmful\u00a0effect of suppressing individual creativity in favor of aesthetic conformism, so the French\u00a0composer determined to write music that pushed beyond the accomplishments of\u00a0Wagner. To be sure, Debussy maintained a healthy respect for Wagner\u2019s harmonic\u00a0sorcery and luminous orchestration, and he frequently incorporated these features into his\u00a0own works, but going forward the French composer focused his attention on more exotic\u00a0sources of musical vitality.<\/p>\n
As fate would have it, Debussy came into contact with one of these exotic\u00a0alternatives just as his love for Wagner\u2019s music was diminishing. Over the course of the\u00a01889 Paris World\u2019s Fair, which gave rise to the famed Eiffel Tower, Debussy avidly\u00a0attended performances of Javanese gamelan music, an experience that opened the French\u00a0composer\u2019s ears to a world of ringing metallophones free of Wagnerian gestures.<\/p>\n
Debussy\u2019s fascination with the gamelan informed two of his most novel pieces, both of\u00a0which will receive performances during The Prismatic Debussy <\/strong>festival: \u201cNuages,\u201d the\u00a0first movement of his orchestral Nocturnes<\/em>, and \u201cPagodes,\u201d which opens his piano\u00a0triptych Estampes<\/em>.<\/p>\n In addition to initiating Debussy into the musical traditions of Java, the 1889\u00a0World\u2019s Fair kindled the composer\u2019s passion for Russian music, thanks to two symphonic\u00a0concerts that were given under the direction of Rimsky-Korsakov. The second of these\u00a0concerts featured music by Musorgsky, and over the next few years Debussy became a great\u00a0admirer of the Russian composer\u2019s output, which differs markedly from Wagner\u2019s on\u00a0account of its highly unorthodox character. As it happened, Debussy was engrossed with\u00a0Musorgsky\u2019s Boris Godunov <\/em>when he began the composition of his own operatic\u00a0masterwork, Pell\u00e9as et M\u00e9lisande<\/em>. Affinities between the two works abound, particularly\u00a0with respect to prosody as both Boris <\/em>and Pell\u00e9as <\/em>teem with vocal parts that mirror the\u00a0inflections of ordinary speech. A highlight of the festival will be the re-imagining of\u00a0Debussy\u2019s opera by Eastman musicians in collaboration with comic-book creator P. Craig\u00a0Russell.<\/p>\n Speaking of comic books, visual art influenced Debussy just as much as exotic\u00a0musics, from the woodblock prints of such Japanese masters as Hiroshige and Hokusai to\u00a0the Impressionist paintings of Monet and Degas. The composer\u2019s interest in the visual\u00a0arts, and for that matter other mediums of expression like poetry, drama and film, reflects\u00a0his commitment to the Symbolist ideal of cross-pollination between the arts. The Pr\u00e9lude\u00a0<\/em>\u00e0 l\u2019apr\u00e8s-midi d\u2019un faune <\/em>and L\u2019Isle joyeuse<\/em>, both of which are featured in new\u00a0arrangements during the festival, exemplify Debussy\u2019s proclivity for finding inspiration\u00a0outside of the realm of music: the former pays homage to verses by the Symbolist poet\u00a0Mallarm\u00e9, whereas the latter alludes to a canvas by Watteau, an exponent of the Rococo\u00a0style. Reveling in pastoral imagery, these two compositions also highlight Debussy\u2019s\u00a0veneration for the natural world, which he regarded as the supreme source of beauty and\u00a0innovation in the universe. Indeed, nature may be viewed as Debussy\u2019s primary muse, as\u00a0evidenced by the numerous evocations of natural phenomena that appear throughout his\u00a0\u0153uvre.<\/p>\n Matthew Morrow<\/p><\/div>While the influences on Debussy are aptly described as prismatic, his impact on\u00a0subsequent artists has been no less varied. The list of composers alone who have cited\u00a0him as a source of inspiration includes\u2014but is not limited to\u2014Bart\u00f3k, Messiaen,\u00a0Gershwin, Takemitsu, Boulez, Crumb and Glass. It therefore seems fitting that Eastman\u00a0composers will premiere new works based on Debussy\u2019s prelude \u201cDes pas sur la neige\u201d\u00a0during The Prismatic Debussy<\/strong>. Clearly, Debussy remains a musical luminary in 2012,\u00a0and we should not be the least bit surprised if young Eastman composers are planning a\u00a0similar concert one hundred years from now. Enjoy the festival!<\/p>\n Matthew Morrow, Ph.D. One hundred and fifty years after his birth in the Paris suburb of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Claude Debussy remains one of the most significant composers in the history of\u00a0Western music. An innately creative individual who was contemptuous of the\u00a0academicism of such institutions as the Paris Conservatoire and the Acad\u00e9mie des Beaux-Arts, Debussy epitomized modernism\u2019s commitment to innovation.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"onecolumn-page.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-130","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","description-off"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/debussy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/debussy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/debussy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/debussy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/debussy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/debussy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/debussy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/debussy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Matthew](\"https:\/\/www.esm.rochester.edu\/debussy\/files\/The-Prismatic-Debussy-Morrow-Photo-335x251.jpg\" "\\"Matthew")
\nInstructor of Musicology
\nEastman School of Music<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"