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Born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines, France, Claude Debussy studied with Guiraud and others at the Paris Conservatoire ( 1872- 84) and as an 1884 Prix de Rome winner, went to Rome, Italy ( 1885– 71887 is a common year starting on Saturday (click on link for calendar). Events January 20 The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base. January 21 The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is formed January 26 Battle of Dogali: A), though more important impressions came from his visits to BayreuthBayreuth is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Frankish Alb and the Fichtelgebirge. It is the capital of Upper Franconia. Population: 74,000 (2001). History Bayreuth was first mentioned in 1194 and may have ( 18881888 is a leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). In Germany, 1888 is known as the 1888 Year of Three Emperors. Events January 3 91cm telescope first used at Lick Observatory January 12 ? Blizzards in Dakota and Montana, Minnesota, Nebr, 1889Events January-April January 8 Herman Hollerith receives a patent for his electric tabulating machine January 22 Columbia Phonograph is formed in Washington, DC. February 11 Meiji Constitution of Japan adopted; 1st Diet convenes in 1890 January 30 ? Crown) and from hearing Javanese gamelanA gamelan is a musical ensemble of Indonesian origin typically featuring metallophones, xylophone(s), drums, and gongs. Varieties of gamelan ensembles Gamelan orchestras are common to the islands of Java, Madura, Bali, and Lombok (and other Sunda Islands) music in Paris (1889).
WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner ( May 22, 1813 February 13, 1883) was an influential German composer, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas. His music is still widely performed, the best known pieces being the "Ride of the Valkyries" from Di's influence is evident in the cantataCantata (Italian for a song or story set to music), a vocal composition accompanied by instruments and generally containing more than one movement. In the 16th century, when all serious music was vocal, the term had no reason to exist, but with the rise o La damoiselle élue ( 18881888 is a leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). In Germany, 1888 is known as the 1888 Year of Three Emperors. Events January 3 91cm telescope first used at Lick Observatory January 12 ? Blizzards in Dakota and Montana, Minnesota, Nebr) and the Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire (1889) but other songs of the period, notably the settings of Verlaine (Ariettes oubliées, Trois mélodies, Fêtes galantes, set 1) are in a more capricious style, as are parts of the still somewhat Franckian G minor String Quartet ( 1893); in that work he used not only the Phrygian mode but also less standard modes, notably the whole-tone mode, to create the floating harmony he discovered through the work of contemporary writers: Mallarmé in the orchestral Prélude à 'L'après-midi d'un faune ( 1894 - in 1912 used as music for the L’Après-midi d’un Faune ballet production) and Maeterlinck in the opera Pelléas et Mélisande, dating in large part from 1893-5 but not completed until 1902. These works also brought forward a fluidity of rhythm and color quite new to Western music.Pelléas, with its rule of understatement and deceptively simple declamation, also brought an entirely new tone to opera — but an unrepeatable one. Debussy worked on other opera projects and left substantial sketches for two pieces after tales by Edgar Allan Poe (Le diable dans le beffroi and La chute de la maison Usher), but neither was completed. Instead, the main works were orchestral pieces, piano sets, and songs.
Among his major orchestral works are the three Nocturnes ( 1899), characteristic studies of veiled harmony and texture ('Nuages'), exuberant cross-cutting ('Fêtes') and seductive whole-tone drift ('Sirènes'). La mer ( 1905) essays a more symphonic form, with a finale that works themes from the first movement, though the centerpiece (Jeux de vagues) proceeds much less directly and with more variety of color. The three Images ( 1912) are more loosely linked, and the biggest, Ibéria is itself a triptych, a medley of Spanish allusions. Finally, the ballet Jeux ( 1913) contains some of Debussy's strangest harmony and texture in a form that moves freely over its own field of motivic connection. Other late stage works, including the ballets Khamma ( 1912) and La boîte à joujoux ( 1913) and the mystery play Le martyre de St. Sébastien ( 1911), were not completely orchestrated by Debussy, though St. Sébastien is remarkable in sustaining an antique modal atmosphere that otherwise was touched only in relatively short piano pieces (eg.La cathédrale engloutie).
Debussy wrote much piano music although the most important of them to begin with are works which, Verlaine fashion, look back at rococo decorousness with a modern cynicism and puzzlement (Suite bergamasque, 1890; Pour le piano, 1901). His first volume of Images pour piano 1904 - 1905 evokes tonality that was rarely heard in works by his contemporaries such as phrases suggesting the rippling of water in the first piece Reflets dans l'eau as well as a homage to Jean-Philippe Rameau's influence in a slow and mysterious court dance in the second piece Hommage à Rameau. But then, as in the orchestral pieces, Debussy began to associate his music with visual impressions of the East, Spain, landscapes etc, in a sequence of sets of short pieces. This can be heard in the volume of pieces known as Estampes which was composed in 1903 and features pieces suitably entitled such as Pagodes which invokes a feel of the Orient and of magnificent pagodas and its imposing turrets. The second piece in Estampes entitled La soirée dans Grenade vividly recalls a Spanish atmosphere. Even in his famous Children's Corner Suite for piano, which he wrote for his beloved daughter whom he called Chou-chou also suggests influences from the Orient as well as a new wave of jazz influence although Debussy also has a laugh at Richard Wagner in the piece Golliwogg's Cake-walk.
His last volume of Etudes ( 1915) interprets similar varieties of style and texture purely as pianistic exercises and includes pieces that develop irregular form to an extreme as well as others influenced by the young Stravinsky (a presence too in the suite En blanc et noir for two pianos, 1915). The rarefaction of these works is a feature of the last set of songs, the Trois poèmes de Mallarmé ( 1913), and of the Sonata for flute, viola and harp ( 1915), though the sonata and its companions also recapture the inquisitive Verlainian classicism. The planned set of six sonatas was cut short by the composer's death in 1918 from rectal cancer.
Claude Debussy died in Paris on March 25, 1918 during World War I and a siege by the Prussian army who pounded Paris from the 'Big Bertha' gun not far from the capital city. He was interred there in the Cimetière de Passy. Debussy's death as well as the World War I coincided with the sad end of the Belle Epoque era which witnessed Paris blooming with sophistication and modernity as never seen before in Europe.
Rudolph Réti points out these features of Debussy's music which "established a new concept of tonality in European music":He concludes that Debussy's achievement was the synthesis of monophonic based "melodic tonality" with harmonies, albeit different from those of "harmonic tonality". (Reti, 1958)