Claude Debussy, Composer

Claude Debussy is perhaps the most influential French composer in western music. His influence was prominently felt for composers who were contemporaries and in the decades to follow. Debussy’s music continues to be influential in our time for 21st century composers. Musicians and audiences alike are swept away by the beauty, color and brilliance of his music. As if he could speak from the afterlife, Debussy tells his life story (based on scholarly sources). Quotation marks indicate Debussy’s exact words.

My aunt was taken with me, and she believed I had a hidden talent. She hired an old Italian professor, Jean Cerutti, to teach me how to play the piano, while she taught me how to read and write. Although I learned and picked up on the lessons quite quickly, there was no hidden, secret talent, unfortunately. Once we left my aunt’s house after the Paris Commune, my music lessons were quickly forgotten. 

In fact, it wasn’t until my father introduced me to Charles de Sivry (also known as the “Prince of Poets”) whom he’d met in prison that I began learning again. De Sivry took me to his mother, who had been a student of Chopin, and after some to and fro she agreed to take me on as a pupil. Apparently, she once said, “That boy must be a musician.” And that was her seal of approval — one that would later be the reason for my entrance into the Conservatory.

It was the second prize in 1877, when I was fifteen,  where I played Schumann’s G Minor Sonata, that I realized I wanted to compete for the Prix de Rome.  By then, I had become more interested in composition. While Marmontel had nothing but good things to say about myself, my harmony teacher thought differently. “Debussy would be an excellent pupil if he were less sketchy and less cavalier.” He did not enjoy the bending of the rules to suit my style of music. I remember he listened to me practice one day and was not impressed with what he heard. He’d said, “Don’t you understand the principles of harmony?” I’d said not his idea of harmony, no, but that I understood my style, my music.  My time at the Conservatory can be described as bittersweet because of how torn my teachers were: they either loved me or hated me.

In 1874, I won an award for my performance of Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, and was awarded the deuxieme accessit. I later received a premier accessit in 1875, and yet another second prize in 1877. However, my failures in 1878 and 1879 meant I could not continue piano classes at the Conservatory.

My time at the Villa is not one I remember fondly. I battled with depression so deep that I could not compose, and only felt myself when I visited Marie. I wrote to a friend once, saying, “I cannot bear to be separated from Mrs. Vasnier. I told you that I have become too used to wanting and conceiving only by her…” The accommodation, music and food were not to my taste, either, and staying in Rome felt more like torture than an enjoyable, memorable experience.

 It wasn’t until 1885, at twenty-three, when I decided to go my own way that things began getting better. “I am sure the Institute would not approve, for, naturally it regards the path which it ordains as the only right one.  But there is no help for it! I am too enamored of my freedom, too fond of my own ideas!”

The Influence of Gamelan Music on Claude Debussy

In 1889, at twenty-seven, I attended a performance by an Indonesian gamelan group. Gamelan music was a series of percussion instruments, and was often an orchestra. It was so different to anything I had ever heard, and so curious was I by how the instruments worked, that I found myself deeply inspired by this music. I composed a piano piece named Pagodes due to the inspiration of gamelan music.

Inspiration came to me in many forms. Usually, I was influenced by turmoils in my life. However, upon my return to Paris in 1887, I discovered Wagner’s music. As a fan of Bach, I found myself conflicted about Wagner. I loved Tristan and Isolde, and went to Bayreuth to watch Parsifal and die Meistersinger, and although Wagner had some influence to my work, I didn’t find myself completely swept up by his talent like other composers.

When I was twenty-eight, in 1890, my coveted affair with Marie Vasnier ended. We remained on good terms and I composed and dedicated Mandolin to her. That same year, I met Erik Satie. We became good friends immediately: I found myself drawn to his lifestyle, so similar to mine, and we seemed to enjoy many of the same things. 

In 1893, at thirty-one, I was elected to the committee of the Société Nationale de Musique, where my String Quartet was premiered by Ysaye later that year.

Claude Debussy and the Pelléas et Mélisande and A Scandalous Affair

In May 1893, I attended the theatre to watch Pelléas et Mélisande. I then traveled to Maurice Maeterlinck’s home to ask consent for an operatic adaptation, so taken was I with his play. Maeterlinck readily agreed to the adaptation, and I began working on it right away. 

After completing Act I of Pelléas et Mélisande, I began an affair with Thérèse Roger while still living with Gaby. It did not go unnoticed.”Gaby with her steely eyes found a letter in my pocket which left no doubt as to the advanced stage of a love affair with all the romantic trappings to move the most hardened heart. Whereupon tears, drama, a real revolver and a report in the Petit Journal. Ah, my dear fellow, why weren’t you here to help me out of this nasty mess? It was all barbarous, useless and will change absolutely nothing. A moth’s kisses or a body’s caresses can’t be effaced with an India-rubber. Mind you, they might perhaps think of something like this and call it the Adulterer’s India Rubber. On top of it all, poor little Gaby lost her father – an occurrence which for the time being has straightened things out. I was, all the same, very upset … “ The Petit Journal was a French daily newspaper, and anything of any import or gossip was published and circulated quickly. It did not take long for things to go south. 

I announced my engagement to Roger in 1894, when I was thirty-two, after telling her that Gaby and I had split. Our good news was met with condemnation so loud that many of my friends distanced themselves, and colleagues disowned me. One of my financial supporters, Eric Chausson was so livid with the announcement that he went to the Petit Journal, too. My mistreatment of women became a very popular subject with anonymous letters circulating, denouncing my relationship with women and financial woes. It was embarrassing. 

Our friendship was unlikely at best, and it ended rather quickly once Pierre Lalo, a critic, stated, “Where M. Debussy is all sensitivity, M. Ravel is all insensitivity, borrowing without hesitation not only the technique but the sensitivity of other people.” After his statement, the tide on either side grew, and it became impossible to fight the idea that Ravel was copying me in every way.

It did not help that, later on, he was one of the people who had stuck his nose in my affair and took my wife, Lilly’s side, in something that had nothing to do with him.

Frankly, I grew irritated with Lilly’s lack of educational finesse. However, after threatening to kill myself, and against’s Gaby’s protests, Lilly and I got married on October 19, 1989, with Erik Satie as our witness. 

I dedicated Sirens from Nocturnes to her, but it was not long before I began to fall out of love with her, and found her voice and shrill laughter grating. Our marriage would last less than five years. 

Struggling to find a venue for the opera, I approached André Messager after he became conductor of the Opéra-Comique. He, a fan of my work, then persuaded Albert Carré, the head of the opera house, to listen to my music. In 1901, Carre finally agreed to stage the opera at the Opéra-Comique.

Even then, the staging and rehearsals did not go smoothly. Maeterlinck was adamant he wanted Georgette Leblanc to sing the role of Melisande, but I had become quite taken with a new singer, Mary Garden. “That was the gentle voice that I had heard in my inmost being, with its hesitantly tender and captivating charm, such that I had barely dared to hope for.” 

Maeterlinck was livid with my decision, so much so he tried to legally stop me from setting up the performance. Thankfully, the signed documents stating his permission had been freely given proved useful in this context, and one night he even turned up to my house, where Lilly met him at the door and stopped him from giving me a few “whacks” as he’d promised. It wasn’t until he watched the opera in 1920 that Maeterlinck admitted I was right and he was wrong: Mary Garden had been the best choice for the role.

The opera opened on 30 April 1902 to resounding success. The Apaches (a group of artists led primarily by Maurice Ravel where musicians could perform new music and discuss politics in peace), in particular, were very supportive of my work and ended up attending all fourteen performances. I had begun attending their meetings a year previously. 

The affair continued in secret for a year, and on July 15 1904, I sent Lilly away and took Emma to Jersey, then Normandy, on holiday. By August 11, I knew I could not continue my marriage to my wife, and wrote her a letter ending things. 

On October 14, Lilly attempted suicide by shooting herself in the chest. It did not kill her but paralyzed her instead. The scandal caused Emma’s family to disown her, and me to lose many more friends, supporters, and colleagues, one of them being Messager of the Opéra-Comique. Paris became intolerable. I could not work, or enjoy myself, and had very few people I could count on. “You should know how many people have deserted me. It is enough to make one sick of everyone called man… Morally, I have suffered terribly… I don’t know, but I’ve often had to smile so that no one should see that I was going to cry.”

When a group of old friends of mine banded together to support Lilly financially, I decided to take Emma to England. She was pregnant. Mary Garden once said, “I honestly don’t know if Debussy ever loved anybody really. He loved his music — and perhaps himself. I think he was wrapped up in his genius.” However, I was completely besotted with my daughter, Claude-Emma, also known as Chouchou. She was born 30 October, 1905. Unfortunately, married life with Emma was not what I was hoping for, and our relationship deteriorated although we never separated nor divorced.

In the same vein, Stravinsky admired me, my work and my talent as a pianist and as a composer. It was not long before we became friends, especially after I attended the performance of Petrushka. I had written to him shortly after, saying, “Thanks to you, I have passed an enjoyable Easter vacation in company of Petrushka, the terrible Moor and the delicious Ballerina. I can imagine that you spent incomparable moments with the three puppets… I don’t know many things of greater worth than the section you call ‘Tour de passé-passé.’ There is in it a kind of sonorous magic, a mysterious transformation of mechanical souls which become human by a spell of which, until now, you seem to be the unique inventor. Finally, there is an orchestral infallibility that I have found only in Parsifal. You will understand what I mean, of course. You will go much further than Petrushka, it is certain, but you can be proud already for the achievement of this work.”

I influenced Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring after playing a piece that was too “primitive” for my works. It inspired him to use that small piece and create a masterpiece that later revolutionized music. In fact, its premier was so successful it caused a riot. People loved it and hated it, and it overshadowed any other musical premier including my own of Jeux. I also helped my friend Igor Stravinsky by playing one of the parts for his 4-hands piano arrangement of Le Sacre du Printemps. He made this arrangement, and we played through it, so he could test out the piece prior to orchestrating it.

Claude Debussy and The Opera, La mer

In October 1905, when I was forty-three, La mer premiered to a very mixed reception. La mer was composed over two years, and was not as well received as I had hoped when it premiered. Once critic said, “The audience seemed rather disappointed: they expected the ocean, something big, something colossal, but they were served instead with some agitated water in a saucer.” I believe the reason for La mer’s flop was because of the reputation I had created for myself. People still disapproved of my romanticisms and did not accept me as a person. 

I conducted Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Nocturnes at Queen’s Hall in London in 1909, and in May Pelleas et Melisande’s first production at Convent Garden premiered. 

My last concert was the premiere of my Violin Sonata on September 14, 1917. My health declined considerably after, and I became bedridden in 1918, at the age of fifty-six. Before I died, I made sure to be rid of any work I deemed imperfect. I died in the March of that year, in the middle of the First World War, to the sound of bombs and artillery. 

Because of the circumstances, a public funeral was not held for me. Instead, a parade led my coffin to my temporary burial spot at Père Lachaise Cemetery, and I would be reinterred later in Passy Cemetery. I was joined a short while later by my daughter, and then my wife. 

Please find compelling quotes of Claude Debussy here on his quotes page.

REFERENCES

• Famous Composers by Nathan Haskell Doyle (George G Harrap & Company)
• Great Composers by Gervase Hughes (Pan Books, 1964)
• Claude Debussy: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Debussy
• Claude Debussy and the Prix de Rome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy#Prix_de_Rome
• Paul Verlaine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Verlaine
• Debussy’s Women: https://mldd.blogspot.com/2012/05/claude-debussy-150-years-4-women.html
• Debussy’s Wives: https://interlude.hk/debussys-wives/
• Debussy: https://www.rodoni.ch/OPERNHAUS/pelleas/Debussy2.pdf
• Pelleas et Mélisande: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pell%C3%A9as_et_M%C3%A9lisande_(opera)
• Igor Stravinsky: http://www.petruschka-klavierfestival.de/index.asp?level1=5&level2=1&page=0&lang=2&pdt=4
• The Gamelan Influence: https://www.wqxr.org/story/gamelan-influence/
• Contrastic Debussy and Ravel: https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/22155#:~:text=Claude%20Debussy%20and%20Maurice%20Ravel,epoch%20of%20rich%20cultural%20confluence.&text=Each%20composer%20was%20at%20times,or%20borrowing%20from%20the%20other.