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 written by Stephen Walsh and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-10-23 with total page 336 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 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debussy’s Paris takes readers on a tour of Belle Époque Paris through detailed descriptions of the city’s delights and the exquisite piano music Debussy wrote to accompany them. Kautsky reveals little known aspects of Parisian life and weaves the music, the man, the city, and the era into an indissoluble whole.
Download or read book Claude Debussy written by François Lesure and published by Eastman Studies in Music. 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.
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 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 Afternoon of a Faun written by Harvey Lee Snyder and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Amadeus). Claude Debussy was the father of the modern era in classical music. His innovations liberated Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Bartok to write their iconoclastic works, and his harmonic inventions are still heard in American jazz. Though he was among the most compelling figures of the Belle Epoque, his life is little known to all but scholars; and of his considerable musical output, only Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun , La mer , and Clair de lune are widely known. Harvey Lee Snyder addresses this cultural neglect by presenting the composer and his music, without jargon or biographical trivia, in a richly detailed, accurate narrative that reads like a novel. Here is the story of a poor, unschooled Parisian boy swept by odd coincidences to the Paris Conservatory at age ten. Here is a brilliant man struggling to invent a tonal language capable of expressing his unique musical vision, finding inspiration not in Bach and Beethoven but in Mallarme's poetry and the paintings of Whistler and Turner; a man determined to end two centuries of Germanic domination of European music. Here is a reclusive, gentle man whose misguided love affairs ended in scandal and scorn. His hard work failed to end decades of poverty and debt, but when he died in 1918, he was and has remained the foremost French composer of the twentieth century.
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.
Download or read book Claude Debussy written by David J. Code and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2010-08-15 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Debussy s Resonance written by François De Médicis and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Life of Debussy written by Roger Nichols and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-04-28 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'That great blue Sphinx', Debussy called the sea. Debussy himself was something of a Sphinx: in the early 1890s he was thinking of 'founding a society for musical esotericism', and although, on the surface, most of his music is instantly engaging and accessible, at a deeper level run currents that are dangerous, unpredictable, destructive. In this new biography, Roger Nichols considers the life and music of this seminal figure charting the currents and the whirlpools in which other humans were sometimes unlucky enough to get caught. Debussy's status is such that no modern composer has been able to ignore him, asking, as he does, any number of riddles to which late twentieth-century music is still searching answers.
Download or read book Claude Debussy 20th Century Composers written by Paul Roberts and published by Phaidon Press Limited. This book was released on 2008-04-23 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate biography of this innovative and troubled composer.
Download or read book Claude Debussy His Life and Works written by Leon Vallas and published by Vallas Press. This book was released on 2008-11 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CLAUDE DEBUSSY- HIS LIFE AND WORKS Translated from the French by MAIRE and GRACE O BRIEN. Originally published in 1933. PREFACE: IN this book on Claude Debussy I have avoided all biographical details the publication of which, might be deemed premature and indiscreet. The secrets of his private life belong to those who shared it and who bear his name. For the purposes of this book I have made use only of such documents as were originally intended for publication or which have by chance become public property. To my mind, the really interesting points in the life of a musician are his works, his activities, and his influence on his contemporaries. The book which I published in 1928 under the title of The Theories of Claude Debussy, musicien franfais, supplements the present work, revealing as it does the composer s ideas on music given to the public between the years 1901 and 1916. I have made frequent use of Debussys published correspondence: his letters to Vasnier and Ernest Chausson ( Revue Musicale, December 1925 and May 1926) and to the publisher, Durand ( Paris, Durand, 1927). I have also drawn on the reminiscences published by the Revue Musicale, in May 1926 ( articles by: Raymond Bonheur, Paul Dukas, Robert Godet, Andre Messager, Gabriel Pierne, Henri de Regnier, Marguerite Vasnier, Paul Vidal). I have likewise utilized the recollections to which Maurice Emmanuel refers in his study on Telleas et Melisande ( Paris, Mellotte, 1926). Contents include: I. CHILDHOOD. THE CONSERVATOIRE ( 1862-83) . i II. THE PRIX DE ROME ( 1883-4) 22 III. THE VILLA MEDICI ( 1885-7); THE ENVOIS DE ROME ( 1885-90) 32 IV. RETURN TO PARIS ( 1887). INFLUENCES . . 49 V. THE FIRST COMPOSITIONS ( 1888-93) . . 66 VI. BEFORE PELLfiAS: THE QUARTET AND THE PROSES LYRIQUES ( 1892-9) . . .80 VII. & < L APRfiS-MIDI D UN FAUNE; THE NOCTURNES; CRITIQUES ( 1894-1901) . . . .101 VIII. PELLfiAS ET MfiLISANDE ( 1892-1902) DEBUS SYISM 121 IX. CHAMBER MUSIC. C LA MER ( 1902-7) . . 152 X. VARIOUS COMPOSITIONS. LE CAS DEBUSSY ( 1907-10) ...... 181 XL IMAGES FOR ORCHESTRA; PRELUDES AND SONGS ( 1910-13) . . . . - 195 XII. DRAMATIC MUSIC, VARIOUS PLANS. LE MAR TYRE DE SAINT-SfiBASTIEN ( 1911) . . 217 XIII. JEUX. LA BOlTE A JOUJOUX ( 1913) . . 235 XIV. THE WAR. LAST YEARS ( 1914-18) . . .251 APPENDIX A ....... 274 B 274 C . . . - . . - 275. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS: Achille-Claude Debussy ( in 1867) . . . facing p. 2 Achille-Claude Debussy, while at the Conservatoire ( about 1874) ........ 10 New Year s Greetings to Madame Vasnier ( on the music of Mandoline) . . . ., 18 Music Facsimile ( from Le Gladiateur) . between pp. 24 and 25 Villa Medici ( 1885) ..... facing p. 32 Debussy at the house of Ernest Chausson, 1893 . ., 62 A few pages from the note-book of Maurice Emmanuel .... between pp. 84 and 85 Claude Debussy ( about 1895) .... facing p. 90 Claude Debussy ( about 1895) . . . -, 101 Letter to Pierre Louys . . . ., no Debussy at the house of Pierre Louys ( about 1895) . 112 Debussy at the piano ( about 1898) . ., 116 Claude Debussy ( about 1900) . . ., 121 Debussy and his first wife, Rosalie Texier ( about 1902) ., 124 At the time of Telleas et Melisande 138 Debussy, photographed by Pierre Louys ( about 1900) *, 15 Debussy, by Jacques-fimile Blanche ( 1903) - * 54 Letter to Jacques Durand ( August 1903) . . -, * 57 Debussy and his first wife, Rosalie Texier, at Bichain ( about 1902) ..... 158 Debussy at Pourville ( September 1904) . . -, 168 Debussy outside his home ( about 1910). . 212 Letter to Andr6 Halle& quot; ( 27 August 1913) - 240 One of the 363 themes in Roman de Tristan* Debussy s note for the Fourth of a projected Series of Six DEGREES Sonatas ..... Opening of the Finale of the Violin Sonata.
Download or read book Charles Ives and His World written by James Peter Burkholder and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1996-08-25 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume shows Charles Ives in the context of his world in a number of revealing ways. Five new essays examine Ives's relationships to European music and to American music, politics, business, and landscape. J. Peter Burkholder shows Ives as a composer well versed in four distinctive musical traditions who blended them in his mature music. Leon Botstein explores the paradox of how, in the works of Ives and Mahler, musical modernism emerges from profoundly antimodern sensibilities. David Michael Hertz reveals unsuspected parallels between one of Ives's most famous pieces, the Concord Piano Sonata, and the piano sonatas of Liszt and Scriabin. Michael Broyles sheds new light on Ives's political orientation and on his career in the insurance business, and Mark Tucker shows the importance for Ives of his vacations in the Adirondacks and the representation of that landscape in his music. The remainder of the book presents documents that illuminate Ives's personal life. A selection of some sixty letters to and from Ives and his family, edited and annotated by Tom C. Owens, is the first substantial collection of Ives correspondence to be published. Two sections of reviews and longer profiles published during his lifetime highlight the important stages in the reception of Ives's music, from his early works through the premieres of his most important compositions to his elevation as an almost mythic figure with a reputation among some critics as America's greatest composer.
Download or read book Images written by Paul Roberts and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2001 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Claude Debussy His Life and Works written by Léon Vallas and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Camille Saint Sa ns and His World written by Jann Pasler and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revealing look at French composer and virtuoso Camille Saint-Saëns Camille Saint-Saëns—perhaps the foremost French musical figure of the late nineteenth century and a composer who wrote in nearly every musical genre, from opera and the symphony to film music—is now being rediscovered after a century of modernism overshadowed his earlier importance. In a wide-ranging and trenchant series of essays, articles, and documents, Camille Saint-Saëns and His World deconstructs the multiple realities behind the man and his music. Topics range from intimate glimpses of the private and playful Saint-Saëns, to the composer's interest in astronomy and republican politics, his performances of Mozart and Rameau over eight decades, and his extensive travels around the world. This collection also analyzes the role he played in various musical societies and his complicated relationship with such composers as Liszt, Massenet, Wagner, and Ravel. Featuring the best contemporary scholarship on this crucial, formative period in French music, Camille Saint-Saëns and His World restores the composer to his vital role as innovator and curator of Western music. The contributors are Byron Adams, Leon Botstein, Jean-Christophe Branger, Michel Duchesneau, Katharine Ellis, Annegret Fauser, Yves Gérard, Dana Gooley, Carolyn Guzski, Carol Hess, D. Kern Holoman, Léo Houziaux, Florence Launay, Stéphane Leteuré, Martin Marks, Mitchell Morris, Jann Pasler, William Peterson, Michael Puri, Sabina Teller Ratner, Laure Schnapper, Marie-Gabrielle Soret, Michael Stegemann, and Michael Strasser.
