CLAUDE DEBUSSY

A China Shop and a Piano

I was born on 22 August 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a town just outside Paris. My father, Manuel-Achille, owned a china shop, and my mother, Victorine, was a seamstress, so nobody in the house was a musician. Still, I walked into the Paris Conservatoire in October 1872, when I was only ten years old. My teachers there included Marmontel for piano and Guiraud for composition, and I made them work harder than they probably expected.

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, But I Got a Prize There

In 1884 I won the Prix de Rome with a cantata called L'enfant prodigue, which was a big deal for a young composer. The prize sent me to live at the Villa Medici in Rome from January 1885 to March 1887. My real breakthrough came later, when Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune was first performed in Paris on 22 December 1894. It was inspired by a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, and it floats along so dreamily that people realized music could behave in a completely new way.

Paris, My Home and My Workshop

Paris was where I lived and worked, and it kept feeding my ears. At the Exposition of 1889 I heard Javanese gamelan music, and its shimmering sound stayed with me for years. For most of 1901 I also wrote music criticism for La Revue Blanche, under the pen name "Monsieur Croche". It was a pleasure to say what I really thought about other people's music without having my own name attached to it.

The Moonlight Piece

My opera Pelléas et Mélisande was first performed on 30 April 1902, and La mer reached its first audience in Paris on 15 October 1905. But here on this site the piece to hear is Clair de Lune, which is probably my most beloved melody. It isn't a separate piece, by the way, because it's the third of the four movements of my Suite bergamasque, and its title comes from a poem by Paul Verlaine. The story goes that I first wrote it around 1890, but nobody can say for sure how much I changed it before it was published in 1905.

A Messy Chapter in My Love Life

I married Lilly Texier in October 1899, and for a while that was that. Then, on 15 July 1904, I sent her away, which is not something I'm proud of. I married Emma Bardac on 20 January 1908. Our daughter Claude-Emma, whom everybody called "Chouchou", was born in October 1905, and she became the great joy of my life.

The Last Movement

I died in Paris on 25 March 1918, at the age of 55, of colon cancer. That is far too young, and I still had a good deal of music in my head. The saddest part is that Chouchou died in the diphtheria epidemic of 1919, scarcely a year after me. She was the little girl I had written so tenderly about, and I am glad I never had to know that.

Please Don't Call Me an Impressionist

After I was gone, other composers kept using the fresh colors and the free, floating harmonies I had tried out. People like to call my music Impressionist, but I disliked that label very much. I wasn't trying to paint a blurry picture, I was trying to catch a feeling in sound. You can hear the echo of that gamelan I heard in 1889 in "Pagodes" from Estampes, which shows how far a good listening ear can travel.

What I'd Like You to Take Away

I don't want you to analyze my music, and you don't need any training to enjoy it. Sit down somewhere quiet, put on Clair de Lune, and let the notes drift past like clouds across the moon. If it makes you feel calm, or a little wistful, or just a bit more awake to the evening, then I've done my job. That's all I ever wanted to give you: a few quiet minutes when the world slows down.