In the spring of 1918, during the last months of World War I, the German shelling of Paris took a new and terrifying turn when "Big Bertha," a huge gun capable of firing shells more than a hunger miles, was brought into action. Every twent minutes, with grim regularity, Big Bertha fired its projectiles; it was impossible to tell which house, church, or scholl would be hit next.
A small funeral procession--thirty people--made its way up the hill of Montmartre to the Pére-Lachaise Cemetery. Most of the mourners had scattered along the way, for fear of the shelling. Only one brief speech was given before the coffin was lowered. Looking at the inscriptions on the wreaths, a passerby said "It seems to have been a musician."
Darkened by Pain
A sad ending to a life that had been darkened by pain, scandal, self-imposed isolation, and psychological torment--but also brilliantly illumined by musical genius of the highest order. Claude Debussy, the most French of French musicians, brought the music of his country and the world into the twentieth century.
Born near Paris in 1862, Debussy was one of the most original and adventurous musicians who ever lived. Unlike many musical adventurers, however, he was a consummate master. He wrote for every instrumental and vocal combination, his approach differing radically from that of all his predecessors.
Debussy's success liberated his countrymen from their obsession with German music, with Beethoven and Wagner, and made France the musical capital of the world. Musicians of other countries--Spain, Italy, Austria, even Germany--came to accept him as a man of genius, and turned to his works to find musical frames for their own native traditions.
Debussy's influence even spread to places where his music itself was never heard--churches, schools, dance halls--in addition to theaters, homes, and concert halls. His approach to melodies, chords, and tone colors was contagious. Without even hearing his "Clair de Lune," every musician in the Western world after 1900 learned to imagine sounds like those Debussy had been the first to conceive, for his aesthetic spread everywhere.
Debussy also attuned mainstream Western music to the rest of the world by infusing it with the influence of Indonesian gamelan and Afro-American ragtime. What be learned helped him loosen European musical conventions and promote a new, global give-and-take of musical techniques and cultural values.
The musically precocious child's first piano lessons were with the mother-in-law of the great French poet Paul Verlaine--the earliest of many connections he would have with great writers of his age. At ten, Debussy was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire, and at twelve, he was performing in public. In his early twenties, he won the prestigious Prix de Rome, which earned him a substantial sum and a two-year stay in the Italian capital. On the way home, he visited Bayreuth, returning to Paris in time to hear ensembles from Java and Indochina perform at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889.
Debussy soon began work on the compositions we know
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