It’s my pleasure
Claude Debussy, who died 100 years ago, was a divisive figure who enjoyed a hectic love life. Pippa Cuckson reflects on his genius, his extravagance and his musical legacy
The extravagant life of Claude Debussy, by Pippa Cuckson
It’s hard for any festival programmer to think beyond the First World War this year, but the centenary of Claude Debussy’s death (1862–1918) is worthy of note. His composing career spanned barely three decades—not all them successful—but his innovation and unapologetic originality pointed the way for the next 100 years.
He loathed being dubbed the Monet of music and insisted he wasn’t an Impressionist, but, exactly as they did, he rejected the conventions of harmony and structure to suggest a scene or event in a delicious, single-movement wash of sound and iridescence.
Reflets dans l’eau (1905), one of many pieces inspired by water still and turbulent, was composed originally as a piano solo for Images Book I. Debussy prophetically wrote to his publisher: ‘Without false pride, I feel these three pieces hold together well and will find their place in the literature of the piano.’
Debussy will be celebrated in six Proms, starting with a staged performance on July 17 of his largest-scale work, the ravishing opera Pélleas and Melisande, which took him six years to complete, and the cantata La damoiselle élue (July 26). the symphonic poem Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune arguably put Debussy on the map when it premiered at the société Nationale in 1894; it’s paired with Nocturnes on August 15.
For someone of such artistic sensitivity, Debussy was an intolerant, abrasive personality: his chaotic private life eventually prompted friends to disown him. He derided most other composers, although he appreciated Liszt, whom he met during a residency in Italy that was a prize for winning the Prix de Rome in 1884 with the cantata L’enfant prodigue.
Debussy also liked an eclectic grouping of Palestrina, Rimsky-korsakov and Wagner, despite describing the latter as ‘a beautiful sunset mistaken for a dawn’. In the first hint of any borrowing, there’s a tiny nod to Parsifal in Debussy’s last orchestral work, the dance fantasy Jeux (August 16).
Debussy was born above his parents’ china shop in Paris. During the siege of the city in 1870, the family escaped to Cannes, where his prodigiousness on the piano emerged from nowhere. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris when he was 10 and studied there for 11 years, which seems remarkable given that his determination to break the mould as a composer baffled and irritated his tutors and peers, who described him as ‘bizarre’ and ‘incomprehensible’.
He developed extravagant tastes—he had a lifelong obsession with dandy outfits and caviar—during the summer he spent as resident pianist, aged 17, at the Château de Chenonceau, the one-time residence of Catherine de Medici. this was followed by a similar role for Nadezhda von Meck, tschaikovsky’s patron, who took him on a Grand tour.
Debussy lived way beyond his means until he married banker’s wife Emma Bardac in 1904. He accepted many commissions purely to pay bills, such as music
for Le Martyre de Saint Sébastian and the ballet Khamma, and died owing his publisher a fortune in advances.
The piano solo Clair de Lune, a perennial favourite with amateurs, only survived through financial hardship: he wrote it in 1890 and reluctantly revived it for publication in 1905, feeling it to be unrepresentative of his mature style. When a tutor enquired what guided his harmonic ideas, Debussy replied simply: ‘My pleasure.’
After his first girlfriend, Marie Vasnier, to whom he dedicated 27 songs, ended their seven-year relationship, Debussy discarded partners with alacrity. Gabrielle Dupont, a prostitute, supported him for 10 years from 1890, but, while living with her, he became engaged to singer Thérèse Roger. He finally left Dupont for Marie-rosalie Texier and when he discarded her for Bardac, Texier shot herself—not fatally—in public in the Place de la Corcorde. Bardac bore his only child, Chouchou, who inspired a catalogue of work, notably Children’s Corner, the suite containing Golliwog’s Cakewalk.
Debussy was adept at transporting the listener to experiences he could only know secondhand—poissons d’or (Images Book II) was inspired by an illustration of koi carp on an oriental vase. Composer Manuel de Falla heaped praise on Debussy for invoking the exact flavour of his homeland in
La Soirée dans Grenade ‘without copying even one measure of Spanish music’.
His travels never extended to the Far East, but he began to assimilate the pentatonic scale (five notes per octave), which became a hallmark of his writing, after hearing Javanese gamelan music at the 1889 Paris Exhibition. That scale (the black keys on the piano) is a feature of Pagodes (1903); Debussy specialist Noriko Ogawa recommends students to imagine ‘24 hours of sitting in a very hot bath’ to capture the mood.
Debussy’s piano music is also significant for stretching the boundaries of playing technique, first championed by Chopin and Liszt, when modern pianos became more touch-sensitive and incorporated sustaining pedals and the multi-layered texture and sparkle of his piano solos made them a gift for later orchestration. This also worked well in reverse: he re-scored La Mer (August 4) for virtuoso piano duet.
Debussy was unfettered by what others thought, which led to experiments with many untried instrumental groupings. Shortly before his death, at 55, from cancer during the bombardment of Paris, he was writing for harp, harpsichord and piano. His enduring Sonata
for viola, flute and harp (September 3) leaves us pondering what might have been and where Debussy’s extraordinary ear for sonority would have taken him next.
For someone of such artistic sensitivity, Debussy was an intolerant and abrasive personality