Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy is one of the most influential composers who creates a unique and forward-looking style of innovative technical finish and poetic appeal. His works significantly break away from the concepts of traditional form and harmony. Debussy also considered the most important composer of piano music since Frederic Chopin.



Growning up from humble beginnings to become the most important French composer of the early Twentieth Century, Achille-Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was born near Paris in the town of St. Germain-en-Laye, where his parents kept a china shop. And his father also worked as a travelling salesman, as a printer's assistant, and as a clerk. His mother was a seamstress who managed to provide a very happy childhood for her son. Debussy's musical talent was discovered by his first piano teacher, Madame Maut de Fleurville, who had been a student of Chopin. Mme. Maut sent Debussy to the Conservatory in Paris, where he studied for ten years, beginning in 1872. At first, Debussy wanted to be a virtuoso pianist, but he later abandoned the idea after two failures in the piano examinations in 1878 and 1879. In 1880 he attended the composition class of Ernest Guiraud whose tutelage led Debussy to win the second Prix de Rome in 1883 and the coveted first Prix de Rome the following year with his Cantata L'enfant prodigue, which enabled him to study composition at the Villa de Medici in Rome for three years.