Debussy, (Achille-)Claude 1862-1918
French composer

Debussy was born in St Germain-en-Laye and educated at the Paris Conservatoire (1873-84), where he studied the piano under Marmontel. In 1884 he won the Prix de Rome with his cantata L'Enfant prodigue. His early work was influenced by Richard Wagner, for whom he had a great admiration, but he developed a more experimental and individual vein in his first mature work, the Pr�lude � l'apr�s-midi d'un faune, evoked by St�phane Mallarm�'s poem, which first won him fame. He further added to his reputation with his admired operatic setting of Maurice Maeterlinck's Pell�as et M�lisande, begun in 1892 but not performed until 1902, and some outstanding piano pieces, Images and Pr�ludes, in which he moved further from traditional formulae and experimented with novel techniques and effects, producing the pictures in sound which led to his work being described as 'musical Impressionism'.

He extended this new idiom to orchestral music in La Mer (1905), the orchestrated Images, and other pieces, and later elaborated his piano style still further, as in the scintillating Feux d'artifice and the atmospheric La Cath�drale engloutie. In his later period he composed much chamber music, including pieces for the flute and the harp, two instruments peculiarly suited to his type of music.

In his private life Debussy was shy and reserved, particularly in his last years, which were clouded by his suffering from cancer; he did not socialize much, except in literary circles. In 1899 he married Rosalie Texier, a dressmaker, whom he left in 1904 for Emma Bardac, his wife from 1905.

His intensely individual compositions explored new and original avenues of musical expression, and had a profound effect on French music in general and piano music in particular at the turn of the century.

Bibliography: R Nichols, Debussy (1973) and Debussy Remembered (1992).