(Achille) Claude Debussy was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Impressionism in music was a movement among various composers in Western classical music whose music focuses on mood and atmosphere, "conveying the moods and emotions aroused by the subject rather than a detailed tone‐picture". "Impressionism" is a philosophical and aesthetic term borrowed from late 19th-century French painting after Monet's Impression, Sunrise. Composers were labeled Impressionists by analogy to the Impressionist painters who use starkly contrasting colors, effect of light on an object, blurry foreground and background, flattening perspective, etc. to make the observer focus their attention on the overall impression.
Children's Corner, L. 113, is a six-movement suite for solo piano by Claude Debussy. It was published by Durand in 1908, and was first performed by Harold Bauer in Paris on 18 December that year. In 1911, an orchestration by André Caplet was premiered and subsequently published.
L'isle joyeuse, L. 106 is a piece for solo piano by Claude Debussy composed in 1904. It is assumed that the painting The Embarkation for Cythera by Jean-Antoine Watteau served as inspiration for the piece, with Debussy reimagining a group's journey to the island considered Aphrodite's birthplace, and their subsequent ecstatic unions of love upon arrival. According to Jim Samson (1977), the "central relationship in the work is that between material based on the whole-tone scale, the lydian mode and the diatonic scale, the lydian mode functioning as an effective mediator between the other two."
Jeux d'eau is a piece for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed in 1901 and given its first public performance the following year. The title is variously translated as "Fountains", "Playing Water" or literally "Water Games". At the time of writing Jeux d'eau, Ravel was a student of Gabriel Fauré, to whom the piece is dedicated. The work is in a single movement, typically lasting between four and half and six minutes in performance.
Ricardo Viñes y Roda was a Spanish pianist. He gave the premieres of works by Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Falla and Albéniz. He was the piano teacher of the composer Francis Poulenc and the pianists Marcelle Meyer, Joaquín Nin-Culmell and Léo-Pol Morin.
In music and music theory, a hexatonic scale is a scale with six pitches or notes per octave. Famous examples include the whole-tone scale, C D E F♯ G♯ A♯ C; the augmented scale, C D♯ E G A♭ B C; the Prometheus scale, C D E F♯ A B♭ C; and the blues scale, C E♭ F G♭ G B♭ C. A hexatonic scale can also be formed by stacking perfect fifths. This results in a diatonic scale with one note removed.
Rapsodie espagnole is an orchestral rhapsody written by Maurice Ravel. Composed between 1907 and 1908, the Rapsodie is one of Ravel's first major works for orchestra. It was first performed in Paris in 1908 and quickly entered the international repertoire. The piece draws on the composer's Spanish heritage and is one of several of his works set in or reflecting Spain.
Images pour orchestre, L. 122, is an orchestral composition in three sections by Claude Debussy, written between 1905 and 1912. Debussy had originally intended this set of Images as a two-piano sequel to the first set of Images for solo piano, as described in a letter to his publisher Durand as of September 1905. However, by March 1906, in another letter to Durand, he had begun to think of arranging the work for orchestra rather than two pianos.
Claude Debussy's Reflets dans l'eau is the first of three piano pieces from his first volume of Images, which are frequently performed separately. It was written in 1905.
The Cello Sonata, L. 135, is a sonata for cello and piano by Claude Debussy. It was part of his project Six sonatas for various instruments to compose six sonatas for different instruments. It consists of three movements: Prologue, Sérénade and Finale. It was composed and published in 1915. After performances in London and Geneva in 1916, the sonata's official premiere in Paris was played in 1917 by Joseph Salmon and Debussy. It was the first chamber music work in his late style, and became one of the key works in the repertoire from the 20th century.
Voiles is a musical composition for solo piano by French composer Claude Debussy that was composed in 1909. It is the second piece in Debussy's first book of préludes, published in 1910. The title may be translated as either veils or sails; both meanings can be connected to the musical structure.
Des pas sur la neige is a musical composition by French composer Claude Debussy. It is the sixth piece in the composer's first book of Préludes, written between late 1909 and early 1910. The title is in French and translates to "Footprints in the Snow" The piece is 36 measures long and takes approximately three and a half to four and a half minutes to play. It is in the key of D minor. The prelude was, along with Danseuses de Delphes, one of the preludes Debussy believed should be played "entre quatre-z-yeux" meaning intimately, as if privately.
"La cathédrale engloutie" is a musical composition by the French composer Claude Debussy for solo piano, published in 1910. It is the tenth piece in Debussy's first book of préludes. It is characteristic of Debussy in its form, harmony, and content.
La fille aux cheveux de lin is a musical composition for solo piano by French composer Claude Debussy. It is the eighth piece in the composer's first book of Préludes, written between late 1909 and early 1910. The title is in French and translates roughly to "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair". The piece is 39 measures long and takes approximately two and a half minutes to play. It is in the key of G♭ major.
The Two Arabesques, L. 66, is a pair of arabesques composed for piano by Claude Debussy when he was still in his twenties, between the years 1888 and 1891.
Ariettes oubliées is a song cycle for voice and piano, L. 60 by Claude Debussy, based on poems by Paul Verlaine. The work consists of six pieces, with an approximate run time of sixteen minutes.
Images is a suite of six compositions for solo piano by Claude Debussy. They were published in two books/series, each consisting of three pieces. These works are distinct from Debussy's Images pour orchestre. The first book was composed between 1901 and 1905, and the second book was composed in 1907. The total duration is approximately 30 minutes. With respect to the first series of Images, Debussy wrote to his publisher, Jacques Durand: "Without false pride, I feel that these three pieces hold together well, and that they will find their place in the literature of the piano ... to the left of Schumann, or to the right of Chopin... "
Trois Chansons, or Chansons de Charles d’Orléans, L 99 (92), is an a cappella choir composition by Claude Debussy set to the medieval poetry of Charles, Duke of Orléans (1394–1465). Debussy wrote the first and third songs in 1898 and finished the second in 1908. He premiered the piece in 1909 and Trois Chansons is his only composition for unaccompanied choir.
Chapitres tournés en tous sens(Chapters Turned Every Which Way) is a 1913 piano composition by Erik Satie. One of his humoristic keyboard suites of the 1910s, it was published by the firm E. Demets that year. Ricardo Viñes gave the premiere at the Salle Erard in Paris on January 14, 1914. In performance it lasts about 5 minutes.
