Editing Claude Debussy (section)

=== Early life ===
Debussy was born on 22 August 1862 in [[Saint-Germain-en-Laye]], [[Seine-et-Oise]], on the north-west fringes of Paris.<ref>Lockspeiser, p. 6; and Trezise (2003), p. xiv</ref>{{refn|Debussy's birthplace is now a museum dedicated to him. In addition to displays depicting his life and work, the building contains a small auditorium in which an annual season of concerts is given.<ref>[https://www.saintgermainenlaye.fr/506/maison-natale-claude-debussy.htm Maison Natale Claude-Debussy] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180614165926/https://www.saintgermainenlaye.fr/506/maison-natale-claude-debussy.htm |date=14 June 2018 }}, Saint Germain en Laye municipal website, retrieved 12 June 2018 (in French)</ref>|group= n}} He was the eldest of the five children of Manuel-Achille Debussy and his wife, Victorine, ''née'' Manoury. Debussy senior ran a china shop and his wife was a seamstress.<ref name=grove>Lesure & Howat, 2001</ref><ref>Jensen, pp. 3–4</ref> The shop was unsuccessful, and closed in 1864; the family moved to Paris, first living with Victorine's mother, in [[Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine|Clichy]], and, from 1868, in their own apartment in the [[Rue Saint-Honoré]]. Manuel worked in a printing factory.<ref name=fy>
[http://www.debussy.fr/encd/bio/bio1_62-82.php "Formative Years"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140926042121/http://www.debussy.fr/encd/bio/bio1_62-82.php |date=26 September 2014 }}, Centre de documentation Claude Debussy, Bibliothèque nationale de France, retrieved 18 April 2018
</ref>

In 1870, to escape the [[Siege of Paris (1870–71)|siege of Paris]] during the [[Franco-Prussian War]], Debussy's pregnant mother took him and his sister Adèle to their paternal aunt's home in [[Cannes]], where they remained until the following year. During his stay in Cannes, the seven-year-old Debussy had his first piano lessons; his aunt paid for him to study with an Italian musician, Jean Cerutti.<ref name=grove/> Manuel Debussy remained in Paris and joined the forces of the [[Paris Commune|Commune]]; after its defeat by French government troops in 1871 he was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, of which he only served one year. His fellow Communard prisoners included his friend Charles de Sivry, a musician.<ref>Lockspeiser, p. 20</ref> Sivry's mother, Antoinette Mauté de Fleurville, gave piano lessons, and at his instigation the young Debussy became one of her pupils.<ref>Jensen, p. 7</ref>{{refn|Biographers of Debussy, including Edward Lockspeiser, Stephen Walsh and Eric Frederick Jensen, comment that although Antoinette Mauté de Fleurville was a woman of some affectations, with the assumed manner of a grande dame, she was a fine teacher. She claimed to have studied with [[Chopin]], and although many of Debussy's biographers have been sceptical about this, her artistic prowess was vouched for not only by Debussy, but by her son-in-law, [[Paul Verlaine]].<ref>Lockspeiser, pp. 20–21; Walsh (2003), Chapter 1; and Jensen, pp. 7–8</ref>|group= n}}

Debussy's talents soon became evident, and in 1872, aged ten, he was admitted to the [[Conservatoire de Paris]], where he remained a student for the next eleven years. He first joined the piano class of [[Antoine François Marmontel]],<ref>Lockspeiser, p. 25</ref> and studied [[solfège]] with [[Albert Lavignac]] and, later, composition with [[Ernest Guiraud]], harmony with [[Émile Durand]], and organ with [[César Franck]].<ref name="Prod'homme">Prod'homme, J. G. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/737880 Claude Achille Debussy], ''The Musical Quarterly'', October 1918, p. 556 {{subscription}}</ref> The course included music history and theory studies with [[Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray]], but it is not certain that Debussy, who was apt to skip classes, actually attended these.<ref>Fulcher, p. 302</ref>

At the Conservatoire, Debussy initially made good progress. Marmontel said of him, "A charming child, a truly artistic temperament; much can be expected of him".<ref>Lockspeiser, p. 26</ref> Another teacher was less impressed: Émile Durand wrote in a report, "Debussy would be an excellent pupil if he were less sketchy and less cavalier." A year later he described Debussy as "desperately careless".<ref>Nichols (1980), p. 306</ref> In July 1874 Debussy received the award of ''deuxième accessit''{{refn|That is, fourth prize, after the ''premier accessit'', the runner-up (''second prix'') and the winner (''premier prix'').<ref>[http://bluemountain.princeton.edu/bluemtn/cgi-bin/bluemtn?a=d&d=bmtnabh19080815-01.2.13.2&e=-------en-20--1--txt-IN----- "Concours du Conservatoire"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180614165925/http://bluemountain.princeton.edu/bluemtn/cgi-bin/bluemtn?a=d&d=bmtnabh19080815-01.2.13.2&e=-------en-20--1--txt-IN----- |date=14 June 2018 }}, ''Le Mercure Musical'', 15 August 1908, p. 98 (in French)</ref>|group= n}} for his performance as soloist in the first movement of [[Piano Concerto No. 2 (Chopin)|Chopin's Second Piano Concerto]] at the Conservatoire's annual competition. He was a fine pianist and an outstanding [[sight-reading|sight reader]], who could have had a professional career had he wished,<ref>Schonberg, p. 343</ref> but he was only intermittently diligent in his studies.<ref>Lockspeiser, p. 28</ref> He advanced to ''premier accessit'' in 1875 and second prize in 1877, but failed at the competitions in 1878 and 1879. These failures made him ineligible to continue in the Conservatoire's piano classes, but he remained a student for harmony, solfège and, later, composition.<ref name=fy/>

With Marmontel's help Debussy secured a summer vacation job in 1879 as resident pianist at the [[Château de Chenonceau]], where he rapidly acquired a taste for luxury that was to remain with him all his life.<ref name=fy/><ref>Nichols (1998), p. 12</ref> His first compositions date from this period, two settings of poems by [[Alfred de Musset]]: "Ballade à la lune" and "Madrid, princesse des Espagnes".<ref name=fy/> The following year he secured a job as pianist in the household of [[Nadezhda von Meck]], the patroness of [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]].<ref>Nichols (1998), p. 13</ref> He travelled with her family for the summers of 1880 to 1882, staying at various places in France, Switzerland and Italy, as well as at her home in Moscow.<ref>Walsh (2018), p. 36</ref> He composed his [[Piano Trio (Debussy)|Piano Trio in G major]] for von Meck's ensemble, and made a transcription for piano duet of three dances from Tchaikovsky's ''[[Swan Lake]]''.<ref name=fy/>{{refn|In September 1880 von Meck sent the manuscript of Debussy's ''Danse bohémienne'' for Tchaikovsky's perusal; a month later Tchaikovsky wrote back, mildly complimenting the work but remarking on its slightness and brevity. Debussy did not publish it, and the manuscript remained in the von Meck family and was not published until 1932.<ref name=ra>Andres, Robert. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/raveldebussy/recital1.shtml "An introduction to the solo piano music of Debussy and Ravel"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170406130044/http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/raveldebussy/recital1.shtml |date=6 April 2017 }}, BBC, retrieved 15 May 2018</ref>|group= n}}