Editing Claude Debussy (section)

== Works ==
{{see also|List of compositions by Claude Debussy}}
In a survey of Debussy's oeuvre shortly after the composer's death, the critic [[Ernest Newman]] wrote, "It would be hardly too much to say that Debussy spent a third of his life in the discovery of himself, a third in the free and happy realisation of himself, and the final third in the partial, painful loss of himself".<ref name=en>Newman, Ernest. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/910277 "The Development of Debussy"], ''The Musical Times'', May 1918, pp. 119–203 {{subscription}}</ref> Later commentators have rated some of the late works more highly than Newman and other contemporaries did, but much of the music for which Debussy is best known is from the middle years of his career.<ref name=grove/>

The analyst David Cox wrote in 1974 that Debussy, admiring Wagner's attempts to combine all the creative arts, "created a new, instinctive, dreamlike world of music, lyrical and pantheistic, contemplative and objective – a kind of art, in fact, which seemed to reach out into all aspects of experience".<ref>Cox, p. 6</ref> In 1988 the composer and scholar [[Wilfrid Mellers]] wrote of Debussy:
{{blockquote|Because of, rather than in spite of, his preoccupation with chords in themselves, he deprived music of the sense of harmonic progression, broke down three centuries' dominance of harmonic tonality, and showed how the melodic conceptions of tonality typical of primitive folk-music and of medieval music might be relevant to the twentieth century<ref>Mellers, p. 938</ref>|}}
Debussy did not give his works [[opus number]]s, apart from his [[String Quartet (Debussy)|String Quartet]], Op. 10 in G minor (also the only work where the composer's title included a [[key (music)|key]]).<ref>Parker, Roger. [https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/debussy-quartet-in-g-minor-op-10 Debussy Quartet in G minor Op 10] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612141542/https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/debussy-quartet-in-g-minor-op-10 |date=12 June 2018 }}, Gresham College, 2008, retrieved 18 June 2018</ref> His works were catalogued and indexed by the musicologist [[François Lesure]] in 1977 (revised in 2003)<ref>
[http://www.debussy.fr/encd/catalog/alpha.php "Alphabetical order"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171027170300/http://www.debussy.fr/encd/catalog/alpha.php |date=27 October 2017 }}, Centre de documentation Claude Debussy, Bibliothèque nationale de France, retrieved 16 May 2018
</ref> and their [[List of compositions by Claude Debussy by Lesure number|Lesure number]] ("L" followed by a number) is sometimes used as a suffix to their title in concert programmes and recordings.

=== Early works, 1879–1892 ===
{{Listen|type=music|
filename=Clair de lune (Claude Debussy) Suite bergamasque.ogg|title=''Clair de Lune'' (5:04)|description=Composed in 1890, performed by Laurens Goedhart in 2011|
|filename2=Claude_Debussy_-_Première_Arabesque_-_Patrizia_Prati.ogg|title2=''Première Arabesque'' (4:53)|
filename3=Claude_Debussy_-_Deuxième_Arabesque_-_Patrizia_Prati.ogg|title3=''Deuxième Arabesque'' (4:00)|description3=Both [[Arabesque (classical music)|arabesques]] performed in 2016 by Patrizia Prati}}
Debussy's musical development was slow, and as a student he was adept enough to produce for his teachers at the Conservatoire works that would conform to their conservative precepts. His friend [[Georges Jean-Aubry]] commented that Debussy "admirably imitated Massenet's melodic turns of phrase" in the cantata ''[[L'enfant prodigue (Debussy)|L'enfant prodigue]]'' (1884) which won him the Prix de Rome.<ref name= mq/> A more characteristically Debussian work from his early years is ''[[La Damoiselle élue]]'', recasting the traditional form for [[oratorio]]s and cantatas, using a chamber orchestra and a small body of choral tone and using new or long-neglected scales and harmonies.<ref name=mq>Jean-Aubry, Georges. (trans. Frederick H. Martens). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/737879 "Claude Debussy"], ''The Musical Quarterly'', October 1918, pp. 542–554 {{subscription}}</ref> His early ''[[mélodie]]s'', inspired by Marie Vasnier, are more virtuosic in character than his later works in the genre, with extensive wordless ''[[vocalise]]''; from the ''[[Ariettes oubliées]]'' (1885–1887) onwards he developed a more restrained style. He wrote his own poems for the ''Proses lyriques'' (1892–1893) but, in the view of the musical scholar [[Robert Orledge]], "his literary talents were not on a par with his musical imagination".<ref name=ro>Orledge, Robert. [http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199579037.001.0001/acref-9780199579037-e-1846 "Debussy, (Achille-)Claude"], ''The Oxford Companion to Music'', Oxford University Press, 2011, retrieved 21 May 2018 {{subscription}}</ref>

The musicologist [[Jacques-Gabriel Prod'homme]] wrote that, together with ''La Demoiselle élue'', the ''Ariettes oubliées'' and the ''[[Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire]]'' (1889) show "the new, strange way which the young musician will hereafter follow".<ref name="Prod'homme"/> Newman concurred: "There is a good deal of Wagner, especially of ''Tristan'', in the idiom. But the work as a whole is distinctive, and the first in which we get a hint of the Debussy we were to know later – the lover of vague outlines, of half-lights, of mysterious [[Consonance and dissonance|consonances and dissonances]] of colour, the apostle of languor, the exclusivist in thought and in style."<ref name=en/> During the next few years Debussy developed his personal style, without, at this stage, breaking sharply away from French musical traditions. Much of his music from this period is on a small scale, such as the ''[[Two Arabesques]]'', ''[[Valse romantique]]'', ''[[Suite bergamasque]]'', and the first set of ''[[Fêtes galantes (Debussy)|Fêtes galantes]]''.<ref name=en/> Newman remarked that, like [[Frédéric Chopin|Chopin]], the Debussy of this period appears as a liberator from Germanic styles of composition – offering instead "an exquisite, pellucid style" capable of conveying "not only gaiety and whimsicality but emotion of a deeper sort".<ref name=en/> In a 2004 study, Mark DeVoto comments that Debussy's early works are harmonically no more adventurous than existing music by Fauré;<ref>DeVoto (2004), p. xiv</ref> in a 2007 book about the piano works, Margery Halford observes that ''Two Arabesques'' (1888–1891) and "Rêverie" (1890) have "the fluidity and warmth of Debussy's later style" but are not harmonically innovative. Halford cites the popular [[Debussy's Claire de Lune|"Clair de Lune"]] (1890), the third of the four movements of ''Suite Bergamasque'', as a transitional work pointing towards the composer's mature style.<ref name=h12>Halford, p. 12</ref>

=== Middle works, 1893–1905 ===
[[File:Comoedia illustré L'après-midi d'un faune.jpeg|thumb|upright|alt=drawing in the style of a bas-relief showing two dancers, one as a young woman, one as a faun in semi-human form|Illustration of ''[[Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune|L'après-midi d'un faune]]'', 1910]]
Musicians from Debussy's time onwards have regarded ''[[Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune]]'' (1894) as his first orchestral masterpiece.<ref name=grove/><ref name=en/><ref>Sackville-West and Shawe Taylor, p. 214</ref> Newman considered it "completely original in idea, absolutely personal in style, and logical and coherent from first to last, without a superfluous bar or even a superfluous note";<ref name=en/> [[Pierre Boulez]] observed, "Modern music was awakened by ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune''".<ref>Rolf, p. 29</ref> Most of the major works for which Debussy is best known were written between the mid-1890s and the mid-1900s.<ref name=en/> They include the String Quartet (1893), ''[[Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)|Pelléas et Mélisande]]'' (1893–1902), the ''[[Nocturnes (Debussy)|Nocturnes for Orchestra]]'' (1899) and ''[[La mer (Debussy)|La mer]]'' (1903–1905).<ref name=grove/> The suite ''[[Pour le piano]]'' (1894–1901) is, in Halford's view, one of the first examples of the mature Debussy as a composer for the piano: "a major landmark&nbsp;... and an enlargement of the use of piano sonorities".<ref name=h12/>

In the String Quartet (1893), the gamelan sonorities Debussy had heard four years earlier are recalled in the [[pizzicato]]s and [[Cross-beat|cross-rhythms]] of the [[scherzo]].<ref name=ro/> Debussy's biographer [[Edward Lockspeiser]] comments that this movement shows the composer's rejection of "the traditional dictum that string instruments should be predominantly lyrical".<ref>Lockspeiser, Edward. [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Debussy "Claude Debussy"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180522050610/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claude-Debussy |date=22 May 2018 }}, ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', retrieved 21 May 2018</ref> The work influenced Ravel, whose own [[String Quartet (Ravel)|String Quartet]], written ten years later, has noticeably Debussian features.<ref name=n52>Nichols (1977), p. 52</ref> The academic and journalist Stephen Walsh calls ''Pelléas et Mélisande'' (begun 1893, staged 1902) "a key work for the 20th century".<ref name=sw>Walsh (1997), p. 97</ref> The composer [[Olivier Messiaen]] was fascinated by its "extraordinary harmonic qualities and&nbsp;... transparent instrumental texture".<ref name =sw/> The opera is composed in what [[Alan Blyth]] describes as a sustained and heightened [[recitative]] style, with "sensuous, intimate" vocal lines.<ref>Blyth, p. 125</ref> It influenced composers as different as [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]] and [[Giacomo Puccini|Puccini]].<ref name=sw/>

Orledge describes the ''Nocturnes'' as exceptionally varied in texture, "ranging from the Musorgskian start of 'Nuages', through the approaching brass band procession in 'Fêtes', to the wordless female chorus in 'Sirènes{{'"}}. Orledge considers the last a pre-echo of the marine textures of ''La mer''. ''[[Estampes]]'' for piano (1903) gives impressions of exotic locations, with further echoes of the gamelan in its [[pentatonic]] structures.<ref name=grove/> Debussy believed that since Beethoven, the traditional symphonic form had become formulaic, repetitive and obsolete.<ref name=d49/>{{refn|He described the symphonies of Schumann and Mendelssohn as "respectful repetition"<ref name=d49>Donnellon, p. 49</ref>|group= n}} The three-part, cyclic [[Symphony in D minor (Franck)|symphony by César Franck]] (1888) was more to his liking, and its influence can be found in ''La mer'' (1905); this uses a quasi-symphonic form, its three sections making up a giant [[sonata-form]] movement with, as Orledge observes, a cyclic theme, in the manner of Franck.<ref name=ro/> The central "Jeux de vagues" section has the function of a symphonic [[Musical development|development section]] leading into the final "Dialogue du vent et de la mer", "a powerful essay in orchestral colour and sonority" (Orledge) which reworks themes from the first movement.<ref name=ro/> The reviews were sharply divided. Some critics thought the treatment less subtle and less mysterious than his previous works, and even a step backward; others praised its "power and charm", its "extraordinary verve and brilliant fantasy", and its strong colours and definite lines.<ref>Thompson, pp. 158–159</ref>

=== Late works, 1906–1917 ===
Of the later orchestral works, ''[[Images pour orchestre|Images]]'' (1905–1912) is better known than ''[[Jeux]]'' (1913).<ref name=jp/> The former follows the tripartite form established in the ''Nocturnes'' and ''La mer'', but differs in employing traditional British and French folk tunes, and in making the central movement, "Ibéria", far longer than the outer ones, and subdividing it into three parts, all inspired by scenes from Spanish life. Although considering ''Images'' "the pinnacle of Debussy's achievement as a composer for orchestra", Trezise notes a contrary view that the accolade belongs to the ballet score ''Jeux''.<ref name=t250>Trezise (2003), p. 250</ref> The latter failed as a ballet because of what Jann Pasler describes as a banal scenario, and the score was neglected for some years. Recent analysts have found it a link between traditional continuity and thematic growth within a score and the desire to create discontinuity in a way mirrored in later 20th century music.<ref name=jp>Pasler, Jann. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/746232 "Debussy, ''Jeux'': Playing with Time and Form"], ''19th-Century Music'', Summer 1982, pp. 60–75 {{subscription}}</ref><ref>Goubault, Christian. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/947173 "''Jeux''. Poème dansé by Claude Debussy"], ''Revue de Musicologie'', No 1, 1990, pp. 133–134 (in French) {{subscription}}</ref> In this piece, Debussy abandoned the [[whole-tone]] scale he had often favoured previously in favour of the [[octatonic scale]] with what the Debussy scholar [[François Lesure]] describes as its tonal ambiguities.<ref name=grove/>
{{Listen|type=music|header=Pieces from first book of ''Préludes'' (1909–1910)|
filename=The Girl with the Flaxen Hair.ogg|title= ''La fille aux cheveux de lin''|description=Performed by Mike Ambrose|
filename2=La Cathédrale engloutie - Claude Debussy - performed by Ivan Ilic.ogg|title2=''La cathédrale engloutie''|description2=Performed by Ivan Ilic}}
Among the late piano works are two books of ''[[Préludes (Debussy)|Préludes]]'' (1909–10, 1911–13), short pieces that depict a wide range of subjects. Lesure comments that they range from the frolics of minstrels at Eastbourne in 1905 and the American acrobat "General Lavine" "to dead leaves and the sounds and scents of the evening air".<ref name=grove/> ''[[En blanc et noir]]'' (In white and black, 1915), a three-movement work for two pianos, is a predominantly sombre piece, reflecting the war and national danger.<ref>Wheeldon (2009), p. 44</ref> The ''[[Études (Debussy)|Études]]'' (1915) for piano have divided opinion. Writing soon after Debussy's death, Newman found them laboured – "a strange last chapter in a great artist's life";<ref name=en/> Lesure, writing eighty years later, rates them among Debussy's greatest late works: "Behind a pedagogic exterior, these 12 pieces explore abstract intervals, or – in the last five – the sonorities and timbres peculiar to the piano."<ref name=grove/> In 1914 Debussy started work on a planned set of [[six sonatas for various instruments]]. His fatal illness prevented him from completing the set, but those [[Cello Sonata (Debussy)|for cello and piano]] (1915), flute, viola and harp (1915), and violin and piano (1917 – his last completed work) are all concise, three-movement pieces, more [[diatonic]] in nature than some of his other late works.<ref name=grove/>

''[[Le Martyre de saint Sébastien]]'' (1911), originally a five-act musical play to a text by [[Gabriele D'Annunzio]] that took nearly five hours in performance, was not a success, and the music is now more often heard in a concert (or studio) adaptation with narrator, or as an orchestral suite of "Fragments symphoniques". Debussy enlisted the help of [[André Caplet]] in orchestrating and arranging the score.<ref>Orledge, Robert. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/960380 "Debussy's Orchestral Collaborations, 1911–13. 1: Le martyre de Saint-Sébastien"], ''The Musical Times'', December 1974, pp. 1030–1033 and 1035 {{subscription}}</ref> Two late stage works, the ballets ''[[Khamma (ballet)|Khamma]]'' (1912) and ''[[La boîte à joujoux]]'' (1913), were left with the orchestration incomplete, and were completed by [[Charles Koechlin]] and Caplet, respectively.<ref name=grove/>