COMPOSER PROFILE REPORT
COMPOSER’S LAST NAME:
DEBUSSY
COMPOSER’S FIRST NAME:
ACHILLE CLAUDE
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
FRANCE
COMPOSER’S DATES:
1862-1918
NAME 5 FAMOUS COMPOSITIONS
WRITTEN BY THIS COMPOSER:
1. PETITE SUITE
1889
There are four separate movements.
Petite Suite
En Bateau
(Movement 1)
"In a Boat"
 |
| Monet: The Seine at Argenteusil, 1874 |
Petite Suite
Cortège
(Movement 2)
This piece is mindful
of a festival parade.
Petite Suite
Minuet
(Movement 3)
This section suggests the musical
equivalent of elves at play.
Petite Suite
Ballet
(Movement 4)
The final movement is an energetic,
festive dance movement.
2. CLAIRE DE LUNE
1905
Claire de Lune
Leopold Stokowski, Conductor
Arranged for Orchestra
by Stokowski for the Film "Fantasia"
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Leopold Stokowski, Conductor
Arranged for Orchestra
by Stokowski for the Film "Fantasia"
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Based on the poem
written by Paul Verlaine
Claire de Lune
For Piano
Claire de Lune
For Violin and Piano
David Oistrakh, Violin
Frida Bauer, Piano
3. ARABESQUE
1888 and 1891
Arabesque No. I
Arabesque No. I
Malgorzata Zalewska-Guthman,
Malgorzata Zalewska-Guthman,
Solo Harp
Arabesque No. 2
Debussy Plays Debussy, Piano
An arabesque is an elaborative application of repeating
geometric forms that often echo the forms of plants and
animals. As it applies to classical music, an arabesque
is a style of music that is ornately decorative. In ballet,
an arabesque is a pose in which the dancer stands on
one leg, straight or bent, with the other leg raised behind.
Fully extended arms are held in a harmonious position to
give the longest possible line from fingertips to toes. It is
one of the fundamental positions in ballet.
Prelude a L'Apres-midi
D'un Faune
Danced By Rudolf Nureyev
This is a freely illustrated musical response to the
beautiful poem of Stéphane Mallarmé' (1842-1898),
dealing with mythological characters of nymphs and
a faun playing his pan-pipes set into a ballet format.
5. LA MER
1905
 |
Katsushika Hokusai: Great Wave of Kanogawa
A famous painting that describes Debussy's La Mer.
|
La Mer
Movement I
Myung-Whun Chung, Conductor
Seoul Philharmonic
La Mer
Movement 2
Myung-Whun Chung, Conductor
Seoul Philharmonic
La Mer
Movement 3
Myung-Whun Chung, Conductor
Seoul Philharmonic
NAME SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE
WHO WERE ALSO ALIVE
DURING THIS
COMPOSER’S LIFETIME:
LITERATURE:
(1874-1963)
ROAD NOT TAKEN
(Published in 1916)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The composer Randall Thompson set several of Frost's poems,
including "The Road Not Taken," into choral arrangements.
Together they are known as "Frostiana."
MALLARME, STEPHANE
(1842-1898)
(1842-1898)
POEM:
(THE AFTERNOON OF A FAUN)
1876
1876
This a poem about the “myth” of a faun
[a goat (with hooves) below the waist,
human above] who has just woken up
from his afternoon sleep and discusses
his encounters with several nymphs
(entities in human female form) in a
dreamlike monologue. Mallarmé's poetry
has been the inspiration for several musical
pieces, notably Claude Debussy's
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894).
SHORT POEM EXTRACT:
These nymphs I would perpetuate.
So clear
Their light carnation, that it floats in the air
Heavy with tufted slumbers.
Was it a dream I loved?
CONTINUE TO READ MORE AT:
(1844-1896)
POEM:
Your soul is a select landscape
Where charming masqueraders and bergamaskers go
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.
All sing in a minor key
Of victorious love and the opportune life,
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight,
With the still moonlight, sad and beautiful,
That sets the birds dreaming in the trees
And the fountains sobbing in ecstasy,
The tall slender fountains among marble statues.
MUSIC:
TCHAIKOVSKY, PETER I.
(1840-1893)
(1840-1893)
Russia
DVORAK, ANTONIN
(1841 -1904)
Czechoslovakia
WAGNER, RICHARD
(1813-1883)
(1813-1883)
Germany
18TH U.S. PRESIDENT:
GRANT, ULYSSES S.
(1822-1885)
27TH U.S. PRESIDENT:
TAFT, WILLIAM HOWARD
(1857-1930)
(1857-1930)
RENOIR, PIERRE AUGUSTE
(1841-1919)
(1841-1919)
 |
| Paul Cezanne |
 |
| Paul Cezanne: Apples and Oranges |
MANET, EDOUARD
(1832 -1883)
(1832 -1883)
 |
| Edouard Manet |
 |
| Manet: A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, 1882 |
NAME SOME FAMOUS
HISTORICAL, SCIENTIFIC,
AND OR LITERARY HAPPENINGS
THAT TOOK PLACE DURING
THIS COMPOSER’S LIFETIME:
CIVIL WAR
1861-1865
WORLD WAR I
1914 to 1918
World War I was a global war which
took place primarily in Europe.
TYPEWRITER
1867
 |
Remington's First Sholes and Glidden
Type-Writer, 1867
(Manufactured By Remington)
|
First typewriter to be commercially successful was
invented in 1867 by Christopher Sholes,Carlos Glidden
and Samuel W. Soule in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Remington
commercialized the machine as he Sholes and Glidden Type-
Writer, which was the origin of the term typewriter. The E.
Remington and Sons manufacturing company started
production of its first typewriter on March 1, 1873.
 |
| ELIPHALET REMINGTON II 1793-1861 Invention: First Successful Typewriter Founder of E. Remington and Sons and also designed the Remington rifle. |
PANAMA CANAL
Early 1900’s
Early 1900’s
 |
| Panama Canal is a man-made canal in Panama which joins the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The building of this canal was attempted and completed by the United States in the early 1900's with the canal opening in 1914. |
RADIO
1897
 |
| The transmitter, with Righi's oscillator, used by
Guglielmo Marconi during the wireless telegraphy
experimentations on July 1897 |
 |
| GUGLIELMO MARCONI 1874-1937 Inventor: Radio |
TELEPHONE
1877
 |
|
Inventor: Telephone
|
 |
BOX “KODAK” CAMERA
1888
 |
| GEORGE EASTMAN (1854-1932) Inventor: Box Camera |
The Kodak box camera, by American
inventor George Eastman, named his
camera Kodak because he liked the
letter ‘K.’ Eastman's invention of the film
roll and camera meant that photography
became popular across the world.
Electric Vacuum Cleaner was named "Goblin"
because the wife of the company's manager
said that the cleaner "was goblin' up the dirt."
 |
|
Inventor: Electric Vacuum
|
DESCRIBE WHAT YOU THINK
THIS COMPOSER’S OVERALL
THIS COMPOSER’S OVERALL
COMPOSITIONAL STYLE IS
AND WHAT IS DISTINCTIVE
ABOUT IT.
The style is termed "French Impressionism."
Like the art it was named for, the sound (pastel-
like) colors are muted and there is no discernable
melody or subject. The music functions as a background
which becomes the setting for a mood. Instrumentation of
the orchestra is smaller to create the softer sounds. For its
time, the music used harmonies (blended sound colors) which
were unconventional and somewhat experimental paralleling the
“impressionistic” art when observing how the colors blended together.
was painted at Le Havre in 1872. It created an "impression"
of the merging of water and sky seamlessly and
imperceptibly into each other.
 |
| Claude Monet 1840-1926 |
WRITE YOUR PERSONAL OPINION
ABOUT THE MUSICAL STYLE
ABOUT THE MUSICAL STYLE
OF THIS COMPOSER
AND EXPLAIN IF POSSIBLE.
CAN YOU LIST ANY INTERNET WEB
MISCELLANEOUS COMMENTS:
Impressionism began as an art movement
(EX: Monet, Cezanne, Renoir) in France
during the mid-1800's as a reaction to the
excesses of emotional and romantic art
styles that preceded it. Impressionistic art
tries to suggest and evoke meaning rather
than flatly describe. Impressionistic music
was created by Debussy and his friend
 |
| Ravel 1925 |
as an imitation of that art style
by musically replacing colors you
see with sound colors you hear.
SOME DEBUSSY WORKSHEETS/ACTIVITIES:
Modern Music Documentary
Part 1: Debussy
By Ken Russell, 1965
Claude Debussy
Musician of the Dream
pianist Oscar Levant
Play Some Debussy
Oscar Levant Plays Debussy
00:00 Golliwog's Cakewalk, Children's Corner, No. 6
02:24 La fille aux cheveux de lin (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair), Préludes, Book I, No. 8
04:47 Reflets dans l'eau (Reflections in the Water), Images, Vol. I, No. 1
09:17 Clair de lune, Suite bergamasque, No. 3
13:50 La plus que lente
18:09 The Little Shepherd, Children's Corner, No. 5