The Life of Debussy (Musical Lives) - Softcover

Nichols, Roger

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521578876 ISBN 13: 9780521578875

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1998

Synopsis

The early music of Claude Debussy was influenced by the work of Wagner, for whom he had great admiration. However, soon Debussy's music became more experimental and individualistic, as is clear in his first mature work Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Debussy quickly moved away from traditional techniques and produced the pictures in sound that led his work to be described as "musical Impressionism." This new biography--the first in English in 30 years--offers new insights into the life of this enigmatic composer, revealing a figure more seminal and revolutionary than previously thought.

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Book Description

'That great blue Sphinx', Debussy called the sea. Debussy himself was something of a Sphinx: in the early 1890s he was thinking of 'founding a society for musical esotericism', and although, on the surface, most of his music is instantly engaging and accessible, at a deeper level run currents that are dangerous, unpredictable, destructive. In this new biography, Roger Nichols considers the life and music of this seminal figure charting the currents and the whirlpools in which other humans were sometimes unlucky enough to get caught. Debussy's status is such that no modern composer has been able to ignore him, asking, as he does, any number of riddles to which late twentieth-century music is still searching answers.

Review

'A short but searching new biography of Debussy by Roger Nichols is one of an admirable CUP series 'Musical Lives', authoritative texts aimed at a broader intelligent readership. That Nichols's far from superficial study is most stylishly written and approachable goes without saying, and indeed its very concision brings significant aspects of Debussy's life and work into sharper focus.' Musical Times

'Roger Nichols has absorbed this greatly expanded range of information and by skilful selection compressed it into less than 170 pages of text.' The Times Literary Supplement

'The volume is written with a cool delicacy and precision apt to its subject.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

'The most revealing and engagingly written single-volume biography of Claude Debussy, by the doyen of French music experts.' Classic FM Magazine

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0521578876
• ISBN 13: 9780521578875
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 196