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Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

1862 CE1918 CE · Composer · Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Claude Debussy was a French composer whose harmonic language and treatment of timbre reshaped Western music at the turn of the twentieth century. The eldest of five children in a modest household, he entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1872 and won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1884. His mature works, including the orchestral Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894) and La Mer (1905), the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), and piano pieces such as the Suite bergamasque with its Clair de lune, moved away from established academic forms toward fluid, coloristic textures. Diagnosed with cancer in 1909, he continued composing until shortly before his death in Paris in 1918.

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Saint-Germain-en-Laye

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