Debussy's Late Style

Debussy's Late Style
Author: Marianne Wheeldon
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2009
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0253352398

Debussy's Late Style explores Claude Debussy's musical responses to World War I. This period of composition encompasses the duration of the war and the last four years of Debussy's life. The works that emerged during this time reflect both wartime events and the composer's self-conscious desire to define his own musical legacy as he felt his life nearing its end. Debussy's complete wartime compositions comprise a small but significant body of works, some little known and some now acknowledged to be among the masterpieces of his career. These include the Berceuse héroïque, En Blanc et noir, the Douze Études, the "Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maisons," and the three instrumental sonatas (the Cello Sonata; the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp; and the Violin Sonata). Through music analysis, musicology, and cultural history, this study offers interpretive readings of Debussy's late works, focusing in particular on how they reflect the unique cultural milieu of wartime Paris.

Emma and Claude Debussy

Emma and Claude Debussy
Author: Gillian Opstad
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2022
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1783276584

Emma Bardac and her relationship with Claude Debussy take centre stage in this insightful exploration of their lives together. The singer Emma Bardac (1862-1934) has often been presented as a woman who ensnared Claude Debussy (1862-1918) because she wanted to be associated with his fame and to live a life of luxury. Indeed, in many biographies and composer-related studies of Debussy, the only mentions that she receives are brief and derogatory. Here Emma Bardac and her relationship with the composer take centre stage. The book traces Emma's Jewish ancestry and her background, the significant role of her wealthy uncle Osiris, her marriage at seventeen to the wealthy Jewish banker Sigismond Bardac, her affair with Gabriel Fauré and her liaison with and subsequent marriage to Debussy. As Gillian Opstad shows, the pressure and stifling effects of domestic life on Debussy's attitude to his composing were considerable. The financial consequences of their partnership were disastrous, and their circle of close friends was small. Emma suffered physically and mentally from the tensions of the marriage, particularly money worries, and the possibility that Debussy was attracted to her older daughter. She considered divorce but supported him through his deepest depression and during the First World War until he succumbed to cancer in 1918. After Debussy's death, Emma felt driven both on his behalf and for financial reasons to further performances of the composer's works and provoked the annoyance of other musicians by having early compositions resurrected, completed and performed. In this engagingly written biography, Gillian Opstad brings to light little-known facts about Emma's background and family, advances new insights into her relationship with Debussy, and provides a glimpse of an early twentieth-century Parisian milieu that experienced wide-spread antisemitism.

French Music Since Berlioz

French Music Since Berlioz
Author: Caroline Potter
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1351566474

French Music Since Berlioz explores key developments in French classical music during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This volume draws on the expertise of a range of French music scholars who provide their own perspectives on particular aspects of the subject. D dre Donnellon's introduction discusses important issues and debates in French classical music of the period, highlights key figures and institutions, and provides a context for the chapters that follow. The first two of these are concerned with opera in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries respectively, addressed by Thomas Cooper for the nineteenth century and Richard Langham Smith for the twentieth. Timothy Jones's chapter follows, which assesses the French contribution to those most Germanic of genres, nineteenth-century chamber music and symphonies. The quintessentially French tradition of the nineteenth-century salon is the subject of James Ross's chapter, while the more sacred setting of Paris's most musically significant churches and the contribution of their organists is the focus of Nigel Simeone's essay. The transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century is explored by Roy Howat through a detailed look at four leading figures of this time: Faur Chabrier, Debussy and Ravel. Robert Orledge follows with a later group of composers, Satie & Les Six, and examines the role of the media in promoting French music. The 1930s, and in particular the composers associated with Jeune France, are discussed by Deborah Mawer, while Caroline Potter investigates Parisian musical life during the Second World War. The book closes with two chapters that bring us to the present day. Peter O'Hagan surveys the enormous contribution to French music of Pierre Boulez, and Caroline Potter examines trends since 1945. Aimed at teachers and students of French music history, as well as performers and the inquisitive concert- and opera-goer, French Music Since Berlioz is an essential companion for an

The Business of Music

The Business of Music
Author: Michael Talbot
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0853235384

Is business, for music, a regrettable necessity or a spur to creativity? In the 11 essays in this text the authors wrestle with this question from the perspective of their chosen area of research.

Debussy and the Veil of Tonality

Debussy and the Veil of Tonality
Author: Mark DeVoto
Publisher: Pendragon Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2004
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781576470909

This new book on Debussy's music comprises analytical studies of individual works not widely examined previously, including the Fantaisie for piano and orchestra, La demoiselle élue, Nuages, and Gigues. A discussion of the tonal structure of the first movement of La mer finds new relevance in the overused term symphonic in relation to Debussy's position in the history of French orchestral music. An extensive essay documents Debussy's aural images in his propensity for recycling his own musical ideas and quoting the music of other composers. A final lighthearted chapter, Debussy and Ravel: How to Tell Them Apart, systematically addresses this century-old critics' conundrum.

Choral Music

Choral Music
Author: Avery T. Sharp
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2011
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0415994195

This is an annotated bibliography to books, recordings, videos, and websites on choral music. This book will serve as an excellent tool for librarians, researchers, and scholars in sorting through the massive amount of new material that has appeared since publication of the previous edition.

Renegotiating French Identity

Renegotiating French Identity
Author: Jane F. Fulcher
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 505
Release: 2018-04-19
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0190681519

In Renegotiating French Identity, Jane Fulcher addresses the question of cultural resistance to the German occupation and Vichy regime during the Second World War. Nazi Germany famously stressed music as a marker of national identity and cultural achievement, but so too did Vichy. From the opera to the symphony, music did not only serve the interests of Vichy and German propaganda: it also helped to reveal the motives behind them, and to awaken resistance among those growing disillusioned by the regime. Using unexplored Resistance documents, from both the clandestine press and the French National Archives, Fulcher looks at the responses of specific artists and their means of resistance, addressing in turn Pierre Schaeffer, Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc, and Olivier Messiaen, among others. This book investigates the role that music played in fostering a profound awareness of the cultural and political differences between conflicting French ideological positions, as criticism of Vichy and its policies mounted.

Louis Laloy (1874-1944) on Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky

Louis Laloy (1874-1944) on Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky
Author: Deborah Priest
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2019-05-23
Genre: Music
ISBN: 042978788X

First published in 1999, this is the first study of the noted French music critic and scholar Louis Laloy, and the first collection of his writings. His writings were unique in their time and have never previously been translated. Laloy’s ideas on Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky are presented here with an introduction by Deborah Priest to each extract, placing it in the context of the period and the composer’s work. Detailed annotations explain technical and cultural references. As a friend of all three composers, but especially of Debussy, Laloy wrote with great authority and influence: his work provides recollections, analytical insights, and insights into reception and performance practice. His erudition and wide range of reference make for fascinating and enlightening reading about the period. Deborah Priest provides a detailed introduction which sets Laloy’s work against the background of the Paris music scene from 1900- 1940.