Claude-Achille Debussy (1862–1918) was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music, though he himself disliked the term when applied to his compositions. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in his native France in 1903. Debussy was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his use of non-traditional scales and chromaticism influenced many composers who followed.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Claude Debussy
There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law. I love music passionately. And because l love it, I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it. It is a free art gushing forth, an open-air art boundless as the elements, the wind, the sky, the sea. It must never be shut in and become an academic art.
—Claude Debussy
Topics: Music
Music is the space between the notes.
—Claude Debussy
Topics: Music
How much has to be explored and discarded before reaching the naked flesh of feeling.
—Claude Debussy
Topics: Emotions
Collect impressions. Don’t be in a hurry to write them down. Because that’s something music can do better than painting: it can centralise variations of colour and light within a single picture—a truth generally ignored, obvious as it is.
—Claude Debussy
Topics: Music
Beauty must appeal to the senses, must provide us with immediate enjoyment, must impress us or insinuate itself into us without any effort on our part.
—Claude Debussy
Do not allow the accents in the brass to produce space between the notes.
—Claude Debussy
Topics: Music
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Hector Berlioz French Composer
- Stephen Sondheim American Musician
- Igor Stravinsky Russian-born American Composer
- Jean Sibelius Finnish Composer
- Ludwig van Beethoven German Composer
- John Cage American Composer
- Gian Carlo Menotti Italian-born American Composer
- Frank Zappa American Rock Guitarist, Singer, Composer
- Johann Sebastian Bach German Composer
- Arthur Rubinstein Polish-born American Composer