Composer of the Month 6/2012: Claude Debussy (selected by Peter van Dessel / Belgium)

Jersey 23.4.1985 The video shows Riccardo Muti and the Berlin Philharmonic with "La Mer" - three symphonic sketches for orchestra by Claude Debussy. The French composer Achille-Claude Debussy was born on 22 August 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He wanted to become a piano virtuoso and earned his living first as a piano teacher. 1883 and 1884 he successfully participated in the competition for the "Prix de Rome" and was able to pursue his musical studies with a scholarship - the results, however, were noticed with little enthusiasm at the French Academy of Arts. In Paris Debussy met Franz Liszt, Giuseppe Verdi, Ruggero Leoncavallo. An artist friendship connected him with his contemporary Erik Satie. In 1901, he met Igor Stravinsky, with whom he regularly exchanged ideas about composition and technique. Fascinated by the sound of a Javanese gamelan ensembles in the world exhibition in Paris in 1889 and influenced by the Russian composers of the Romantic as well as by French Baroque music, Debussy began to develop an independent harmony, combining Slavic and Asian influences with traditional European music. Because the resulting sound was strange, floating and spherical, it was brought together with the equally experienced paintings by Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin. In music history Debussy therefor is considered as the main representative of Impressionism. His music is thus a link between the Romantic and Modern. Claude Debussy died on 25 March 1918 in Paris. In 2012, the musical world commemorates his 150th birthday. More composer can be found in the members only section