Claude debussy biography 1918

Achille-Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, about 20 miles outside of Paris, the son of shopkeepers. (He eventually would drop the Achille.) The family soon moved to Clichy, closer to Paris.

Young Claude thought of being a painter, while his father initially hoped his son would enter the navy. It was the pianist Antoinette Maute, a student of Chopin, who discovered his musical talent and prepared him for entrance to the Paris Conservatory at age 11.

The boy began as a pianist, but switched to composition. His abilities were obvious, as were yearnings to break free from the composition restraints taught at the Conservatory.

Claude debussy impressionism

Traveling intensified those yearnings. A trip to Russia exposed him to the exotic harmony of composers like Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. Later he would discover the nativism of Mussorgsky. Winning the Prix de Rome sent him to Rome for study in 1884, though he did not enjoy his stay there and returned to Paris before the end of his