Debussy in Performance

Debussy in Performance PDF Author: James R. Briscoe
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300076266
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Claude Debussy, who composed works of major significance in a wide range of musical and theatrical genres, has exerted a fundamental influence on musicians of the twentieth century. This book explores how Debussy's compositions are brought to life in performance, investigating the composer's own expectations, the traditions surrounding the performance of his music, and the internal and contextual evidence that can give insight to performers of his works. Leading international scholars and interpreters of Debussy's music draw on his letters and music criticism as well as on the memoirs of performers close to him to discuss issues of performance forces, tempo and its flexibility, performer license, and the interpretation of expressive indications in the scores. They urge performers to recognize the symbolism and the value of silence in Debussy's work. And they show that it is particularly important to focus on aspects of timbre, voice-leading, and the musical arabesque, together with meter and phrase ambiguities, when playing his music. The book also includes the translation of an article on the opera Pelleas et Melisande In performance by one of Debussy's original conductors, Desire-Emile Inghelbrecht, and an interview with the composer-conductor Pierre Boulez on approaches to Pelleas and the orchestral works.

Debussy in Performance

Debussy in Performance PDF Author: James R. Briscoe
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300076266
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Claude Debussy, who composed works of major significance in a wide range of musical and theatrical genres, has exerted a fundamental influence on musicians of the twentieth century. This book explores how Debussy's compositions are brought to life in performance, investigating the composer's own expectations, the traditions surrounding the performance of his music, and the internal and contextual evidence that can give insight to performers of his works. Leading international scholars and interpreters of Debussy's music draw on his letters and music criticism as well as on the memoirs of performers close to him to discuss issues of performance forces, tempo and its flexibility, performer license, and the interpretation of expressive indications in the scores. They urge performers to recognize the symbolism and the value of silence in Debussy's work. And they show that it is particularly important to focus on aspects of timbre, voice-leading, and the musical arabesque, together with meter and phrase ambiguities, when playing his music. The book also includes the translation of an article on the opera Pelleas et Melisande In performance by one of Debussy's original conductors, Desire-Emile Inghelbrecht, and an interview with the composer-conductor Pierre Boulez on approaches to Pelleas and the orchestral works.

The Piano Works of Claude Debussy

The Piano Works of Claude Debussy PDF Author: E. Robert Schmitz
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486172759
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Part biography, part criticism, and part analysis, this fascinating study of one of music's greatest geniuses is above all an authoritative commentary on the entire corpus of Debussy's work for solo piano. Includes 21 illustrations.

Debussy's Resonance

Debussy's Resonance PDF Author: François de Médicis
Publisher:
ISBN: 1580465250
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 642

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Book Description
Some of Debussy's most beloved pieces, as well as lesser-known ones from his early years, set in a rich cultural context by leading experts from the English- and French-speaking worlds. The music of Claude Debussy has always been widely beloved by listeners and performers alike, more perhaps than that of any of the other pioneers of musical modernism. However rich in itself, his creative output also participated, and continues to participate, in a network of cultural connections, the scope and meaning of which can only be gleaned through multiple interpretive frameworks. Debussy's Resonance offers twenty new studies by some of themost active and respected English- and French-language scholars of French music. The book treats a large swath of the composer's music, from previously unexplored mélodies of his early years to late pieces such as the ballet Jeux and the Douze Études, and takes into consideration the numerous contexts that helped shape the works and the different ways that musicologists and critics have explained them. CONTRIBUTORS: Katherine Bergeron, Matthew Brown, David J. Code, Mark DeVoto, Michel Duchesneau, David Grayson, Denis Herlin, Jocelyn Ho, Roy Howat, Steven Huebner, Julian Johnson, Barbara L. Kelly, Richard Langham Smith, Mark McFarland, François de Médicis, Robert Orledge, Boyd Pomeroy. Caroline Rae, Marie Rolf, August Sheehy FRANÇOIS DE MÉDICIS is Professor of Music at the Université de Montréal. STEVEN HUEBNER is Professor of Music at McGill University.

Debussy

Debussy PDF Author: Stephen Walsh
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1524731935
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
One of the most revered composers of the twentieth century, Claude Debussy (1862–1918) achieved the unheard of: he reinvented the language of music without alienating the majority of music lovers. Debussy drove French music into entirely new regions of beauty and excitement at a time when old traditions threatened to stifle it. Yet despite his profound influence on French culture, Debussy’s own life was complicated and often troubled by struggles over money, women, and ill health. Here, Stephen Walsh, acclaimed author of Stravinsky, chronicles both the composer himself and the unique moment in European history that bore him. Walsh’s engagingly original approach is to enrich a lively biography with analyses of Debussy’s music: from his first daring breaks with the rules as a Conservatoire student to his achievements as the greatest French composer of his time.

Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy PDF Author: François Lesure
Publisher:
ISBN: 1580469035
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
English translation and revised edition of the most comprehensive and reliable biography of Claude Debussy. François Lesure's "critical biography" of Claude Debussy (Fayard, 2003) is widely recognized by scholars as the most comprehensive and reliable account of that composer's life and career as well as of the artistic milieu in whichhe worked. This encyclopedic volume draws extensively on Debussy's complete correspondence (at that time unpublished), a painstaking tracking of contemporary reviews and comments in the press, and an examination of other primary documents-including private diaries-that had not been available to previous biographers. As such, Lesure's book presents a wealth of new information while debunking a number of myths that had developed over the years since the composer's death in 1918. The present English translation and revised edition, by Debussy authority Marie Rolf, augments Lesure's numerous notes with several thousand new ones by Rolf, providing more precise information oncrucial and sometimes contentious points. It also reflects Debussy scholarship that has appeared since 2003, updating Lesure's seminal work. Rolf's translation-the first ever-will make Lesure's findings accessible to scholars, musicians, and music lovers in English-speaking lands and around the world. FRANÇOIS LESURE (1923-2001) was the Director of the Music division of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Professor of Musicology at the Université libre de Bruxelles, and Chair of Musicology at the École pratique des Hautes Études. MARIE ROLF is senior associate dean of graduate studies and professor of music theory at the Eastman School of Music and a memberof the editorial board for the Ouvres complètes de Claude Debussy.

The Art of French Piano Music

The Art of French Piano Music PDF Author: Roy Howat
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300159773
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
An essential resource for scholars and performers, this study by a world-renowned specialist illuminates the piano music of four major French composers, in comparative and reciprocal context. Howat explores the musical language and artistic ethos of this repertoire, juxtaposing structural analysis with editorial and performing issues. He also relates his four composers historically and stylistically to such predecessors as Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, the French harpsichord school, and Russian and Spanish music. Challenging long-held assumptions about performance practice, Howat elucidates the rhythmic vitality and invention inherent in French music. In granting Fauré and Chabrier equal consideration with Debussy and Ravel, he redresses a historic imbalance and reshapes our perceptions of this entire musical tradition. Outstanding historical documentation and analysis are supported by Howat’s direct references to performing traditions shaped by the composers themselves. The book balances accessibility with scholarly and analytic rigor, combining a lifetime’s scholarship with practical experience of teaching and the concert platform

An Introduction to His Piano Music

An Introduction to His Piano Music PDF Author: Claude Debussy
Publisher: Alfred Music
ISBN: 9781457420245
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
This collection of Debussy's popular intermediate pieces includes "Clair de lune," "Reverie," "La petit nègre," the complete "Children's Corner Suite" and other works. The introductory pages discuss symbolist poetry, French Impressionist painters and Debussy's musical style. A variety of photographs taken throughout the composer's life are also included.

Images

Images PDF Author: Paul Roberts
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 1574670689
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
Paris at the turn of the 20th century was obsessed with the interrelations of the arts. It was a time when artists and writers spoke of poetry as music, sounds as colors, and paintings as symphonies. The music of Claude Debussy, with its unique textures and dazzling colors, was the perfect counterpart to the bold new styles of painting in France. Paul Roberts probes the sources of Debussy's artistic inspiration, relating the "impressionist" titles to the artistic and literary ferment of the time. He also draws on his own performing experience to touch on all the principal technical problems for a performer of Debussy's piano music. His many suggestions about interpreting the music will be particularly valuable to performers as well as listeners.

Debussy Studies

Debussy Studies PDF Author: Richard Langham Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521460903
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
A collection of essays on Debussy exploring his working methods, visual tastes and his performance practice.

Debussy

Debussy PDF Author: Simon Trezise
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521446563
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
La mer stands at the centre of Debussy's achievement: described by the composer as 'a seascape without figures', it is arguably the greatest and most original French symphony. In this study La mer is considered in the context of Debussy's personal and musical development, and in the French musical renaissance in general, looking back to Cèsar Franck and forward to the orchestral Images and Jeux. The author uses new biographical information and a wide range of sources to reveal the period of La mer's composition as one of intense emotional turbulence. Detailed discussion of performance styles draws on current recordings, and two analytical chapters trace the growth of ideas through the work. Studies of rhythm, motif and tonality show how Debussy generates 'narratives' across the three movements, which give La mer a structural integrity unparalleled in French music at the turn of the century.