(Amadeus). Claude Debussy was the father of the modern era in classical music. His innovations liberated Stravinsky; Schoenberg; and Bartok to write their iconoclastic works; and his harmonic inventions are still heard in American jazz. Though he was among the most compelling figures of the Belle Epoque; his life is little known to all but scholars; and of his considerable musical output; only Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun ; La mer ; and Clair de lune are widely known. Harvey Lee Snyder addresses this cultural neglect by presenting the composer and his music; without jargon or biographical trivia; in a richly detailed; accurate narrative that reads like a novel. Here is the story of a poor; unschooled Parisian boy swept by odd coincidences to the Paris Conservatory at age ten. Here is a brilliant man struggling to invent a tonal language capable of expressing his unique musical vision; finding inspiration not in Bach and Beethoven but in Mallarmes poetry and the paintings of Whistler and Turner; a man determined to end two centuries of Germanic domination of European music. Here is a reclusive; gentle man whose misguided love affairs ended in scandal and scorn. His hard work failed to end decades of poverty and debt; but when he died in 1918; he was and has remained the foremost French composer of the twentieth century.
2012-01-01 2015-12-18File Name: B019IZJ34G
Review
