Claude-Achille Debussy Essay -- Music

The task of giving an overview of the life of Claude-Achille Debussy is not easy. Without hesitation, this dynamic guinea pig made courageous strides that pushed the limitations of music to another level. His ultimate goal was not to be glorified through fame but to find his accept unique voice, or the musique a moi. Even though his goal was to create his own unique sound, he had many influences, such as art, literature, and Wagner, that guided him in the creation of his style. Regardless of his teachers protestations and fellow peers critiques, he experimented with various sounds in music. When comprehend to Debussys music, one can clearly tell that it belongs to Debussy because of his use of different harmonies, rhythms, the pentatonic and whole tone scale, and his instrumentation. Claude Debussy was born in Saint Germain en Laye, France on August 22nd, 1862 the oldest of five children. His father, Manuel-Achille Debussy, had dreams for his son to be a sailor. Those dreams wer e hotfoot aside when Claude-Achille took his first pianissimo lessons. With help from his aunt Clementine, Claude-Achille received soft lessons with an Italian violinist Jean Cerutti. When his father saw that he could animate the piano, Manuels dreams quickly changed to hopes of Claude becoming a virtuosic pianist. From there he was entrusted to Verlaines mother-in-law, who enrolled Claude into the Paris Conservatoire at the young age of ten days old. Claudes years at the Paris Conservatoire not alone taught him the fundamentals of music, but it also provided an environment where Claude could experiment with different open chords and techniques which can be heard in his compositions. In Marmontels piano class he used to astound us with his bizarre... ..., who would invent characters be to no particular time or place who would not despotically cut back on me actions to be depicted and would leave me free, here and there, to surpass him in matters of art and to fill out his w ork.Works CitedBerry, Wallace. Musical Structure and Performance. refreshful Haven Yale UP, 1989. Print.Briscoe, James R. Debussy in Performance. unseasoned Haven Conn. Yale UP, 1999. Print.Claude Debussy. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 July 2012. Web. 08 Apr. 2012. .Lockspeiser, Edward. Debussy His Life and Mind. Vol. 1. New York Macmillan, 1962. Print.Lockspeiser, Edward. Debussy His Life and Mind. Vol. 2. London Cassell, 1965. Print.Lockspeiser, Edward. Debussy. London J.M. Dent & Sons, 1966. Print.Nichols, Roger. The Life of Debussy. Cambridge Cambridge UP, 1998. Print.