Person

Claude Debussy

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Overview

Achille Claude Debussy was a French composer, born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“The colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams.”
— Letter to Ernest Chausson (1894)
“The attraction of the virtuoso for the public is very like that of the circus for the crowd. There is always the hope that something dangerous may happen.”
— As quoted in Music in the Modern World (1948) by Rollo Hugh Myers, p. 99
“People don't very much like things that are beautiful — they are so far from their nasty little minds.”
— As quoted in Debussy : Musician of France (1957) by Victor Illyitch Seroff, p. 172
“Composers aren't daring enough. They're afraid of that sacred idol called "common sense", which is the most dreadful thing I know — after all, it's no more than a religion founded to excuse the ubiquity of imbeciles!”
— Letter to Henry Lerolle, in Debussy Letters (1987) edited by Francois Lesure and Roger Nichols, p. 73
“Music is a mysterious mathematical process whose elements are part of Infinity. … There is nothing more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little — the book of Nature.”
— As quoted in The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music (1996) by Don Michael Randel
“To complete a work is just like being present at the death of someone you love.”
— On his opera Pelléas et Mélisande

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

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Notable quotes

“The colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams.”
— Letter to Ernest Chausson (1894)
“The attraction of the virtuoso for the public is very like that of the circus for the crowd. There is always the hope that something dangerous may happen.”
— As quoted in Music in the Modern World (1948) by Rollo Hugh Myers, p. 99
“People don't very much like things that are beautiful — they are so far from their nasty little minds.”
— As quoted in Debussy : Musician of France (1957) by Victor Illyitch Seroff, p. 172
“Composers aren't daring enough. They're afraid of that sacred idol called "common sense", which is the most dreadful thing I know — after all, it's no more than a religion founded to excuse the ubiquity of imbeciles!”
— Letter to Henry Lerolle, in Debussy Letters (1987) edited by Francois Lesure and Roger Nichols, p. 73
“Music is a mysterious mathematical process whose elements are part of Infinity. … There is nothing more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little — the book of Nature.”
— As quoted in The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music (1996) by Don Michael Randel
“To complete a work is just like being present at the death of someone you love.”
— On his opera Pelléas et Mélisande

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Overview

Achille Claude Debussy was a French composer, born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).