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In classical music, birthdays don’t come much bigger than today’s:
Franz Schubert, Austrian Romantic genius, composer of more than 600 lieder (including the cycles Die Schöne Müllerin and Winterreise) and c. 400 other works of music during his terribly short life: Jan. 31, 1797 - 1828…
Portrait by Leopold Kulpelweiser
(via speirsismycaptain)
BABE ALERT.
31 January, 2012
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Notes (41) -
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I could write a (very short and clumsy) book on why I love the music of Debussy. However, as I have to be at the bar shortly, for now I will err on the side of brevity in tribute and simply say this:
The first time I heard Debussy I was struck with the realization that all “classical” music wasn’t written by the same person, wasn’t solely for the decaying and wasn’t to be experienced through a phone’s speakers while waiting for tech support.
He was the first composer I every really noticed. The first time my hyperactive impulsive childish brain heard something brightly glinting caught my mind’s eye through in the dense timbre of the orchestral armory. Something in his music mentally arrested me, took me by my shoulders and demanded my attention. Whether it was to be sweet, kind, soft and gentle or bombastic, unnerving, intimidating and abrasive… there is a quality to his music that seizes me and refuses indifference.
So often as adults (“ugly-large-children” as I call them) we immediately ignore or pigeonhole music on the basis of prejudice, collected experience, “common sense” or other terrible reasons. I am thankful that the impact of Debussy was great enough to break through that formidable wall in myself and let in a little fresh air and sunlight into my life. I am aware it’s an un-falsifiable claim but I suspect that without Debussy I would never have “gotten into” Western Art Music generally. Given how much joy my meager efforts in to the history, biography, composition and theory of Western Art Music has brought me… that is certainly something to appreciate.
So. Happy birthday Debussy. You will always hold a special place in my heart.
As they say, you never forget your first.
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There’s no need either for music to make people think! … It would be enough if music could make people listen, despite themselves and despite their petty mundane troubles, and never mind if they’re incapable of expressing anything resembling an opinion. It would be enough if they could no longer recognize their own grey, dull faces, if they felt that for a moment they had been dreaming of an imaginary country, that’s to say, one that can’t be found on the map.
- Claude Debussy, Letter to Paul Dukas (1901)
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The century of aeroplanes deserves its own music. As there are no precedents, I must create anew.
- Claude Debussy
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Collect impressions. Don’t be in a hurry to write them down. Because that’s something music can do better than painting: it can centralise variations of colour and light within a single picture — a truth generally ignored, obvious as it is.
- Claude Debussy in a letter to his pupil Raoul Bardac (1906)
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Emma Bardac (1862–1934), née Moyse, was the mutual love interest of both Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy. Of Jewish descent, Emma married, aged 17, Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac, by whom she had two children, Raoul, and Hélène (later Madame Gaston de Tinan (1892–1985)). Emma was an accomplished singer and brilliant conversationalist. Fauré wrote his Dolly Suite in the 1890s for Hélène and La bonne chanson for Emma herself.
After her affair with Fauré, Emma was introduced to Debussy in late 1903 by her son Raoul, one of his students.[1] Emma and Sigismond were divorced on 4 May 1905, and she eventually married Debussy in 1908. Bardac had a child by Debussy, a daughter, Claude-Emma, nicknamed ‘Chou-Chou’ (born 30 October 1905), and dedicatee of his Children’s Corner Suite composed in 1909. Claude-Emma died of diphtheria in 1919, the year after her father’s death. Emma Bardac died in 1934 and, like Claude-Emma, was laid to rest in Debussy’s grave in the Cimetière de Passy in Paris.
how did i not know that Debussy’s second wife had previously had an affair with Fauré?
HOW? HOW DID THIS ESCAPE MY ATTENTION?
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Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven Festival
8 July, 2011
Sourced from joshlyman
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Notes (6867) -
Czech composer Leoš Janáček (July 3, 1854-1928) - creator of late national Romantic, folklore inspired, melodic works…
an inspiration and totally under appreciated boss of the WAM world.
3 July, 2011
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Notes (13) -
I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.
20 June, 2011
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Notes (2426)
![Emma Bardac (1862–1934), née Moyse, was the mutual love interest of both Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy. Of Jewish descent, Emma married, aged 17, Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac, by whom she had two children, Raoul, and Hélène (later Madame Gaston de Tinan (1892–1985)). Emma was an accomplished singer and brilliant conversationalist. Fauré wrote his Dolly Suite in the 1890s for Hélène and La bonne chanson for Emma herself.
After her affair with Fauré, Emma was introduced to Debussy in late 1903 by her son Raoul, one of his students.[1] Emma and Sigismond were divorced on 4 May 1905, and she eventually married Debussy in 1908. Bardac had a child by Debussy, a daughter, Claude-Emma, nicknamed ‘Chou-Chou’ (born 30 October 1905), and dedicatee of his Children’s Corner Suite composed in 1909. Claude-Emma died of diphtheria in 1919, the year after her father’s death. Emma Bardac died in 1934 and, like Claude-Emma, was laid to rest in Debussy’s grave in the Cimetière de Passy in Paris.
SANDRA!
how did i not know that Debussy’s second wife had previously had an affair with Fauré?
HOW? HOW DID THIS ESCAPE MY ATTENTION?](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_loc28bMjat1qzrgbqo1_1280.jpg)
