This is initially hinted at in ‘Clair de lune’ from his 1890 Suite bergamasque and, with greater sophistication, in the slow movement of his 1893 String Quartet. The delicate enchantments of the Arabesques for piano (1888–1891) and Petite Suite (1889) were exchanged for a sublime dissolving of the traditional rules of musical composition. His mind swimming with ‘ambiguous chords’ and ‘floating intervals’, Debussy pushed forward. A new world of expressive possibilities opened up before him following his immersion in the music of the Far East at the Paris Exhibition of 1889. Debussy also discovered a kindred creative spirit in the renegade composer Erik Satie.
The impact of the German composer’s many passages of quiet introspection are evident in the radiant textures of Debussy’s La demoiselle élue, for women’s voices (solo and choral) and orchestra, completed that same year. No wonder Debussy returned to Paris feeling he had learned ‘absolutely nothing!’ Debussy’s first visit to Bayreuth in 1888 finally brought him into contact with Wagner’s epic operas. At that time, Italy was obsessed with opera to the virtual exclusion of other genres, the ‘tune-and-accompaniment’ style of Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi considered the ultimate form of musical expression. Yet for Debussy it felt more like a prison sentence. Things appeared to be looking up when in 1884 Debussy, now 22, won the Conservatoire’s prestigious Prix de Rome, which entitled the winner to study in the Italian capital. A spell in Russia at the home of Tchaikovsky’s patroness Nadezhda von Meck brought little relief, especially when Tchaikovsky said that he found little of merit in one of his early piano miniatures. He was never very happy in the long, dark corridors of tradition, however. But within three years his piano playing had reached such an advanced level that he was awarded a place at the Paris Conservatoire. Born the son of a shopkeeper and a seamstress, he did not begin serious musical training until he was seven. Debussy’s struggles with orthodoxy were evident from the beginning.
The composer did not approve of the comparison, yet it is hard to avoid noticing the striking correspondences between the Impressionists' tendency towards softening structural outlines and their fascination with light and colour, and the musical brushwork of Debussy’s Préludes for piano, and his orchestral pieces Images and La mer. Debussy’s later music was perceived as sharing certain characteristics with the Impressionist painters, Monet, especially. His works create the impression of having been conceived in a flash of inspiration, though many pieces he sent for publication took months or even years to complete. He was not a didactic revolutionary in the mould of Stravinsky or Schoenberg. When challenged by the registrar of the Paris Conservatory as to what rule he followed when composing, Debussy replied disarmingly, ‘Mon plaisir!’ For Debussy, music developed organically from many varieties of rhythms, harmonies, textures and colours.
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