Debussy

This
wonderful
young artist
[Debussy]
who honors me
with his friendship,
is the greatest and noblest
and will one day
be the most famous of all.
You shall see.
( Edmond Bailly, bookseller in Paris )

The [piano] player should avoid
all romantic affectation.
( Debussy )

Play with more sensitiveness in the fingertips.
Play chords as if the keys were being attracted
to your fingertips and rose to your hand as a magnet.
( Debussy )

Wagner was never of service to music.
( Debussy )

Long live Rameau, down with Gluck.
( Debussy )

Music was never for Massenet the cosmic voice heard
by Bach and Beethoven.
( Debussy )

Stravinsky’s Symphony for Wind Instruments
written in memory of Debussy
was greeted with cheers, hisses, and laughter.
I had no idea Stravinsky disliked Debussy so much.
( Ernest Newman )

Debussy had the soul of an artist,
capable of the rarest and most subtle perceptions.
( Puccini, on Debussy )

No one has given utterance to the best within us
in tones more gentle and profound.
He is unique and will remain so.
( Debussy, on Moussorgsky )

Of all arts, music is the most susceptible to magic.
( Debussy )

He [Stravinsky] is inclining dangerously toward Schönberg.
( Debussy )

In the name of the gods of music, and of mine,
do not touch a single note of what you have written
in your [String] Quartet.
( Debussy, to Ravel. Ravel obeyed. )

Music must humbly seek to please.
Extreme complication is contrary to art.
Beauty must appeal to the senses;
must insinuate itself into us
without effort on our part.
( Debussy )

Bach is that benevolent god,
to whom musicians should offer a prayer before starting to work,
so that they may be saved from mediocrity.
( Debussy )

Beethoven is a genius able to dispense with taste.
Mozart, his equal in genius,
has, in addition, the most delicate taste.
( Debussy )

The Ninth Symphony is the most triumphant example
of the molding of an idea to the preconceived form.
This music sprang from a soul drunk with liberty.
( Debussy, on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony )

The stern and loyal mastery of our great Beethoven
easily triumphed over this vague and high-flown charlatanism
[of Wagner].
( Debussy )

The true lesson taught by Beethoven
was not the preserving of the ancient forms;
rather, he would invite us to gaze through the open window
to the clear sky.
( Debussy )

You may be sure that Bach, in whom is all music,
snapped his fingers at harmonic formulas.
( Debussy )

A 'G', an 'A'; either one works.
Which is best for you?
( Debussy, during the first rehearsals
of Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,
after a musician had asked
which of the two notes he was to play )

Wagner’s art can never completely die.
It will suffer that inevitable decay,
the cruel mark of time on all beautiful things;
yet noble ruins must remain,
in the shadow of which our grandchildren
will brood over the past splendor of this man,
who, if he had been a little more human,
would have been altogether great.
( Debussy )

Parsifal is one of the loveliest
monuments of sound ever raised
to the serene glory of music.
( Debussy )

He was a beautiful sunset
confused for a sunrise.
( Debussy, on Wagner )

In opera,
there is always
too much singing.
( Debussy )

ACHILLE - CLAUDE
DEBUSSY
born: St. Germain-en-Laye, 22 August 1862
died: Paris, 25 March 1918, aged fifty-five