Although Impressionism and Symbolism are but two of the numerous ‘-isms’ found in Paris in Debussy’s early years, these two movements are invariably associated with him. This chapter defines the symbolist literary style in France and surveys its development through some of its leading figures as well as its diffusion through some of its main institutions (Mallarmé’s salon, cafés, journals, bookstores). The author distinguishes between two phases in Debussy’s creative output: 1882–1902, when French-speaking literary symbolism clearly dominated the composer’s inspiration, and 1902–1917, when he became receptive to a wider range of poetry (especially that of French poets from the 15th to the 17th centuries). Important Debussy landmark pieces inspired by Symbolist writers (mélodies, the orchestral piece Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, and the opera Pelléas et Mélisande) are situated within the context of other musical works equally inspired by the same writers (Fauré, Bonheur, Bréville, Chabrier, Charpentier, Chausson, Duparc, Ravel).

Debussy’s creative world was deeply enmeshed in the cultural field of the French capital. Steeped in a post-Enlightenment worldview centred on exploration, accumulation of knowledge, and scientific discovery, no aspect of human experience and its habitats was deemed out of bounds in this path to creative accretion. Like many of his contemporaries, Debussy became fascinated by a wealth of new ideas about the world and the human condition that exploded onto the scene during his lifetime. Mysticism and occultism expanded the horizon within which to understand the mind and its creative potential; archaeological discoveries from Greece and Rome brought alive a past that belied the bland classicism so revered only decades earlier; and a rich smorgasbord of historical research – one that encompassed music and its practice – provided new materials from the foreign worlds of medieval, if not mythical, pasts. Over the course of Debussy’s life, these currents were woven together into the conceptual framework that sustained his creative world and that he claimed continually to renew rather than reproduce.

Marcel Dietschy declared, early in his centenary biography La Passion de Claude Debussy, that there was a woman at every crossroads in Debussy’s life. Years later, William Ashbrook and Margaret Cobb chose to omit many of Dietschy’s ‘effusive personal comments’ about the composer’s love life from their updated, more ‘objective’ 1990 translation. In trying to navigate the avenues by which myriad ideas and cultures of dance intersect with that context, a slight reframing of Dietschy’s romantic conceit suggests a useful guiding thread. At a time when musicologists seek to complicate individualistic focus on ‘great men’ with attention to the countless Others who aided their practice, this chapter notes the central role various foreign women played, directly and indirectly, in the dance worlds that impinged upon this compositional œuvre. From the outset, it frames the œuvre against the historical evolution of several overlapping worlds of dance, beginning with Debussy’s first publication, in Moscow in 1880, which was a four-hand arrangement of three characteristic dances from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s first ballet, Le Lac des cygnes (1875–6) – a direct emergence from his youthful sojourns at the piano with Tchaikovksy’s patron Nadezhda von Meck. A few short decades after this, a last work written expressly for dance, the unfinished children’s ballet La Boîte à joujoux of 1913, serves as an illustration of the new possibilities that had by then emerged for the art form.

This chapter explores the fascination with things Japanese (the term japonisme was first coined in 1872), which manifested itself in many ways, not least through the collecting of objets d’art – an obsession of Debussy’s. It will examine other ‘orientalisms’ and the role of the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in promoting them. This chapter intersects with Debussy’s interests in a number of ways. His attendance at the Exposition Universelle was seminal to his future development, not least in alerting him to musical cultures remote from his own. However, whilst we can hear the influence of these experiences in his music, Debussy was also a fanatical collector and browser of shops specialising in exotic products. He would often spend housekeeping money on objects for his collection, much to the despair of his partners. This chapter reflects changing consumption in France.

From what can be inferred from the composer’s correspondence and writings, Debussy was indifferent to political debate. It is noteworthy that the names of politicians are virtually absent from his letters, and that none of the major affairs or terrorist episodes that shook French public opinion are the subject of his public or private writings. This chapter describes France’s volatile politics and the impact of the Prussian invasion, the Commune (1871), the Dreyfus affair, the First World War, and other events that shaped the country. Relations with Germany and the catastrophe of the First World War are discussed. Although Debussy was directly affected by some political events, for example his father’s involvement in the Commune, he comes across as fairly apathetic in his few political pronouncements.

This chapter reflects on the class system and economic background of Debussy’s youth and the implications they had for his education. Given that he received little formal education until he entered the Paris Conservatoire, there is ample opportunity here to assess how typical this background was, or if it was shaped by the parents’ unusual circumstances. Arising out of this, there is a discussion of contemporary conceptions of the family, both at the time of Debussy’s childhood and in the twentieth century, when he became head of a small family and had to cope with the consequences (he apparently coped badly much of the time and resented the demands of family life). Despite his ardent desire to make up for everything he did not have as a child, Debussy struggled to reconcile the demands of his family with his professional aspirations at a time when men were increasingly expected to participate in and enjoy family life. Whether his struggles emanated from his artistic aspirations or his self-centred character, Debussy’s personal and professional choices were undoubtedly shaped by the circumstances of his upbringing and the increasing importance accorded to the family in French society during his lifetime.

Debussy’s operatic aesthetic is defined as much in relation to the traditional genres of French opera as in relation to Wagner or naturalism. His style is built by both assimilation and opposition – the two processes can be simultaneous. The assimilation process, considered as a more or less visible and conscious form of appropriation, is the most commented on in the case of Pelléas et Mélisande: what Wagnerian processes does Debussy retain in his score? How does he integrate earlier styles into his writing? What elements of Russian music may have influenced him? And so on. The opposition process is less often analysed, for it is not confined to the rejection of a work, but hinges on this work by responding negatively to its musical concepts. With Debussy, negation becomes a powerful creative operation. One of the peculiarities of his personality is radicalism, amplified by the search for an ideal and uniqueness. To write is to gradually eliminate the easy solutions, the surplus, the conventions.

Paul Dukas believed that the strongest influence that Debussy came under was that of writers, not composers. Writers were also prominent in his friendship circles, and this chapter outlines the importance of these circles to Debussy’s musical development. So many French composers have been influenced by artists of all types at least as much as by their musical peers, and Debussy was no exception to this. Perhaps surprisingly for someone so personally reserved, his face-to-face encounters with writers were at least as important to him as the time he spent reading their books. But as a collaborator, he was far better at discussing projects than actually completing them: Debussy’s list of projected theatrical works is considerably longer than his list of achievements in this sphere. His personal connections with writers started with the odd coincidence that Debussy’s first piano teacher was Paul Verlaine’s mother-in-law, Antoinette Mauté de Fleurville; her daughter, Mathilde, and the poet lived under her roof when the nine-year-old Debussy studied with her.

In the nineteenth century, French musical activity was mostly structured around opera. It is hard for us to imagine the extraordinary influence it exerted over composers, the press, and consumers of music and performance. It was everywhere, not just in the theatres dedicated to it, but also in concerts and salons, resulting in a truly operatic culture. Piano music, as demonstrated by Liszt, was deeply indebted to opera through reductions, transcriptions, fantasies, variations, and pots-pourris of all sorts. Vocal models also affected the performance and composition of instrumental melodies by many composers. In hyper-centralised France, the heart of this world was Paris in the handful of theatres devoted to opera, which produced most of the original works. The French operatic system functioned with a centre and periphery: there was a producer (the capital) and a multitude of receivers (the provincial towns). This chapter is devoted to Paris’s operatic institutions during Debussy’s lifetime. It broadly considers how they were financed, the ways in which they could make or break composers’ careers, and what was entailed in gaining access to their privileged stages. It also enumerates the differences between the operatic institutions.

Debussy’s extensive vocal music spans his entire career. This chapter places it in the context of the work of Debussy’s contemporaries, focusing on the art of singing as it was practised both in art and popular music. Debussy’s strong predilection for song cycles conceived as triptychs is also discussed at length, and an important comparison drawn with the composer most often linked to Debussy, Maurice Ravel.

In the decades since his death, Debussy has become a cultural icon – a symbol of music’s modernity. He has been immortalised by a monument in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, a museum in his hometown of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and a bust in the Théâtre national de l’Opéra-Comique. His portrait even appeared on a twenty-franc banknote. Over the past few years, Debussy’s stock has only risen. In 2011, New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini ranked him the fifth greatest composer of all time, behind Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert. This chapter ranges widely over many aspects of Debussy’s reputation and legacy.

In recent decades the interest in ‘period performance’ has moved beyond the Classical and early Romantic periods to embrace early twentieth-century composers, including Debussy. Beginning in the 1990s with recordings on pianos with which he would have been familiar, the movement has extended to his works in other genres. This chapter looks briefly at some of the major developments in period recordings of the composer’s piano music, mélodies, and orchestral works. The best of these recordings show that in hearing these pieces on the instruments of his day we may gain new insights into his compositional and scoring choices as well as his own performance practice. In short, hearing performances on these instruments allows us new insights into the composer’s sound-world and also throws potential light on reasons behind some of his compositional choices in particular works.