Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)
Debussy’s compositions form part of an art movement known as French Impressionism that evolved in France at the end of the 19th Century. He was its leading musical exponent and a seminal influence on modern music. The aim of Impressionism was to reflect mood, which Debussy did with the use of unusual chords and modes which nevertheless progress unerringly through evocative landscapes to peaks of tension. Careful attention to form gives impalpable sentiments a sense of direction and completion. The lovely Coda from Debussy's only opera, ‘Pelleas and Melisande’, demonstrates this, as well as exhibiting his masterful expression of the dramatic, exquisite without being flowery, forceful but not overblown.
