Claude Debussy’s innovative music replaced old rules of harmony and melodic writing with new sounds and radical ideas, fresh timbres and beguiling tone colors. Schools of composition and fashions in art meant nothing to him – instead, he was moved by his strong faith in individualism, open to influences outside the mainstream of European culture and opposed to Wagner’s domination of French musical life in the late 1800s.

Here a series of conductors, pianists and choirs perform pieces from such lauded Debussy works as the Suite bergamasque, Arabesque, Pour le piano, Préludes, Children’s Corner, Estampes, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Petite suite, Nocturnes and La Mer.

“Music would take over at the point at which words become powerless, with the one and only object of expressing that which nothing but music could express… I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it…There is no theory. You only have to listen. Pleasure is the law.” – Claude Debussy

Musicians:
Claude Debussy, composer
Jean Martinon, conductor
Jean-François Paillard, conductor
Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor
Cécile Ousset, piano
Michel Béroff, piano
Yuri Egorov, piano
Samson François, piano
Alain Marion, flute
Orchestre National de l’ORTF
Orchestre de chambre Jean-François Paillard
Philharmonia Orchestra