The Life of Debussy

Roger Nichols places the life of Debussy within the context of his age.

No detailed biography of Debussy has been published since 1965. Since that time much new material has come to light, which Roger Nichols incorporates into his biography. He considers the life and music of this seminal figure, placing the life of Debussy within the context of his age.'That great blue Sphinx', Debussy called the sea. Debussy himself was something of a Sphinx: in the early 1890s he was thinking of 'founding a society for musical esotericism', and although, on the surface, most of his music is instantly engaging and accessible, at a deeper level run currents that are dangerous, unpredictable, destructive. In this biography, Roger Nichols considers the life and music of this seminal figure, charting the currents and the whirlpools in which other humans were sometimes unlucky enough to get caught. Debussy's status is such that no modern composer has been able to ignore him, asking, as he does, any number of riddles to which late twentieth-century music is still searching for answers.