Claude Debussy.

Claude Debussy was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1862. His father ran a china shop and his mother was a seamstress. Traumatic childhood events led to a lifelong depression, and he never spoke about his early years. His piano teacher, Mme. Maute, a former student of Frédéric Chopin, sent him to the Paris Conservatory at age 10.

At the Conservatory from 1872 to 1884, he studied with César Franck and Ernest Guiraud. He later lived at the castle of Nadezhda von Meck, where he taught her children and played works by Tchaikovsky. Trips to Venice, Vienna, and Moscow exposed him to Richard Wagner’s music, which influenced him for years.

Debussy won the Prix de Rome in 1883 and 1884, funding four years at the Villa de Medici in Rome. There he met Franz Liszt and Giuseppe Verdi and deepened his exposure to Wagner. In 1888 and 1889 he attended the Bayreuth Festival, where Wagner’s Parsifal made a strong impression.

Influenced by the impressionist circle of Stéphane Mallarmé, Debussy composed his most famous piano collection, Suite bergamasque, in 1890, which contains Clair de Lune. His Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun 1892 marked the start of a productive 20-year period. He wrote orchestral Nocturnes, La Mer 1905, and Images 1899-1909. In 1912 he composed the ballet Jeux for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. His symbolist opera Pelleas et Melisande was praised by Paul Dukas and Maurice Ravel.

Debussy married Marie Rosalie Texier in 1899, but they divorced in 1905. In 1908 he married Emma Moyse Emma Bardac, a singer, after they had a daughter, Claude-Emma, whom he called Chou-Chou. For her he composed the Children’s Corner Suite in 1909. Debussy had a brother, Alfred, and his father Manuel was a salesman.

Debussy’s innovative use of chromaticism and whole-tone scales broke from traditional harmony, shaping the course of 20th-century music. His works inspired composers such as Maurice Ravel and Béla Bartók. At the time of his death in 1918, German artillery was shelling Paris, and only 20 people attended his funeral. He is most remembered for Clair de Lune, a piece that remains one of the most beloved piano works worldwide.