7 Claude Debussy 7Texier, a dressmaker, whom he married in 1899, did in fact
shoot herself, though not fatally, and, Debussy himself
was haunted by thoughts of suicide.
The main musical infl uences on Debussy were the
works of Richard Wagner and the Russian composers
Aleksandr Borodin and Modest Mussorgsky. Wagner ful-
fi lled the sensuous ambitions not only of composers but
also of the symbolist poets and the impressionist painters.
Wagner’s conception of Gesamtkunstwerk (“total art work”)
encouraged artists to refi ne upon their emotional responses
and to exteriorize their hidden dream states, often in a
shadowy, incomplete form; hence the more tenuous nature
of the work of Wagner’s French disciples. It was in this
spirit that Debussy wrote the symphonic poem Prélude à
l’après-midi d ’un faune (1894). Other early works by Debussy
show his affi nity with the
English Pre-Raphaelite
painters; the most notable
of these works is La
Damoiselle élue (1888),
based on The Blessed
Damozel (1850), a poem
by the English poet and
painter Dante Gabriel
Rossetti. In the course
of his career, however,
which covered only 25
years, Debussy was con-
stantly breaking new
ground. His single com-
pleted opera, Pelléas et
Mélisande (fi rst performed
in 1902), demonstrates
how the Wagnerian tech-
nique could be adapted
Claude Debussy. © Photos.com/
Jupiterimages
show his affi nity with the
English Pre-Raphaelite
painters; the most notable
of these works is
Damoiselle élue
based on
Damozel
by the English poet and
painter Dante Gabriel
Rossetti. In the course
of his career, however,
which covered only 25
years, Debussy was con-
stantly breaking new
ground. His single com-
pleted opera,
Mélisande
in 1902), demonstrates