Masterclasses 2021

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Claude Debussy’s letters to his publishers document the French composer’s whole professional career and also a musically and politically eventful epoch between the Fin de siècle and the First World War. Debussy emerges as a lucid and sometimes waspish and ironic observer of and commentator on the cultural and political circumstances in which he lived and created his works.

Debussy’s letters appear here for the first time in German translation. Commentaries explain backgrounds and contexts.

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„...im Übrigen bin ich mehr und mehr überzeugt,

dass die Musik ihrem Wesen nach nichts ist, was in eine strenge und traditionelle Form gegossen werden könnte. Sie besteht aus Farben und rhythmisierter Zeit... Alles andere ist ein Schabernack, erfunden von kalten Dummköpfen auf dem Rücken der Meister, die doch vorwiegend nur Musik ihrer Zeit gemacht haben!
Allein Bach hat die Wahrheit geahnt."
Claude Debussy, 3. Sept. 1907 an Jacques Durand

"... also I am more and more convinced, that music in its essence is not something that can be poured into a strict and traditional mould. It consists of colours and rhythmic time ... Everything else is trickery, invented by cold fools on the backs of the masters, who mostly only made music of their own time!
Only Bach divined the truth."
Claude Debussy, 3 Sept. 1907 to Jacques Durand