Claude Debussy – Portraits et Études

Many traits of Debussys life and work are still unknown. By offering a diversified view on the man and his cultural and social environment, as well as on his compositions, this book aims to shed light on certain aspects of his artistic personality. The title under which these texts are brought together echoes both a work by Paul Bourget, Études et Portraits, a writer whom Debussy admired in his youth, and the portrait sketched by his friend, the painter Paul Robert, and reproduced on the cover.

The first section, divided into two parts and entitled Portraits, adopts a cross-disciplinary approach, exploring the literary world Debussy encountered, his relationship to works of the past, and his attitude towards money. The second part, Études, examines, through the analysis of manuscript and printed sources, the many changes that Debussy made to his musical or critical works, and focuses on the melodies of his youth, the Proses lyriques, the Nocturnes, LEnfant prodigue and Monsieur Croche Antidilettante. Finally, Debussys relationships with authors, composers and performers are the subject of the final chapters.

Director of Research at the CNRS (IReMus), Denis Herlin is the author of several catalogues of musical collections, du Catalogue thématique des uvres de Jean-Philippe Rameau (3 vol. published with S. Bouissou and P. Denécheau), articles on French Baroque music and at least forty studies on the work of Claude Debussy, as well as several critical editions (of Chambonnières, Couperin, Rameau, and Debussy. General editor of Debussys uvres complètes de Debussy since 2002, in 2005 he and François Lesure published the edition of the composers general correspondence.

President of the Société française de musicologie from 2009 to 2011, he has also held the International Chair in Musicology at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester since 2017.