DEBUSSY by Eric Frederick Jensen (Oxford University Press) Many music lovers have shelves groaning with biographies of their favourite composers, and there is a daunting array of choices out there (even more, if you’re prepared to trawl the shelves of second-hand bookstores). But over many years, there has been one yardstick for the composer bio genre: the concise but extremely well-informed (and notably well-written) Master Musician series, of which this latest volume is a shining example. Much has been written about Debussy, but Eric Frederick Jensen manages to find fresh insights into the composer’s life while dealing frankly with the many problems which beset him (not least his health and sexual life). Importantly, the book includes the most recent scholarship concerning the composer (such as the unearthing of previously obscure compositions), and offers the most up-to-date record of the life and achievement of one of the geniuses of French music. Debussy was born into poverty and failed as a piano student at the Paris Conservatoire, but nevertheless became the most famous composer of his day with such scores as La Mer revolutionising modern music in a different but equally significant fashion to that effected by his contemporary Stravinsky. As well as dealing with the composer’s music, Jensen also addresses Debussy’s attitude to the other arts as well as his career as a music critic. And perhaps most valuably, the lively analysis of the music itself sends the reader to listen afresh to these endlessly inexhaustible masterworks.
