Episode #4

Claude Debussy

"I can only make my own music."

Claude Debussy infuriated his teachers at the Conservatoire de Paris where he studied starting at age 10. He rejected ideas in place for hundreds of years, arranging familiar chords in unfamiliar sequences and shocking critics while delighting audiences.

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His musical tone poems paved the way for 20th century composers, with something quite new and remarkable. But his personal life was mostly one of despair.

Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918