François De Médicis. Turnhout : Brepols. 2020.
La maturation artistique de Debussy dans son contexte historique (1884-1902)
This work is centered on the figure of Claude Debussy in the years between 1884 and 1902 — from the moment he captured the Prix de Rome to the premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande, the work that marked his coming of age as a professional musician and confirmed his personal style. This period bore witness to one of the most profound transformations of the composer’s musical style and the ascent of his career to dizzying heights. Debussy’s creative achievements are placed in the context of his professional development as well as his interactions with various musical institutions such as the Conservatoire, the Institut des Beaux-Arts (during the Prix de Rome), the Société Nationale de Musique, and the Opéra-Comique. Detailed and cursory analyses of a wide range of works, both canonical and little-known, provide a window on how Debussy’s style was positioned with respect to other composers of his time who hailed from both the establishment and the avant-garde (Thomas, Massenet, Chabrier, Franck, D’Indy, Grieg, Wagner). This study allows for a more nuanced understanding of our received knowledge and a refreshed historical perspective that begs us to reconsider various aspects of the artist’s life. These include the cliché that Debussy was widely misunderstood in his youth, and a common failure to acknowledge the influence of Mussorgsky’s fellow Russians, like Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov.
François de Médicis est professeur titulaire en musicologie à la Faculté de musique de l’Université de Montréal et membre de L’Équipe musique en France (ÉMF) de l’OICRM. Ses travaux touchent la musique française et russe (1870-1945). Il fait partie du comité de direction de l’édition critique des œuvres de Camille Saint-Saëns chez Bärenreiter, dont il prépare l’édition du volume consacré aux œuvres pour violon et piano. Il co-édite avec Stephen Huebner l’ouvrage collectif Debussy’s Resonance en 2018 et dirige, conjointement avec Sylvain Caron et Michel Duchesneau, la publication de Musique et modernité en France (1900-1945) en 2006. D’autres de ses travaux sur Debussy, Koechlin, Milhaud, Messiaen et Stravinski paraissent dans des ouvrages collectifs chez L’Harmattan, les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, la Sorbonne, Symétrie, Vrin et Dohr.