Literary and stylistic analysis of Debussy's Quatre chansons de jeunesse
Date
1979
Authors
Moellenhoff, Diane Kay
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Description
This paper comprises a discussion of Quatre chansons de jeunesse in order to demonstrate how the young Debussy aptly set the poems of three different poets in four songs, called 'mélodies,' and so unified them with his musical style that they can be performed as a whole and complete entity. I will begin the discussion of the background of the songs with some facts of Debussy's life, before and during the time that he composed these songs. In addition, I will discuss the respective poets, their general contributions to French poetry, and the poems themselves.