The Iberian Peninsula (Asturian, Leonese, Mirandese, Spanish, Portuguese and , , Aragonese and , , ), sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is the westernmost of the three major southern European peninsulas — the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas. It is bordered on the southeast and east by the Mediterranean Sea, and on the north, west and southwest by the Atlantic Ocean. The Pyrenees form the northeast edge of the peninsula, separating it from the rest of Europe. In the south, it approaches the northern coast of Africa. It is the second-largest peninsula in Europe, with an area of approximately .

Name

Greek name

The English word ''Iberia'' was adapted from the use of the Ancient Greek word Ιβηρία (Ibēría) by the Greek geographers under the Roman Empire to refer to what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula. At that time the name did not describe a single political entity or a distinct population of people. Strabo's Iberia was delineated from Keltikē by the Pyrenees and included the entire land mass south-west (he named it "west") of there.

The Ancient Greeks discovered the Iberian peninsula by voyaging westward. Hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term around 500 BC. Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that "it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with ... Iberia." According to Strabo prior historians used Iberia to mean the country "this side of the Ἶβηρος (Ibēros)" as far north as the Rhone river in France but currently they set the Pyrenees as the limit. Polybius respects that limit but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar, with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere he says that Saguntum is "on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia."

Strabo refers to the Carretanians as people "of the Iberian stock" living in the Pyrenees, who are to be distinguished from either Celts or Celtiberians.

Roman names

When the Romans encountered the Greek geographers they used Iberia poetically and spoke of the Iberi. First mention was in 200 BC by the poet Quintus Ennius. The Romans had already had independent experience with the peoples on the peninsula during the long conflict with Carthage. The Roman geographers and other prose writers from the time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula ''Hispania''.

As they became politically interested in the former territories of Carthage the Romans came to use Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior for "near" and "far Spain". Even at that time large sections of it were Lusitania (Portugal south of Douro river and Extremadura in western Spain), Gallaecia (Northern Portugal and Galicia in Spain), Celtiberia (central Spain), Baetica (Andalusia), Cantabria (northwest Spain) and the Vascones (Basques). Strabo says that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, and distance them as near and far. He was living in a time when the peninsula was divided into Roman provinces, of which Baetia was supervised by the Senate, whereas the others were governed on behalf of the Emperor. Whatever language may have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for Basque, protected by the Pyrenees.

Etymology

The Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the Ebro river, Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin. The association was so well known it was hardly necessary to state; for example, Ibēria was the country "this side of the Ibērus" in Strabo. Pliny goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called "the whole of Spain" Hiberia because of the river Hiberus. The river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BC between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian, uses Ibērus. With reference to this border, Polybius states that the "native name" is Ibēr, apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination.

The early range of these natives, stated by the geographers and historians to be from southern Spain to southern France along the Mediterranean coast, is marked by instances of a readable script expressing a yet unknown language, dubbed "Iberian". Whether this was the native name or was given to them by the Greeks for their residence on the Ebro remains unknown. Credence in Polybius imposes certain limitations on etymologizing: if the language remains unknown, the meanings of the words, including Iber, must remain unknown also.

Geography

Overall characteristics

The Iberian peninsula extends from the southernmost extremity at Punta de Tarifa () to the northernmost extremity at Estaca de Bares Point () over a distance between lines of latitude of about based on a degree length of per degree, and from the westernmost extremity at Cabo da Roca () to the easternmost extremity at Cap de Creus () over a distance between lines of longitude at 40° N latitude of about based on an estimated degree length of about for that latitude. The irregular, roughly octagonal shape of the peninsula contained within this spherical quadrangle was compared to an ox-hide by the geographer, Strabo.

Approximately ¾ of the octagon is the Meseta Central, a low and rolling plateau of up to several hundred metres in altitude. It is located roughly in the centre, staggered slightly to the east and tilted slightly toward the west. (The conventional centre of the Iberian Peninsula has long been considered to be Getafe just south of Madrid.) It is ringed by mountains and contains the sources of most of the rivers, which find their way through gaps in the mountain barriers on all sides.

Coastline

The coastline of the Iberian Peninsula is , on the Mediterranean side and on the Atlantic side. The coast is a drowned one, with sea levels having risen from a minimum of lower than today at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to its current level at 4000 years BP. The coastal shelf created by sedimentation during that time remains below the surface; however, it was never very extensive on the Atlantic side, as the continental shelf drops rather steeply into the depths. An estimated length of Atlantic shelf is only wide. At the isobath, on the edge, the shelf drops off to .

The submarine topography of the coastal waters of the Iberian Peninsula has been studied extensively in the process of drilling for oil. Ultimately the shelf drops into the Bay of Biscay on the north (an abyss), the Iberian abyssal plain at on the west and Tagus abyssal plain to the south. In the north between the continental shelf and the abyss is an extension, the Galicia Bank, a plateau containing also the Porto, Vigo and Vasco da Gama seamounts, creating the Galicia interior basin. The southern border of these features is marked by Nazare Canyon, splitting the continental shelf and leading directly into the abyss.

Mountains

Mountains consist mainly of serrated ridges aligned in an east-west direction, due to the orogenic factors of the region's geologic history. Rivers generally flow through the valleys between the ridges. In a counterclockwise direction, the major mountain ranges are: the Pyrenees crossing the isthmus of the peninsula so completely as to allow no passage except by mountain road or trail or coastal road, the Cantabrian Mountains perched on the northern coastline, the Sistema Ibérico, the Sistema Central, the Montes de Toledo, the Sierra Morena and the Sierra Nevada.

Rivers

Modern countries and territories

Political divisions of the Iberian Peninsula sorted by area:

Country/Territory	Peninsular area	Description
!km2	!sq mi	!Share
Spain		85%	occupies most of the peninsula
Portugal		15%	occupies most of the west of the peninsula
France		<1%	French Cerdagne is in the south side of the Pyrenees range between Spain and France, so it is technically located in the Iberian peninsula
Andorra		<1%	a northern edge of the peninsula in the south side of the Pyrenees range between Spain and France
Gibraltar		<1%	a British overseas territory near the southernmost tip of the peninsula

Urbanization

Mejor cities

The principal urban centres are: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Zaragoza, Málaga, Lisbon, Murcia, Palma, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Bilbao, Alicante, Córdoba, Valladolid, Vigo, Vila Nova de Gaia, Gijón, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, A Coruña, Porto, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Granada, Elche, Oviedo, Braga, Sintra, Coimbra and Setúbal.

Various other notable cities are also present on the peninsula.

Major metropolitan areas

The main metropolitan areas and conurbations over a million are: Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Valencia, Porto, Seville, Bilbao and Málaga.

Ecology

Forests

The woodlands of the Iberian Peninsula are distinct ecosystems. Although the various regions are each characterized by distinct vegetation, there are some similarities across the peninsula.

While the borders between these regions are not clearly defined, there is a mutual influence which makes it very hard to establish boundaries and some species find their optimal habitat in the intermediate areas.

East Atlantic flyway

The Iberian Peninsula in an important stopover on the East Atlantic flyway for birds migrating from northern Europe to Africa. For example, Calidis ferruginea rests in the region of Cadiz Bay.

In addition to the birds migrating through, some seven million wading birds from the north spend the winter in the estuaries and wetlands of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly at locations on the Atlantic coast. In Galicia are the Ria de Arousa (a home of Pluvialis squatarola), Ria de Ortigueira, Ria de Corme and Ria de Laxe. In Portugal the Aveiro Lagoon hosts Recurvirostra avosetta, Charadrius hiaticula, Pluvialis squatarola and Calidris minuta. Ribatejo on the Tagus River supports Recurvirostra arosetta, Pluvialis squatarola, Culidris alpina, Limosa lapponica and Tringa totanus. In the Estuário do Sado are Calidris alpina, Numenius arquata, Pluvialis squatarola and Tringa totanus. The Algarve hosts Calidris canutus, Tringa nebularia and Arenaria interpres. The Marismas de Guadalquivir region of Andalusia and the Salinas de Cádiz are especially rich in wintering wading birds: Charadrius alexandrinus, Charadrius hiaticula, Calidris alba, and Limosa limosa in addition to the others. And finally, the Ebro delta is home to all the species mentioned above.

Geology

The Iberian Peninsula contains rocks from every age from Ediacaran to Recent, and almost every kind of rock is represented. World class mineral deposits can also be found there. The core of the Iberian Peninsula consists of a Hercynian cratonic block known as the Iberian Massif. On the northeast this is bounded by The Pyrenean fold belt, and on the southeast it is bounded by the Betic Foldchain. These twofold chains are part of the Alpine belt. To the west, the peninsula is delimited by the continental boundary formed by the magma poor opening of the Atlantic Ocean. The Hercynian Foldbelt is mostly buried by Mesozoic and Tertiary cover rocks to the east, but nevertheless outcrops through the Iberian Chain and the Catalonian Coastal Ranges.

Prehistory

Palaeolithic

The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited for at least 1,000,000 years as remains found in the sites at Atapuerca demonstrate. Among these sites is the cave of Gran Dolina, where six hominin skeletons, dated between 780,000 and one million years ago, were found in 1994. Experts have debated whether these skeletons belong to the species ''Homo erectus'', ''Homo heidelbergensis'', or a new species called ''Homo antecessor''.

Around 200,000 BC, during the Lower Paleolithic period, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula. Around 70,000 BC, during the Middle Paleolithic period, the last ice age began and the Neanderthal Mousterian culture was established. Around 35,000 BC, during the Upper Paleolithic, the Neanderthal Châtelperronian cultural period began. Emanating from Southern France this culture extended into the north of the peninsula. It continued to exist until around 28,000 BC when Neanderthal man faced extinction.

At about the 40th millennium BC Modern Humans entered the Iberian peninsula, coming from Southern France. Here, this genetically homogeneous population (characterized by the M173 mutation in the Y-chromosome), developed the M343 mutation, giving rise to the R1b Haplogroup, still the most common in modern Portuguese and Spanish males. On the Iberian peninsula, Modern Humans developed a series of different cultures, such as the Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian cultures, some of them characterized by complex forms of Paleolithic art.

Neolithic

During the Neolithic expansion, various megalithic cultures developed in the Iberian peninsula. An open seas navigation culture from the east Mediterranean, called the Cardium culture, also extended its influence to the eastern coasts of the peninsula, possibly as early as the 5th millennium BC These people may have had some relation to the subsequent development of the Iberian civilization.

Chalcolithic

In the Chalcolithic or Copper Age (c. 3000 BC) a series of complex cultures developed, which would give rise to the peninsula's first civilizations and to extensive exchange networks reaching to the Baltic, the Middle East and North Africa. At about 2150 BC the Bell Beaker culture intruded into the peninsula, being of Central European origin.

Bronze Age

Bronze Age cultures developed beginning c.1800 BC, when the civilization of Los Millares was followed by that of El Argar. From this centre, bronze technology spread to other areas, such as those of the Bronze of Levante, South-Western Iberian Bronze and Cogotas I.

In the Late Bronze Age the urban civilisation of Tartessos developed in the area of modern western Andalusia, characterized by Phoenician influence and using the Tartessian script for its Tartessian language, a language isolate not related to the Iberian language.

Early in the first millennium BC, several waves of Pre-Celts and Celts migrated from central Europe, thus partially changing the peninsula's ethnic landscape into Indo-European space in its northern and western regions.

Proto-history

By the Iron Age, starting in the 7th century BC, the Iberian peninsula consisted of complex agrarian and urban civilizations, either Pre-Celtic or Celtic (such as the Lusitanians, the Celtiberians, the Gallaeci, the Astur, or the Celtici, amongst others), the cultures of the Iberians in the eastern and southern zones and the cultures of the Aquitanian in the western portion of the Pyrenees.

The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries. Around 1100 BC, Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. In the 8th century BC, the first Greek colonies, such as Emporion (modern Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the East, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are coined the name Iberia, after the river Iber (Ebro). In the 6th century BC the Carthaginians arrived in the peninsula while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).

History

Roman rule

In 219 BC, the first Roman troops invaded the Iberian Peninsula, during the Second Punic war against the Carthaginians, and annexed it under Augustus after two centuries of war with the Celtic and Iberian tribes and the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies, resulting in the creation of the province of Hispania. It was divided into Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior during the late Roman Republic, and during the Roman Empire, it was divided into Hispania Taraconensis in the northeast, Hispania Baetica in the south and Lusitania in the southwest.

Hispania supplied the Roman Empire with food, olive oil, wine and metal. The emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Theodosius I, the philosopher Seneca and the poets Martial and Lucan were born from families living in the peninsula.

Germanic kingdoms

In the early 5th century, Germanic tribes invaded the peninsula, namely the Suevi, the Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) and their allies, the Sarmatian Alans. Only the kingdom of the Suevi (Quadi and Marcomanni) would endure after the arrival of another wave of Germanic invaders, the Visigoths, who conquered all of the Iberian peninsula and expelled or partially integrated the Vandals and the Alans. The Visigoths eventually conquered the Suevi kingdom and its capital city Bracara (modern day Braga) in 584-585. They would also conquer the province of the Byzantine Empire (552-624) of Spania in the south of the peninsula and the Balearic Islands.

Islamic rule

In AD 711, a North African Moorish Umayyad army invaded Visigothic Christian Hispania. Under their leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they landed at Gibraltar and brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign. Al-ʾAndalūs (Arabic الإندلس : Land of the Vandals) is the Arabic name given the Iberian Peninsula by its Muslim conquerors and its subsesquent inhabitants.

From the 8th-15th centuries, parts of the Iberian peninsula were ruled by the Moors (mainly Berber and Arab) who had crossed over from North Africa.

Reconquest

Many of the ousted Gothic nobles took refuge in the unconquered north Asturian highlands. From there, they aimed to reconquer their lands from the Moors: this war of reconquest is known as the Reconquista. Christian and Muslim kingdoms fought and allied among themselves. The Muslim taifa kings competed in patronage of the arts, the Way of Saint James attracted pilgrims from all Western Europe and the Jewish population set the basis of Sephardic culture.

In medieval times the peninsula housed many small states including Castile, Aragon, Navarre, León and Portugal. The peninsula was part of the Islamic Almohad empire until they were finally uprooted. The last major Muslim stronghold was Granada which was eliminated by a combined Castilian and Aragonese force in 1492.

Post reconquest

The small states gradually amalgamated over time, with the exception of Portugal, even if for a brief period (1580–1640) the whole peninsula was united politically under the Iberian Union. After that point the modern position was reached and the peninsula now consists of the countries of Spain and Portugal (excluding their islands — the Portuguese Azores and Madeira Islands and the Spanish Canary Islands and Balearic Islands; and the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla), Andorra, French Cerdagne and Gibraltar.

See also

References

External links

Category:Regions of Europe Category:Iberian Peninsula Category:Landforms of Portugal Category:Landforms of Spain Gibraltar Category:Peninsulas of Europe Category:Historic Jewish communities

als:Iberische Halbinsel ar:شبه جزيرة أيبيريا an:Peninsula Iberica frp:Pèninsula ibèrica ast:Península Ibérica az:Pireney yarımadası zh-min-nan:Iberia Poàn-tó ba:Пиреней ярымутрауы be:Пірэнейскі паўвостраў be-x-old:Пірэнэйскі паўвостраў bs:Pirinejsko poluostrvo br:Ledenez iberek bg:Пиренейски полуостров ca:Península Ibèrica cv:Пиреней çурутравĕ cs:Pyrenejský poloostrov cy:Penrhyn Iberia da:Den Iberiske Halvø de:Iberische Halbinsel et:Pürenee poolsaar el:Ιβηρική Χερσόνησος es:Península ibérica eo:Iberio ext:Península Ibérica eu:Iberiar penintsula fa:شبه‌جزیره ایبری fr:Péninsule Ibérique fy:Ibearysk Skiereilân gv:Lieh-innys ny h-Ibeir gl:Península Ibérica ko:이베리아 반도 hi:औबेरिया प्रायद्वीप hsb:Pyrenejska połkupa hr:Pirenejski poluotok io:Iberia id:Iberia ia:Peninsula iberic os:Пиренейты æрдæгсакъадах is:Íberíuskaginn it:Penisola iberica he:חצי האי האיברי ka:პირენეს ნახევარკუნძული kk:Пиреней түбегі sw:Rasi ya Iberia ku:Nîvgirava Îberî la:Iberia lv:Pireneju pussala lt:Pirėnų pusiasalis hu:Ibériai-félsziget mk:Пиринејски Полуостров mg:Tanjona Iberika mr:इबेरियन द्वीपकल्प arz:شبه الجزيره الايبيريه ms:Semenanjung Iberia mwl:Península Eibérica mn:Иберийн хойг nl:Iberisch Schiereiland ja:イベリア半島 no:Den iberiske halvøy nn:Den iberiske halvøya oc:Peninsula Iberica pnb:ایبیریا pl:Półwysep Iberyjski pnt:Ιβηρικόν Χερσόνησος pt:Península Ibérica ro:Peninsula iberică ru:Пиренейский полуостров sq:Gadishulli Pirinej scn:Pinìsula ibbèrica simple:Iberian Peninsula sk:Pyrenejský polostrov sl:Iberski polotok ckb:نیمچەدوورگەی ئیبیریا sr:Пиринејско полуострво sh:Pirinejski poluotok fi:Pyreneiden niemimaa sv:Iberiska halvön tl:Tangway ng Iberia ta:ஐபீரிய மூவலந்தீவு tt:Пиреней ярымутравы th:คาบสมุทรไอบีเรีย tr:İber Yarımadası uk:Піренейський півострів ur:جزیرہ نما آئبیریا vi:Bán đảo Iberia zh-classical:伊比利半島 zh:伊比利亚半岛

name	Carlos Saura
birth date	January 04, 1932
birth place	Huesca, Spain
influences	Luis Buñuel, Sigmund Freud, Baltasar Gracián, Antonio Saura, Vittorio Storaro
spouse	Eulalia Ramón (2006-present)
partner	Geraldine Chaplin (1967–1979)
occupation	Film director and screenwriter
years active	1955–present }}

Carlos Saura Atarés (born 4 January 1932, Huesca) is a Spanish film director and photographer.

Early life

Born into a family of artists (his mother was a pianist and his brother, Antonio Saura, a painter), he developed his artistic sense in childhood as a photography enthusiast.

He obtained his directing diploma in Madrid in 1957 at the Institute of Cinema Research and Studies. He also taught there until 1963.

Career

In 1957-1958, Saura created his first film (''Cuenca''). In 1966, he was honored at the 16th Berlin International Film Festival, where he received the Silver Bear for Best Director for his film ''La caza''. In 1967, his film ''Peppermint Frappé'' also received the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 18th Berlin International Film Festival. He won the Golden Bear in 1981 at the 31st Berlin International Film Festival for his film ''Deprisa, Deprisa''.

The movies ''La prima Angélica'' (''Cousin Angélica'') of 1973 and ''Cría cuervos'' (''Raising Ravens'' [from the Spanish phrase: ''Cria cuervos y te sacaran los ojos'' (Raise ravens and they will peck out your eyes)]) of 1975 received the special prize of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. His movie ''Mama cumple 100 años"''(''Mom is celebrating her 100 years'') was nominated in 1979 for the best foreign film at the Oscar Awards .

Saura has become known for making movies featuring traditional flamenco and other Spanish dances. His ''Flamenco Trilogy'' of the 1980s includes ''Bodas de Sangre'' (Blood Wedding), ''Carmen'', and ''El amor brujo''. He later made the movies ''Flamenco'' (1995), ''Tango'' (1998), and ''Fados'' (2007).

His 1989 film ''La noche oscura'' was entered into the 39th Berlin International Film Festival.

Saura considers his film on surrealist master Luis Buñuel to be his best cinematic work. In an interview to an online film magazine, DearCinema.com, he says about ''Buñuel y la mesa del rey Salomón'' (Buñuel and the table of King Solomon -2001): “That’s the greatest film I’ve ever made. I like the film but nobody else seems to like it. I’m sure Buñuel would have loved this film. But perhaps only he would have loved it. Everything you see in the film is actually based on conversations I had with him.”

In 1990, he received the Goya Award for the best director and best script for ''¡Ay, Carmela!''. He was chosen as director for the official film of the 1992 Olympic Games of Barcelona, ''Marathon'' (1993).

In 2008, Carlos Saura was honoured with a Global Life Time Achievement Award at the 10th Mumbai International Film Festival, organized by the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI)

Personal life

Carlos Saura was married twice. He first married Adela Medrano in Barcelona in 1957. They had two sons, Carlos (b. 1958) and Antonio (b. 1960).

On 27 December 1982 he married Mercedes Pérez. They had three sons, Manuel (b. 1980), Adrián (b. 1984) and Diego (b. 1987).

Between marriages, Saura had at least one known son, Shane (b. 1974), by the actress Geraldine Chaplin. His relationship history led some to believe he may have fathered more children. After his second marriage, he was also the father of a daughter named Ana (b. December 1994) by Eulalia Ramón.

Filmography

1955 : ''Flamenco'' short film

1956 : ''El Pequeño río Manzanares'' short film

1957 : ''La Tarde del domingo'' short film

1958 : ''Cuenca''

1959 : ''Los golfos''

1964 : ''Llanto por un bandido''

1966 : ''La caza

1967 : ''Peppermint Frappé''

1968 : ''Stress-es tres-tres''

1969 : ''La madriguera''

1970 : ''El jardín de las delicias''

1972 : ''Ana y los lobos''

1973 : ''La prima Angélica''

1975 : ''Cría cuervos''

1977 : ''Elisa, vida mía''

1978 : ''Los ojos vendados''

1979 : ''Mamá cumple cien años''

1980 : ''Deprisa, Deprisa''

1981 : ''Bodas de Sangre''

1982 : ''Sweet Hours''

1982 : ''Antonieta''

1983 : ''Carmen''

1984 : ''Los Zancos''

1986 : ''El amor brujo''

1988 : ''El Dorado''

1989 : ''La Noche oscura''

1990 : ''Ay Carmela''

1992 : ''El Sur''

1992 : ''Marathon''

1992 : ''Sevillanas''

1993 : ''¡Dispara!''

1995 : ''Flamenco''

1997 : ''Taxi''

1997 : ''Pajarico''

1998 : ''Tango''

1999 : ''Goya en Burdeos''

2001 : ''Buñuel y la mesa del rey Salomón''

2002 : ''Salomé''

2004 : ''El séptimo día''

2005 : ''Iberia''

2007 : ''Fados''

2008 : ''Sinfonía de Aragón'' short film

2009 : ''Io, Don Giovanni''

2010 : ''Flamenco, Flamenco''

Awards

1966: Silver Bear for Best Director at the 16th Berlin International Film Festival for his film ''La Caza''.

1968: Silver Bear for Best Director at the 18th Berlin International Film Festival for his film ''Peppermint Frappé''.

1974: Jury Prize at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival for his film ''La prima Angélica''.

1976: Grand Prix of the Jury at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival for his film ''Cría cuervos...''

1981: Golden Bear at the 31st Berlin International Film Festival for his film ''Deprisa, deprisa''.

1983: Technical Grand Prize and the award for Best Artistic Contribution at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival for his film ''Carmen''.

1983: BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film for his film ''Carmen''.

2004: Lifetime achievement award at the European Film Awards.

References

External links

IMDb profile (IMDb)

Official Webpage in Spanish

Carlos Saura biography and flamenco-related films

Interview: Camera is My Memory: Carlos Saura

Carlos Saura, cineasta - ''Escritos de José Antonio Bielsa'' / Carlos Saura - ''El poder de la palabra'' (Spanish)

Category:1932 births Category:Living people Category:European Film Awards winners (people) Category:People from Huesca Category:Spanish film directors Category:Spanish screenwriters Category:Spanish photographers Category:Best Director Goya Award winners Category:Silver Bear for Best Director recipients

bg:Карлос Саура ca:Carlos Saura cs:Carlos Saura da:Carlos Saura de:Carlos Saura es:Carlos Saura eo:Carlos Saura fr:Carlos Saura gl:Carlos Saura id:Carlos Saura it:Carlos Saura hu:Carlos Saura nl:Carlos Saura ja:カルロス・サウラ oc:Carlos Saura pl:Carlos Saura pt:Carlos Saura ro:Carlos Saura ru:Саура, Карлос fi:Carlos Saura sv:Carlos Saura tr:Carlos Saura

Claude-Achille Debussy () (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions. Debussy is among the most important of all French composers, and a central figure in European music of the turn of the 20th century. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1903.

His music is noted for its sensory component and for not often forming around one key or pitch. Often Debussy's work reflected the activities or turbulence in his own life. His music virtually defines the transition from late-Romantic music to 20th century modernist music. In French literary circles, the style of this period was known as symbolism, a movement that directly inspired Debussy both as a composer and as an active cultural participant.

Biography

Early life and studies

Claude Debussy was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, 22 August 1862, the eldest of five children. His father, Manuel-Achille Debussy, owned a shop where he sold china and crockery, and his mother, Victorine Manoury Debussy, was a seamstress. The family moved to Paris in 1867, but in 1870 Debussy's pregnant mother sought refuge from the Franco-Prussian war with a paternal aunt of Claude's in Cannes. Debussy began piano lessons there at the age of seven years with an elderly Italian violinist named Cerutti; his lessons were paid for by his aunt. In 1871 he drew the attention of Marie Mauté de Fleurville, who claimed to have been a pupil of Frédéric Chopin. Debussy always believed her, although there is no independent evidence of her claim. His talents soon became evident, and in 1872, at age ten, Debussy entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he spent eleven years. During his time there he studied composition with Ernest Guiraud, music history/theory with Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray, harmony with Émile Durand, piano with Antoine François Marmontel, organ with César Franck, and solfège with Albert Lavignac, as well as other significant figures of the era. He also became a lifelong friend of fellow student and noted pianist Isidor Philipp. After Debussy's death, many pianists sought out Philipp for advice on playing his music.

From the start, though clearly talented, Debussy was argumentative and experimental. He challenged the rigid teaching of the Academy, favoring instead dissonances and intervals that were frowned upon. Like Georges Bizet, he was a brilliant pianist and an outstanding sight reader, who could have had a professional career as such had he so wished. The pieces he played in public at this time included sonata movements by Beethoven, Schumann and Weber; and Chopin – the Ballade No. 2, a movement from the Piano Concerto No. 1, and the ''Allegro de concert'', a relatively little-known piece but one requiring an advanced technique (it was originally intended to be the opening movement of a third piano concerto).

During the summers of 1880, 1881, and 1882 Debussy accompanied the wealthy patroness of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Nadezhda von Meck, as she traveled with her family in Europe and Russia. The young composer's many musical activities during these vacations included playing four-hand pieces with von Meck at the piano, giving her children music lessons, and performing in private concerts with some of her musician friends. Despite von Meck's closeness with Tchaikovsky, the Russian master appears to have had little or no effect on Debussy. In September 1880 she sent Debussy's ''Danse bohémienne'' for Tchaikovsky's perusal. A month later Tchaikovsky wrote back to her, "It is a very pretty piece, but it is much too short. Not a single idea is expressed fully, the form is terribly shriveled, and it lacks unity". Debussy did not publish the piece; the manuscript remained in the von Meck family, and it was sold to B. Schott's Sohne in Mainz, and published by them in 1932. A greater influence was Debussy's close friendship with Madame Vasnier, a singer he met when he began working as an accompanist to earn some money. She and her husband gave Debussy emotional and professional support. Monsieur Vasnier introduced him to the writings of influential French writers of the time, which gave rise to his first songs, settings of poems by Paul Verlaine, the son-in-law of his former teacher, Mme. Mauté de Fleurville. As the winner of the 1884 Prix de Rome with his composition ''L'enfant prodigue'', Debussy received a scholarship to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which included a four-year residence at the Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome, to further his studies (1885–1887). According to letters to Madame Vasnier, perhaps in part designed to gain her sympathy, he found the artistic atmosphere stifling, the company boorish, the food bad, and the monastic quarters "abominable". Neither did he delight in the pleasures of the "Eternal City", finding the Italian opera of Donizetti and Verdi not to his taste. Debussy was often depressed and unable to compose, but he was inspired by Franz Liszt, whose command of the keyboard he found admirable.

In June 1885, Debussy wrote of his desire to follow his own way, saying, "I am sure the Institute would not approve, for, naturally it regards the path which it ordains as the only right one. But there is no help for it! I am too enamoured of my freedom, too fond of my own ideas."

Debussy finally composed four pieces that were sent to the Academy: the symphonic ode ''Zuleima'', based on a text by Heinrich Heine; the orchestral piece ''Printemps''; the cantata ''La damoiselle élue'' (1887–1888), which was criticized by the Academy as "bizarre"; and the ''Fantaisie'' for piano and orchestra. The third piece was the first in which stylistic features of Debussy's later style emerged. The fourth piece was heavily based on César Franck's music and Debussy withdrew it. The Academy chided him for "courting the unusual" and hoped for something better from the gifted student. Even though Debussy's works showed the influence of Jules Massenet, Massenet concluded, "He is an enigma."

During his visits to Bayreuth in 1888-9, Debussy was exposed to Wagnerian opera, which had a lasting impact on his work. Richard Wagner had died in 1883 and the cult of Wagnerism was still in full swing. Debussy, like many young musicians of the time, responded positively to Wagner's sensuousness, mastery of form, and striking harmonies. Wagner's extroverted emotionalism was not to be Debussy's way , but the German composer's influence is evident in ''La damoiselle élue'' and the 1889 piece ''Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire''. Other songs of the period, notably the settings of Verlaine —''Ariettes oubliées'', ''Trois mélodies'', and ''Fêtes galantes''— are all in a more capricious style. Around this time, Debussy met Erik Satie, who proved a kindred spirit in his experimental approach to composition and to naming his pieces. During this period, both musicians were bohemians enjoying the same cafe society and struggling to stay afloat financially.

In 1889, at the ''Exposition Universelle'' in Paris, Debussy heard Javanese gamelan music. Although direct citations of gamelan scales, melodies, rhythms, or ensemble textures have not been identified in any of Debussy's compositions, the equal-tempered pentatonic scale appears in his music of this time and afterward.

Private life

Debussy's private life was often turbulent. At the age of 18 he began an eight-year affair with Blanche Vasnier, wife of a wealthy Parisian lawyer. The relationship eventually faltered following his winning of the Prix de Rome and obligatory incarceration in the eponymous city.

On his permanent return to Paris and his parents' home on the av. de Berlin in 1889, he began a tempestuous nine-year relationship with Gabrielle ('Gaby') Dupont, a tailor's daughter from Lisieux, with whom he later cohabited on the Rue Gustave Doré. During this time he also had an affair with the singer Thérèse Roger, to whom he was briefly engaged.

He left Dupont for her friend Rosalie ('Lilly') Texier, a fashion model whom he married in 1899. Although Texier was affectionate, practical, straightforward, and well liked by Debussy's friends and associates, he became increasingly irritated by her intellectual limitations and lack of musical sensitivity. In 1904, Debussy was introduced to Emma Bardac, wife of Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac, by her son Raoul, one of his students. In contrast to Texier, Bardac was a sophisticate, a brilliant conversationalist, and an accomplished singer. After despatching Lilly back to her father's home in Bichain on 15 July 1904, Debussy secretly took Bardac to Jersey for a holiday. On their return to France, Debussy wrote to Texier from Dieppe on 11 August, informing her their marriage was over, but still making no mention of Bardac. On 14 October, five days before their fifth wedding anniversary, Texier attempted suicide, shooting herself in the chest while standing in the Place de la Concorde; she survived, although the bullet remained lodged in her vertebrae until her death in 1932. The ensuing scandal was to alienate Debussy from many of his friends, whilst Bardac was disowned by her family.

In the spring of 1905, finding the hostility towards them intolerable, Debussy and Bardac (now pregnant) fled to England, via Jersey, settling at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne from 24 July to 30 August 1905, where Debussy was to correct proofs to his symphonic suite ''La mer'', and celebrate his divorce from Texier on 2 August. After concluding their holiday with a brief visit to London, they returned to Paris, soon setting up home on the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne (now Avenue Foch), where he was to reside for the rest of his life. Their daughter (and the composer's only child), Claude-Emma, was born there on 30 October. More affectionately known as 'Chouchou', Claude-Emma was the dedicatee of Debussy's ''Children's Corner'' suite; she outlived her father by scarcely a year, succumbing to the diphtheria epidemic of 1919. Her parents were eventually married in 1908, their troubled union enduring until Debussy's death in 1918.

Death

Debussy died of rectal cancer in Paris on 25 March 1918.

The application of the term "impressionist" to Debussy and the music he influenced is a matter of intense debate within academic circles. One side argues that the term is a misnomer, an inappropriate label which Debussy himself opposed. In a letter of 1908, he wrote "I am trying to do 'something different'--an effect of reality...what the imbeciles call 'impressionism', a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by the critics, since they do not hesitate to apply it to Turner, the finest creator of mysterious effects in all the world of art." The opposing side argues that Debussy may have been reacting to unfavorable criticism at the time, and the negativity that critics associated with impressionism. It can be argued that he would have been pleased with application of the current definition of impressionism to his music.

List of works

List of compositions by Claude Debussy by category.

List of compositions by Claude Debussy by Lesure Numbers

Early works

Beginning in the 1890s, Debussy developed his own musical language largely independent of Wagner's style, colored in part from the dreamy, sometimes morbid romanticism of the Symbolist Movement. Debussy became a frequent participant at Stéphane Mallarmé's Symbolist gatherings, where Wagnerism dominated the discussion. In contrast to the enormous works of Wagner and other late-romantic composers, however, around this time Debussy chose to write in smaller, more accessible forms. The ''Deux Arabesques'' is an example of one of Debussy's earliest works, already developing his musical language. ''Suite bergamasque'' (1890) recalls rococo decorousness with a modern cynicism and puzzlement. This suite contains one of Debussy's most popular pieces, ''Clair de Lune''. Debussy's String Quartet in G minor (1893) paved the way for his later, more daring harmonic exploration. In this work he utilized the Phrygian mode as well as less standard scales, such as the whole-tone, which creates a sense of floating, ethereal harmony. Debussy was beginning to employ a single, continuous theme and break away from the traditional A-B-A form, with its restatements and amplifications, which had been a mainstay of classical music since Haydn.

Influenced by Mallarmé, Debussy wrote one of his most famous works, the revolutionary ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'', truly original in form and execution. In contrast to the large orchestras so favoured by late-romanticism, Debussy wrote this piece for a smaller ensemble, emphasizing instrumental colour and timbre. Despite Mallarmé himself, and colleague and friend Paul Dukas having been impressed by the piece, it was controversial at its premiere. ''Prélude'' subsequently placed Debussy into the spotlight as one of the leading composers of the era.

Middle works

The three ''Nocturnes'' (1899), include characteristic studies in veiled harmony and texture as demonstrated in ''Nuages''; exuberance in ''Fêtes''; and whole-tones in ''Sirènes''. Contrasting sharply with Wagnerian opera, Debussy's ''Pelléas et Mélisande'' premiered in 1902, after ten years of work. It would be his only complete opera. Based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck, the opera proved to be an immediate success and immensely influential to younger French composers, including Maurice Ravel. These works brought a fluidity of rhythm and colour quite new to Western music.

''La mer'' (1903–1905) essays a more symphonic form, with a finale that works themes from the first movement, although the middle movement, ''Jeux de vagues'', proceeds much less directly and with more variety of colour. Again, the reviews were sharply divided. Some critics thought the treatment to be less subtle and less mysterious than his previous works and even a step backward. Pierre Lalo complained "I neither hear, nor see, nor feel the sea". Others extolled its "power and charm", its "extraordinary verve and brilliant fantasy", and its strong colors and definite lines.

During this period Debussy wrote much for the piano. The set of pieces entitled ''Pour le piano'' (1901) utilises rich harmonies and textures which would later prove important in jazz music. His first volume of ''Images pour piano'' (1904–1905) combine harmonic innovation with poetic suggestion: ''Reflets dans l'eau'' is a musical description of rippling water; ''Hommage à Rameau'', the second piece, is slow and yearningly nostalgic. It takes as its inspiration a melody from Jean-Philippe Rameau's ''Castor et Pollux''.

The evocative ''Estampes'' for piano (1903) give impressions of exotic locations. Debussy came into contact with Javanese gamelan music during the 1889 Paris ''Exposition Universelle''. ''Pagodes'' is the directly inspired result, aiming for an evocation of the pentatonic structures employed by the Javanese music. Debussy wrote his famous ''Children's Corner Suite'' (1908) for his beloved daughter, Claude-Emma, whom he nicknamed ''Chouchou''. The suite recalls classicism—the opening piece ''Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum'' refers to Muzio Clementi's collection of instructional piano compositions ''Gradus ad Parnassum'', as well as a new wave of American ragtime music. In the popular final piece of the suite, ''Golliwogg's Cakewalk'', Debussy also pokes fun at Richard Wagner by mimicking the opening bars of Wagner's prelude to ''Tristan und Isolde''.

The first book of ''Préludes'' (1910), twelve in total, proved to be his most successful work for piano. The Preludes are frequently compared to those of Chopin. Debussy's preludes are replete with rich, unusual and daring harmonies. They include the popular ''La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin'' (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair) and ''La Cathédrale Engloutie'' (The Engulfed Cathedral). Debussy wanted people to respond intuitively to these pieces and so he placed the titles at the end of each one in the hope that listeners would not make stereotype images as they listened.

Larger scaled works included his orchestral piece ''Iberia'' (1907), began as a work for two pianos, a triptych medley of Spanish allusions and fleeting impressions and also the music for Gabriele d'Annunzio's mystery play ''Le martyre de Saint Sébastien'' (1911). A lush and dramatic work, written in only two months, it is remarkable in sustaining a late antique modal atmosphere that otherwise was touched only in relatively short piano pieces.

During this period, as Debussy gained more popularity, he was engaged as a conductor throughout Europe, most often performing ''Pelléas'', ''La Mer'', and ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune''. He was also an occasional music critic to supplement his conducting fees and piano lessons. Debussy avoided analytical dissection and attempts to force images from music, "Let us at all costs preserve this magic peculiar to music, since of all the arts it is most susceptible to magic." He could be caustic and witty, sometimes sloppy and ill-informed. Debussy was for the most part enthusiastic about Richard Strauss and Stravinsky, worshipful of Chopin, Bach and Mozart, and found both Liszt and Beethoven geniuses who sometimes lacked "taste". He also admired the works of Charles-Valentin Alkan. Schubert and Mendelssohn fared much worse, the latter being described as a "facile and elegant notary".

Late works

Debussy's harmonies and chord progressions frequently exploit dissonances without any formal resolution. Unlike in his earlier work, he no longer hides discords in lush harmonies. The forms are far more irregular and fragmented. These chords that seemingly had no resolution were described by Debussy himself as "floating chords", and were used to set tone and mood in many of his works. The whole tone scale dominates much of Debussy's late music.

His two last volumes of works for the piano, the ''Études'' (1915) interprets similar varieties of style and texture purely as pianistic exercises and includes pieces that develop irregular form to an extreme as well as others influenced by the young Igor Stravinsky (a presence too in the suite ''En blanc et noir'' for two pianos, 1915). The rarefaction of these works is a feature of the last set of songs, the ''Trois poèmes de Mallarmé'' (1913), and of the Sonata for flute, viola and harp (1915), though the sonata and its companions also recapture the inquisitive Verlainian classicism.

With the sonatas of 1915–1917, there is a sudden shift in the style. These works recall Debussy's earlier music, in part, but also look forward, with leaner, simpler structures. Despite the thinner textures of the Violin Sonata (1917) there remains an undeniable richness in the chords themselves. This shift parallels the movement commonly known as neo-classicism which became popular after Debussy's death. Debussy planned a set of six sonatas, but this plan was cut short by his death in 1918 so that he only completed three (cello, flute-viola-harp and violin sonatas).

The last orchestral work by Debussy, the ballet ''Jeux'' (1912) written for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, contains some of his strangest harmonies and textures in a form that moves freely over its own field of motivic connection. At first ''Jeux'' was overshadowed by Igor Stravinsky's ''The Rite of Spring'', composed in the same year as ''Jeux'' and premiered only two weeks later by the same ballet company. Decades later, composers such as Pierre Boulez and Jean Barraqué pointed out parallels to Anton Webern's serialism in this work. Other late stage works, including the ballets ''Khamma'' (1912) and ''La boîte à joujoux'' (1913) were left with the orchestration incomplete, and were later completed by Charles Koechlin and André Caplet, who also helped Debussy with the orchestration of ''Gigues'' (from ''Images pour orchestre'') and ''Le martyre de St. Sébastien''.

The second set of ''Préludes'' for piano (1913) features Debussy at his most avant-garde, where he utilizes dissonant harmonies to evoke specific moods and images. Debussy consciously gives titles to each prelude that amplify the preludes’ tonal ambiguity and dissonance. He utilizes scales such as the whole tone scale, musical modes, and the octatonic scale in his preludes that exaggerate this tonal ambiguity, making the key of each prelude almost indistinguishable at times. The second book of Preludes for piano represents Debussy’s strong interest in the indefinite and esoteric.

Although ''Pelléas'' was Debussy's only completed opera, he began several opera projects which remained unfinished, his fading concentration, increasing procrastination, and failing health perhaps the reasons. He had finished some partial musical sketches and some unpublished libretti for operas based on Poe's ''The Devil in the Belfry'' (''Le diable dans le beffroi'', 1902–?1912) and ''The Fall of the House of Usher'' (''La chute de la maison Usher'', 1908–1917) as well as considered projects for operas based on Shakespeare's ''As You Like It'' and Joseph Bedier's ''La Legende de Tristan''.

Further plans, such as an American tour, more ballet scores, and revisions of Chopin and Bach works for re-publication, were all cut short by the outbreak of World War I and his poor health.

Mathematical structuring

Given that Debussy's music is apparently so concerned with mood and colour, one may be surprised to discover that, according to Howat, many of his greatest works appear to have been structured around mathematical models even while using an apparent classical structure such as sonata form. Howat suggests that some of Debussy's pieces can be divided into sections that reflect the golden ratio, frequently by using the numbers of the standard Fibonacci sequence. Sometimes these divisions seem to follow the standard divisions of the overall structure. In other pieces they appear to mark out other significant features of the music. The 55 bar-long introduction to 'Dialogue du vent et la mer' in ''La mer'', for example, breaks down into 5 sections of 21, 8, 8, 5 and 13 bars in length. The golden mean point of bar 34 in this structure is signalled by the introduction of the trombones, with the use of the main motif from all three movements used in the central section around that point.

The only evidence that Howat introduces to support his claim appears in changes Debussy made between finished manuscripts and the printed edition, with the changes invariably creating a Golden Mean proportion where previously none existed. Perhaps the starkest example of this comes with ''La cathédrale engloutie''. Published editions lack the instruction to play bars 7–12 and 22–83 at twice the speed of the remainder, exactly as Debussy himself did on a piano-roll recording. When analysed with this alteration, the piece follows Golden Section proportions. At the same time, Howat admits that in many of Debussy's works, he has been unable to find evidence of the Golden Section (notably in the late works) and that no extant manuscripts or sketches contain any evidence of calculations related to it.

Influences

Debussy had a wide range of influences. Among the Russian composers of his time, the most prominent influences on Debussy were Tchaikovsky, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky. It can be inferred that from the Russians “Debussy acquired his taste for ancient and oriental modes and for vivid colorations, and a certain disdain for academic rules.” Specifically, Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov directly influenced one of Debussy’s most famous works, Pelléas et Mélisande. In addition to the Russian composers, one of Debussy’s biggest influences was Richard Wagner. According to Pierre Louys, Debussy “did not see ‘what anyone can do beyond Tristan.” After Debussy’s Wagner phase, he started to become immensely interested in non-Western music. He was drawn to unorthodox approaches to composition that non-Western music utilized. Specifically, he was drawn to a Javanese Gamelan, which was a musical ensemble from the island of Java that played an array of unique instrumentation. He first heard the gamelan at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Debussy was not as interested in directly citing his non-Western influence in his music, but instead used his non-Western influence to shape his unique musical style in more of a general way.

Debussy was just as influenced by other art forms as he was by music, if not more so. He took a strong interest in literature and visual art and used these mediums to help shape his unique musical style. Debussy was heavily influenced by the French symbolist movement, which was an art movement in 1885 that influenced art forms such as poetry, visual art, and theatre. He shared the movement’s interest in the esoteric and indefinite and rejection of naturalism and realism. Specifically, “the development of free verse in poetry and the disappearance of the subject or model in painting influenced Debussy to think about issues of musical form.” Debussy became personally acquainted with writers and painters of the movement and based his own works off of those of the symbolists. One of Debussy’s main influences was the famous poet Stéphane Mallarmé, who “held the idea of a ‘musicalization’ of poetry.” In other words, Mallarmé drew strong connections between music and his poetry. Debussy wrote "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune", which was directly influenced by Mallarmé’s poem “Afternoon of a Faun.” Like the symbolists in respect to their own art forms, Debussy aimed to reject common techniques and approaches to composition and attempted to evoke more of a sensorial experience for the listener with his works. Since his time at the Paris Conservatoire, Debussy believed he had much more to learn from artists than from musicians who were primarily interested in their musical careers.

Contemporary painter James McNeill Whistler who lived in France for a period of time had a profound influence on Debussy. In 1894, Debussy wrote to violinist Eugène Ysaÿe describing his ''Nocturnes'' as "an experiment in the different combinations that can be obtained from one color – what a study in grey would be in painting." Although it is not known what it is meant by this statement, one can observe in his music a careful use of orchestral, textural, and harmonic 'shading'.

Influence on later composers

Claude Debussy is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. His harmonies, considered radical in his day, were influential to almost every major composer of the 20th century, especially the music of Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Olivier Messiaen, Béla Bartók, Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, Ned Rorem, and the minimalist music of Steve Reich and Philip Glass as well as the influential Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. He also influenced many important figures in Jazz, most notably George Gershwin, Bill Evans, George Shearing, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Herbie Hancock and Jimmy Giuffre. Furthermore, he had a profound impact on contemporary soundtrack composers such as John Williams because Debussy's colorful and suggesting style translated easily into an emotional language for use in motion picture scores. In 1999, The Art of Noise released a concept album titled ''The Seduction of Claude Debussy''. The group blended the music of Debussy with drum and bass, opera, hip hop, jazz, and narration, and described the album as "the soundtrack to a film that wasn't made about the life of Claude Debussy". In 2000, the band released ''Reduction'', a limited-edition album composed mainly of outtakes from this album.

Leopold Stokowski, in an article, pointed out the identification of composers including Debussy with the music of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, providing an inspiration for non-contrapuntal music.

Media

Eponyms

Claude Debussy's name has, posthumously, been given to a number of discoveries. These include:

Debussy Heights, a heights at Ravel Peak which was discovered in 1960;

Debussy, an impact crater on Mercury which was discovered in 1969;

4492 Debussy, a main belt asteroid which was discovered in 1988.

Recordings

Debussy participated in a handful of recordings, made in 1904, with soprano Mary Garden. He also made some piano rolls for Welte Mignon in 1913.

References

Sources

Thompson, Oscar ''Debussy: Man and Artist'', Tudor Publishing Company, 1940

Further reading

Lücke, Hendrik (2005): ''Mallarmé – Debussy. Eine vergleichende Studie zur Kunstanschauung am Beispiel von „L'Après-midi d'un Faune“.'' (= Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, Bd. 4). Dr. Kovac, ISBN 3-8300-1685-9.

James Ross, "Pelléas et Mélisande: The 'Nouveau Prophete'?", ''Crisis and Transformation: French Opera, Politics and the Press'' (Oxford University D.Phil. Thesis, 1998), pp. 164–208.

R.S. Parks : The Music of Claude Debussy (New Haven, 1989)

R.L. Smith, ed.: Debussy Studies (Cambridge, 1997)

R. Nichols : The Life of Debussy (Cambridge, 1998)

M. Baigent : The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail (G.B 1983)

External links

Claude Debussy Catalogue chronologique

Documentary film about Claude Debussy

Music scores

Public domain scores Debussy's Scores + Audio

www.kreusch-sheet-music.net Free Scores by Debussy

Category:1862 births Category:1918 deaths Category:20th-century classical composers Category:Alumni of the Conservatoire de Paris Category:Ballet composers Category:Burials at Passy Cemetery, Paris Category:Cancer deaths in France Category:Deaths from colorectal cancer Category:French composers Category:Opera composers Category:People from Saint-Germain-en-Laye Category:People of the Edwardian era Category:Prix de Rome for composition Category:Romantic composers Category:Rosicrucians

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