Look up Claire, clair, or claire in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Clair or Claire may refer to:

• Claire (given name), a list of people with the name Claire

Places[link]

Canada[link]

• Clair, New Brunswick
• Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Canada, municipality located on the Island of Montreal
• Clair, Saskatchewan
• Claire's British Columbia

United States[link]

• Lake Claire (Atlanta), Georgia, neighborhood
• Le Claire, Iowa, city in Scott County
• Eau Claire, Michigan, village in Berrien County
• Eau Claire, Pennsylvania, borough in Butler County
• Claire City, South Dakota, town in Roberts County
• Eau Claire, Wisconsin, city
• Eau Claire County, Wisconsin

Scotland[link]

• Clair oilfield in the Atlantic Ocean, 75 km west of Shetland

Other[link]

• Clair (Hampshire cricketer), English professional cricketer
• René Clair, French film-maker.
• Claire Redfield, a player character appearing in the Resident Evil series of survival horror video games
• Claire Bennet, a fictional character in the NBC science fiction drama series Heroes
• Clair Huxtable, a fiction character in the NBC series The Cosby Show
• "Clair" (song), a 1972 hit for Gilbert O'Sullivan
• Au clair de la lune, a classic French children's song
• Claire (film), a 2001 fantasy film
• Claire (programming language), an object-oriented programming language
• Claire's, a female accessory store
• "Planet Claire", a 1980 song by The B-52's
• Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR), a Japanese governmental agency
• Claire (2007 film), a film written by Drew Seeley

See also[link]

• Clare (disambiguation)
• Clara

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Gilbert O'Sullivan
Gilbert O'Sullivan in concert in Tel Aviv on 23 May 2009
Background information
Birth name	Raymond Edward O'Sullivan
Born	(1946-12-01) 1 December 1946 (age 65) Waterford, Ireland
Origin	Swindon, England
Genres	Pop, soft rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, pianist
Instruments	Vocals, piano, keyboards
Years active	1967–present
Labels	Bygum Records MAM Records
Website	Official website

Gilbert O'Sullivan (born 1 December 1946) is an Irish-English singer-songwriter, best known for his early 1970s hits "Alone Again (Naturally)", "Clair" and "Get Down".^[1] The music magazine Record Mirror voted him the No. 1 UK male singer of 1972.^[2]

Worldwide he has charted 16 top 40 discs; including six number one songs, the first of which was 1970's "Nothing Rhymed" (for further information see Gilbert O'Sullivan discography). His most successful recording period was between 1970 and 1980, though he has since recorded nine studio albums up to 2011's "Gilbertville". Speaking in 2009 he said; "I write pop songs. End of story. That's all I wanted to do. That's all I want to do. And that's all I continue to want to do. I have no interest in just touring, and living in the past."^[3]

Early life[link]

O'Sullivan was born Raymond Edward O'Sullivan in Waterford, Ireland.^[4] In 1960, aged 13, his family moved to Swindon, Wiltshire, England. He attended St Joseph's and the Swindon College of Art, where he briefly played drums in a band called Rick's Blues, founded by Rick Davies (who later founded Supertramp) and where he developed his lifelong interests in music and art.^[5] According to a 1972 interview with O'Sullivan, Davies taught him how to play both drums and piano.^[6] Other semi-professional bands he played with while at college include The Doodles and The Prefects.^[5]

Music career[link]

In 1967, O'Sullivan was signed to a five-year contract with April Music, CBS Records' house publishing company, by the general manager Barbara Hayes. He was paid an advance of £12 with which he bought a piano. He was signed to CBS Records by the A&R manager Mike Smith (The Tremeloes and the Love Affair) and renamed 'Gilbert O'Sullivan', a play on words of Gilbert and Sullivan.

After two unsuccessful singles with CBS, "What Can I Do?" and "Mr. Moody's Garden", and one with the Irish record label, Major Minor, O'Sullivan sent some demo tapes to Gordon Mills, the manager of Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, whereupon O'Sullivan was signed to Mills' label, MAM Records.^[4] O'Sullivan's self-created eye-catching visual image comprised a pudding basin haircut, cloth cap and short trousers. Mills reportedly hated the image, but O'Sullivan insisted on using it initially,^{[citation needed]} until he assumed a more modern 'college-like' look in which he often wore a sweater bearing a large letter 'G'.^[4]

Early success[link]

At the end of 1970, O'Sullivan achieved his first UK Top 10 hit with "Nothing Rhymed",^[2] which also reached No. 1 in the Netherlands. Subsequent hits including "Underneath The Blanket Go" which also reached No. 1 in the Netherlands, "We Will" and "No Matter How I Try" followed, and in 1971 O'Sullivan issued his debut album, Himself.^[4]

In 1972, O'Sullivan reached international stardom with the self-penned ballad, "Alone Again (Naturally)", which reached No. 3 in UK; No. 1 in the U.S., spending six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and selling nearly two million copies; No. 2 in New Zealand (11 weeks on the charts in total); No. 1 in Canada for 2 weeks (13 weeks in the Top 40);^[7] and No. 1 in Japan (21 weeks on the chart). The song earned O'Sullivan his first gold disc.^[5]. The guitar solo was played by Big Jim Sullivan.

O'Sullivan followed this success with the songs "Clair" (1972, from the album Back To Front), which reached No. 2 in the United States on the Hot 100 and No. 1 in Canada (14 weeks in the Canadian Top 40);^[7] "Out of the Question" (also from Back To Front), which reached No. 14 in Canada;^[7] and "Get Down" (1973, from the album I'm A Writer Not A Fighter), which reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 7 in both the U.S. and Canada.^[2][7] Following "Alone Again (Naturally)" and "Clair", "Get Down" was his third million-seller, with the R.I.A.A gold disc award presented on 18 September 1973.^[5] His disc sales exceeded ten million in 1972, and made him the top star of the year.^[5] The success led to him taking part in the BBC's anniversary programme Fifty Years Of Music in November 1972.

In 1973, O'Sullivan was nominated for a Grammy Award for "Alone Again (Naturally)" in the Song of the Year and Record of the Year categories.

MAM Records[link]

O'Sullivan enjoyed nearly five years of success with MAM, a run that included seven UK Top 10 singles and four UK Top 10 albums; three U.S. Top 10 singles and one top 10 album; five Dutch Top 10 singles and three Top 10 albums; five New Zealand Top 10 singles; three Canadian Top 10 singles; and seven Japan Top 10 singles.^[8]

O'Sullivan's singles like "Ooh Baby" and "Happiness Is Me and You" continued to reach the charts, but sold increasingly fewer copies. After 1973, his overseas popularity essentially ceased altogether.^[4] At home, he notched his final Top 20 hit in over five years, with June 1975's "I Don't Love You But I Think I Like You".^[2][4]

Things turned more sour when he discovered his recording contract with MAM Records greatly favoured the label's owner, Gordon Mills. A lawsuit followed, with prolonged argument over how much money his songs had earned and how much of that money he had actually received.^[9] Eventually, in May 1982, the court found in O'Sullivan's favour, describing him as a "patently honest and decent man", who had not received a just proportion of the vast income his songs had generated.^[9] They awarded him £7 million in damages (worth £20 million at 2011 prices). He had won, but the court battle had put his recording career on hold.

Later career[link]

The first single, "What's In A Kiss?", reached No. 19 in the UK in 1980 and No. 21 in Japan.^[8] It was his first UK Top 20 hit in five years. Following this release, and due in part to the then-ongoing MAM court case, O'Sullivan released no new material between 1983 and 1986.^[4] Apart from the single "So What ?" in 1990 and a compilation album in 1991 Nothing But The Best, O'Sullivan was absent from the charts until another compilation album, The Berry Vest of Gilbert O'Sullivan, returned him to the UK Top 20 in 2004.^[2]

O'Sullivan is also noted for his role in bringing about the practice of clearing samples in hip hop music as a result of the 1991 court case, Grand Upright Music, Ltd. v. Warner Bros. Records, Inc.,^[10] in which he sued rapper Biz Markie over the rights to use a sample of his song "Alone Again (Naturally)".^[4]

O'Sullivan has continued to record and perform into the 21st century. He enjoys particular acclaim in Japan.^[4] His album A Scruff At Heart was released in 2007, featuring "Just So You Know". On 14 July 2008, O'Sullivan released "Never Say Di". He appeared at the 2008 Glastonbury Festival, and played London's Royal Albert Hall on 26 October 2009. On 26 August 2010 O'Sullivan announced that he had joined Hypertension, a record company that also holds Leo Sayer, Chris DeBurgh, Fleetwood Mac and Gerry Rafferty.

His latest album Gilbertville was released on 31 January 2011; it features "All They Wanted To Say", which deals with 9/11, and his most recent single "Where Would We Be (Without Tea)?". On 19 July 2011 O'Sullivan played live on the BBC Radio 2 Ken Bruce Show.^[11] On 26 August the Documentary "Out On His Own" was broadcasted by BBC4 (before by Irish RTE). In March 2012, the compilation "Gilbert O'Sullivan : The Very Best Of - A Singer & His Songs" entered the UK album charts at No.12.

Personal life[link]

In 1980, O'Sullivan married his Norwegian girlfriend, Aase. Later that year the first of their two daughters was born. That same year, after a five-year hiatus, he returned to his old record label, CBS.

Discography[link]

Contemporary usage of his songs[link]

• "Alone Again (Naturally)" was used in the second series of Life on Mars, while "Get Down" was also used in the American version of the show. "Alone Again (Naturally)" was used in "The Wettest Stories Ever Told" episode of The Simpsons. "Alone Again (Naturally)" was used in the films Summer Time Machine Blues, Stuck on You, I Could Never Be Your Woman, Stuart Little 2, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Megamind, and The Virgin Suicides while "Nothing Rhymed" was featured on the soundtrack of and Anita and Me.
• "Nothing Rhymed" was used at the start of the second series finale of Consolevania, played over an archive new reel montage of an alternate history of the 20th century. The same song was a hit in Italy in 1971, performed by the local group, I Profeti, with the title translated into "Era bella" ("She was Beautiful").
• The Japanese television version of the anime series Maison Ikkoku used "Alone Again (Naturally)" and "Get Down" for the opening and ending sequences respectively in episode 24.
• A cover of the song "Nothing Rhymed" was performed by Burton Cummings on his 1975 debut solo album.
• "Gilbert O'Sullivan" is the title of a song by The Uncle Devil Show on their album, A Terrible Beauty.
• The Dublin based band, Aslan, covered "Nothing Rhymed" on their 2009 album, Uncased.
• A cover of the song "Nothing Rhymed" was performed by Morrissey on his 2002 tour.
• Alone Again (Naturally) was used as the opening of the Japanese drama "Home Drama".

See also[link]

• List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
• List of artists who reached number one in the United States
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart
• List of performers on Top of the Pops
• List of stage names
• List of Irish people

References[link]

External links[link]

• Gilbert O'Sullivan at the Internet Movie Database
• Official Gilbert O'Sullivan page
• Biography at Allmusic

Baxter Dury
Background information
Birth name	Baxter Dury
Born	(1971-12-18) 18 December 1971 (age 40)
Origin	Wingrave, Buckinghamshire, England
Genres	Rock Pop
Occupations	Vocalist
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, keyboards
Years active	2001–present
Labels	Rough Trade Records, Parlophone
Website	Baxter Dury Official Website

Baxter Dury (born 18 December 1971, Wingrave, Buckinghamshire, England) is an English indie musician, currently signed to Rough Trade Records.^[1] He is the son of Ian Dury,^[1] and as a five-year-old he appeared on the front cover of Ian's LP New Boots and Panties!!.^[2] He left school at the age of fourteen.^[2] He has had a 'Record of the Week' in NME with Oscar Brown EP in 2002.^[1] He has one son, Kosmo Korda Dury (born 2002) whose mother is the granddaughter of Zoltan Korda.^[2]

More recently, Dury has signed a new recording contract with Parlophone.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• Len Parrot's Memorial Lift (2002)
• Floor Show (2005)
• Happy Soup (2011) (UK chart peak: #110)^[3]

Singles and EPs[link]

• Oscar Brown EP (2001)
• "Love in the Garden"
• "Claire" (15 August 2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Baxter Dury Official Website
• MySpace

This article about an English musician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Claude Debussy (1908)

Twenty-franc banknote, 1997

Claude-Achille Debussy (French pronunciation: [klod aʃil dəbysi])^[1] (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.^[2] In France, he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1903.^[3] A crucial figure in the transition to the modern era in Western music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers.

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. 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.^[4]

Biography[link]

Early life and studies[link]

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 Italian violinist in his early forties named Cerutti; his lessons were paid for by his aunt. In 1871 he drew the attention of Marie Mauté de Fleurville,^[5] who claimed to have been a pupil of Frédéric Chopin. Debussy always believed her, although there is no independent evidence of her claim.^[6] 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,^[7] 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 pieces.

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.^[8] 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).^[9]

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 music lessons to her children, and performing in private concerts with some of her musician friends.^[10] Despite von Meck's closeness with Tchaikovsky, the Russian master appears to have had minimal 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.^[11] 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.

Debussy at the Villa Medici in Rome, 1885, at centre in the white jacket

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".^[12] 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!"^[13]

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."^[14]

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.^[15] 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.^[16]

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.^[17]

Debussy, by Marcel Baschet, 1884

Private life[link]

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

On his permanent return to Paris and his parents' home on the avenue 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. However, 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, wife of Parisian banker Sigismond Bardac, by her son Raoul, one of his students.^[18] In contrast to Texier, Bardac was a sophisticate, a brilliant conversationalist, and an accomplished singer. After despatching Lilly to visit her father 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 for the rest of her life. The ensuing scandal was to alienate Debussy from many of his friends, whilst Bardac was disowned by her family.^[19]

In the spring of 1905, finding the hostility towards them intolerable, Debussy and Bardac (now pregnant) fled to England, via Jersey,^[20] settling at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne from 24 July to 30 August 1905,^[21] where Debussy was to correct proofs to his symphonic suite La mer,^[3][19] and celebrate his divorce from Texier on 2 August. After a brief visit to London, the couple returned to Paris in September, setting up home on the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne (now Avenue Foch), where Debussy was to reside for the rest of his life.^[22] Their daughter (the composer's only child) Claude-Emma was born there on 30 October.^[19] 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[link]

Debussy's grave at Passy Cemetery

Debussy died of rectal cancer in Paris on 25 March 1918.^[23] He had been diagnosed with the cancer in 1909^[19] after experiencing haemorrhaging, and in 1916 underwent one of the first colostomy operations ever performed. The operation achieved only a temporary respite, and occasioned him considerable frustration (he was to liken dressing in the morning to "all the labours of Hercules in one"). His death occurred in the midst of the aerial and artillery bombardment of Paris during the German Spring Offensive of World War I. The funeral procession made its way through deserted streets to Père Lachaise Cemetery as the German guns bombarded the city. The military situation in France was critical, and did not permit the honour of a public funeral with ceremonious graveside orations. Debussy's body was reinterred shortly afterwards in the small Passy Cemetery sequestered behind the Trocadéro; his wife and daughter are buried with him.

Musical style[link]

Rudolph Reti points out these features of Debussy's music, which "established a new concept of tonality in European music":

1. Glittering passages and webs of figurations which distract from occasional absence of tonality;
2. Frequent use of parallel chords which are "in essence not harmonies at all, but rather 'chordal melodies', enriched unisons"; some writers describe these as non-functional harmonies;
3. Bitonality, or at least bitonal chords;
4. Use of the whole-tone and pentatonic scale;
5. Unprepared modulations, "without any harmonic bridge."

He concludes that Debussy's achievement was the synthesis of monophonic based "melodic tonality" with harmonies, albeit different from those of "harmonic tonality".^{[25][page needed]}

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."^[26] 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[link]

• List of compositions by Claude Debussy by category.
• List of compositions by Claude Debussy by Lesure Numbers

Early works[link]

Debussy at the piano, in front of the composer Ernest Chausson, 1893

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[link]

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.^[27]

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.^[28] 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.^[29] Schubert and Mendelssohn fared much worse, the latter being described as a "facile and elegant notary".^[30]

Late works[link]

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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).

Caplet and Debussy

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.^[31]

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[link]

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.^[32] 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.^{[32][page needed]}

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[link]

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.^[15][33] 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.”^[15] 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.”^[15] 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 including gongs and metallophones. 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.”^[15] 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.”^[15] 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."^[34] 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[link]

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 evocative 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[link]

Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: I. Brouillards Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: II. Feuilles Mortes Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: III. La Puerta Del Vino Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: IV. 'Les Fées Sont D'Exquises Danseuses' Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: V. Bruyères Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: VI. 'General Lavine'—Excentric Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: VII. La Terrasse Des Audiences Du Clair De Lune Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: VIII. Ondine Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: IX. Hommage À S. Pickwick, Esq., P.P.M.P.C. Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: X. Canope Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: XI. Les Tierces Alternées Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Debussy: Préludes, Book 2: XII. Feux D'Artifice Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze Clair de lune from Suite Bergamasque Performed by Robin Alciatore. Courtesy of Musopen

Mazurka ("Mazurka") Quand j'ai ouy le tambourin (2.4 Mb) Dieu qu'il la fait bon regarder (1.5 Mb) Dieu qu'il la fait bon regarder (1.9 Mb) Quand j'ai ouy le tabourin sonner (1.9 Mb) Yver vous n'estes qu'un vilain (1.6 Mb) Beau Soir La Plus que Lente Arranged by J. Kowalewski, performed by the Advent Chamber Orchestra Le Petit Negre Arranged by Anne DeBlois, performed by the Advent Chamber Orchestra Syrinx Performed by Sarah Bassingthwaite Debussy: La plus que lente Performed March 2009 Danse Sacrée Performed by the United States Marine Corps Chamber Orchestra. Chamber orchestra arrangement of the Chamber music piece scored for string quintet. Danse Profane Performed by the United States Marine Corps Chamber Orchestra. Chamber orchestra arrangement of the Chamber music piece scored for string quintet. Problems listening to the files? See media help.

Eponyms[link]

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 that was discovered in 1988.

Recordings[link]

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.^[35]

References[link]

Sources[link]

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

Further reading[link]

• Fulcher, Jane (ed.) (2001). Debussy and His World (The Bard Music Festival). Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09042-4. 
• Lücke, Hendrik (2005): Mallarmé, Debussy: Eine vergleichende Studie zur Kunstanschauung am Beispiel von „L'Après-midi d'un Faune“. Schriftenreihe Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 4. Hamburg: Dr. Kovac. ISBN 3-8300-1685-9.
• Nichols, R. (1998) The Life of Debussy (Cambridge, 1998).^{[Full citation needed]}
• Parks, R. S. (1989). The Music of Claude Debussy (New Haven).^{[Full citation needed]}
• Poleshook, Oksana (2011). Russian Musical Influences of The Five on piano and vocal works of Claude Debussy. LAP Lambert Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8443-1643-8. 
• Roberts, Paul (ed.) (2001). Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy. Amadeus Press. ISBN 1-57467-068-9. 
• Roberts, Paul (ed.) (2007). Claude Debussy (20th Century Composers). Phaidon Press Ltd. ISBN 0-7148-3512-9. 
• Ross, James. 1998. "Pelléas et Mélisande: The 'Nouveau Prophete'? Crisis and Transformation: French Opera, Politics and the Press" D.Phil. Thesis, Oxford University. pp. 164–208.
• Smith, R. L. (ed.) (1997). Debussy Studies (Cambridge).^{[Full citation needed]}
• Trezise, Simon (ed.) (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Debussy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-65478-5. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Claude Debussy

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Claude Debussy

• Claude Debussy at Allmusic
• Claude Debussy discography at MusicBrainz
• Claude Debussy Catalogue chronologique (French)
• Documentary film about Claude Debussy
• Works by or about Claude Debussy in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Works by Claude Debussy on Open Library at the Internet Archive

Music scores[link]

• Public domain scores Debussy's Scores + Audio
• Free scores by Claude Debussy at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Claude Debussy in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free scores by Claude Debussy in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• www.kreusch-sheet-music.net Free Scores by Debussy

David Oistrakh (left), with conductor Franz Konwitschny (middle) and Igor Oistrakh (right), in 1957

David Fyodorovich Oistrakh (or Oistrach), Russian: Дави́д Фёдорович (Фи́шелевич) О́йстрах, David Fiodorović (Fišelević) Ojstrakh, Russian pronunciation: [dɐˌvʲid fʲodəˌrovʲɪʨ ˈojstrɐx], Ukrainian: Дави́д Фе́дорович (Фі́шелевич) О́йстрах, Davyd Fedorovych (Fishelevych) Oistrakh; September 30 [O.S. September 17] 1908 – October 24, 1974, was a renowned Soviet classical violinist.

Oistrakh collaborated with major orchestras and musicians from many parts of the world, including the Soviet Union, Europe, and the United States, and was the dedicatee of numerous violin works, including both of Dmitri Shostakovich's violin concerti, and the violin concerto by Aram Khachaturian. He is considered one of the preeminent violinists of the 20th century.

Early years[link]

He was born in the cosmopolitan city of Odessa in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) into a Jewish family of merchants of the second guild. His father was David Kolker and his mother was Isabella Beyle (née Stepanovsky), who later on married Fishl Oistrakh.^[1] At the age of five, young Oistrakh began his studies of violin and viola as a pupil of Pyotr Stolyarsky. In his studies with Pyotr Stolyarsky he made very good friends with Daniel Shindarov, with whom he performed numerous times around the world, even after becoming famous, for students at Stolyarsky School of Music. He would eventually come to predominantly perform on violin.

In 1914, at the age of six, Oistrakh performed his debut concert. He entered the Odessa Conservatory in 1923, where he studied until his graduation in 1926. In the Conservatory he also studied harmony with composer Mykola Vilinsky. His 1926 graduation concert consisted of Bach's Chaconne, Tartini's Devil's Trill Sonata, Rubinstein's Viola Sonata, and Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major. In 1927, Oistrakh appeared as soloist playing the Glazunov Violin Concerto under the composer's own baton in Kiev, Ukraine—a concert which earned him an invitation to play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in Leningrad with the Philharmonic Orchestra under Nikolai Malko the following year.

In Moscow[link]

In 1927, Oistrakh relocated to Moscow, where he gave his first recital and met his future wife: pianist Tamara Rotareva. They were married a year later, and had one child, Igor Oistrakh, who was born in 1931. Igor Oistrakh would follow his father's path as a violinist, and eventually performed and recorded side-by-side with his father, including Bach Double Concerto, which they first recorded in 1951, and Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante. In at least one of the recordings of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, Igor Oistrakh played violin, while David Oistrakh played viola.

From 1934 onwards, David Oistrakh held a position teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, and was later made professor in 1939. Some of his colleagues while teaching at the Moscow Conservatory included Yuri Yankelevich and Boris Goldstein. Oistrakh taught Oleg Kagan, Gidon Kremer, Zoya Petrosyan, Victor Danchenko, Cyrus Forough, and his son Igor Oistrakh.

From 1940 to 1963, Oistrakh performed extensively in a trio that also included the cellist Sviatoslav Knushevitsky and the pianist Lev Oborin. It was sometimes called the 'Oistrakh Trio.' Oistrakh collaborated extensively with Oborin, as well as Jacques Thibaud, a French violinist.

During WWII[link]

During World War II, he was active in the Soviet Union, premiering new concerti by Nikolai Miaskovsky and Khachaturian as well as two sonatas by his friend Sergei Prokofiev. He was also awarded the Stalin Prize in 1942. The final years of the war saw the blossoming of a friendship with Shostakovich, which would lead to the two violin concertos and the sonata, all of which were to be premiered by and become firmly associated with Oistrakh in the following years. Oistrakh's career was set from this point, except for one small hitch - the Soviet Union was "protective" of its people and refused to let him leave. He continued to teach in the Moscow Conservatory, but when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he went to the front lines, playing for soldiers and factory workers under intensely difficult conditions. Arguably one of the most heroic acts in his life was his performance of Tchaikovsky's violin concerto to the end in the central music hall during the Battle of Stalingrad in winter 1942 while central Stalingrad was being massively bombed by the German forces. However, other sources indicate that Oistrakh performed in Leningrad in the Winter of 1942.^[2] Whether Oistrakh performed in Stalingrad is unconfirmed.

International travel[link]

Oistrakh was allowed to travel after the end of the war. He traveled to the countries in the Soviet bloc and even to the West. His first foreign engagement was to appear at the newly founded "Prague Spring" Festival where he met with enormous success. In 1949 he gave his first concert in the West - in Helsinki. In 1951, he appeared at the "Maggio Musicale" Festival in Florence, in 1952 he was in East Germany for the Beethoven celebrations, France in 1953, Britain in 1954, and eventually, in 1955, he was allowed to tour the United States. By 1959, he was beginning to establish a second career as a conductor, and in 1960 he was awarded the coveted Lenin Prize. His Moscow conducting debut followed in 1962, and by 1967 he had established a partnership with the celebrated Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

Later years[link]

1968 saw wide celebrations for the violinist's sixtieth birthday, which included a celebratory performance in the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory of the Tchaikovsky concerto, one of his favourite works, under the baton of Gennady Rozhdestvensky. Oistrakh was now seen as one of the great violinists of his time, among such luminaries as Romania's George Enescu and Lithuanian born Jascha Heifetz.

Oistrakh suffered a heart attack as early as 1964. He survived and continued to work at a furious pace. He had already become one of the principal cultural ambassadors for the Soviet Union to the West in live concerts and recordings. After conducting a cycle of Brahms with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, he died of another heart attack in Amsterdam in 1974. His remains were returned to Moscow where he was interred in Novodevichy Cemetery.

Distinctions[link]

Oistrakh received many awards and distinctions. Within the Soviet Union, David Oistrakh was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1943, the title of People's Artist of the USSR in 1953, and the Lenin Prize in 1960. He also won the 1935 Soviet Union Competition. Several reputable works from the standard violin repertoire are dedicated to Oistrakh, including a concerto by Khachaturian, two concerti by Shostakovich, and several other pieces.

Oistrakh's fame and success were not only limited to the Soviet Union: he placed second at the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition in Warsaw during the same year, only being bested by 16-year-old prodigy Ginette Neveu, and further improved upon that by winning the grand prize in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels.

Additionally, the asteroid 42516 Oistrach is named in honour of him and his son, the violinist Igor Oistrakh.

Instruments[link]

David Oistrakh is known to have played on at least seven Stradivarius violins owned by the Soviet Union. He initially selected the 1702 Conte di Fontana Stradivarius which he played for 10 years, before exchanging it for the 1705 Marsick Stradivarius in June 1966, which he played on until his death.

David Oistrakh used bows by Albert Nürnberger and Andre Richaume throughout his life. Up until 1957, he used the Nürnberger bow. "The Andre Richaume bow bought by his son Igor Oistrakh in 1957, had filled David with such enthusiasm that Igor made a gift of it."^[3] Oistrakh had remarked that this (Richaume) bow gave him great satisfaction, so much so that when in Paris, he had to meet Richaume in person.^[3]

Honours and awards[link]

This article incorporates information from the Russian Wikipedia.

Soviet

• Two Orders of Lenin - 1946 and 1966
• Order of the Badge of Honour, twice - 1937 and ?
• People's Artist of the USSR, 1953
• Stalin Prize, 1st class - 1943
• Lenin Prize - 1960
• Honoured Artist of the RSFSR

Foreign

• Grand Cross of the Order of the Lion of Finland (1966)
• Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold II (Belgium, 1967)

See also[link]

• Moscow International David Oistrakh Violin Competition

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

• A Portrait (in Russian)
• Discography