Claude may refer to:

• Claude, Texas, a US city
• Claude (film), a 1993 film starring Irène Jacob
• Claude (Grand Theft Auto), the protagonist of Grand Theft Auto III
• Claude (Peggle character), a character in the Video game Peggle

People with Claude as the full name:

• "Claude" by itself, Claude Lorrain/Gellée, French 17th century landscape artist
• Ilari Peltola, (known as Claude, 1966 – 1996), Finnish rock singer of Smack
• Claude, Duke of Guise (1496–1550)
• Claude, Duke of Aumale (1526–1573)
• Claude of Valois (1547–1575), daughter of Henry II of France and Catherine de'Medici
• Claude of Besançon (d. 7th century), a Christian saint
• Claude (Heroes), a fictional character in the TV drama series Heroes
• Claude, a character in the radio comedy It's That Man Again
• Claude, a fictional character in Sookie Stackhouse novels
• Claude Kelly, American singer-songwriter.

People with the surname or given name Claude:

• Claude (given name)
• Claude (surname)

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.

Claude Kelly is an American singer-songwriter. He has a prolific discography, well known for writing for artists such as Britney Spears, Akon, Jason Derulo, Christina Aguilera, Toni Braxton, Tamia, Whitney Houston, Jordin Sparks, Kelly Clarkson, Jay Sean, Adam Lambert, The Wanted, Jessie J and Charice.

Career[link]

He began playing the piano at the age of 3 and by middle school was playing the flute. He attended Riverdale Country School and then Boston's Berklee College of Music. He then returned to New York City. Through networking and word of mouth, Kelly met as many producers as he could, and by 2002 had written a song that ended up a compilation by A Bathing Ape. "It was a lucky break," he said. "It boosted my confidence."

Kelly got his big break when he wrote the song, "Daddy’s Little Girl" for Frankie J’s 2006 album, Priceless. Although it didn’t chart well, he said, watching his song go from recording to mixing to mastering to music video was the confirmation that he needed to press on. Kelly’s work so impressed Akon that in late 2007, the singer suggested Kelly write to some of his music, one of which was "Forgive Me", written for Leona Lewis’ debut album and produced by Akon respectively. Another song he wrote was "Hold My Hand" which was set to feature on Akon’s third album, however the song leaked and it was decided not to be included in the album. The song, which features Michael Jackson, is the first single to be released from Michael (Jackson's first posthumous studio album). At present, he’s working with Whitney Houston; and Christina Aguilera .

Kelly has written songs for Kelly Clarkson ("My Life Would Suck Without You")^[1] Britney Spears ("Circus") from Circus and ("Gasoline) from Femme Fatale^[2] and the K-pop girl group Wonder Girls ^[3]

Kelly has also written songs for Leona Lewis ("Forgive Me"),^[4] Whitney Houston and Fantasia Barrino.

Kelly has since been tapped to write songs for R. Kelly, the Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera, Toni Braxton, as well as Melanie Fiona, Adam Lambert and Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A.", which debuted at #2 on Billboard Hot 100.

Kelly co-wrote Jessie J's "Price Tag", for which he received credit as "Moonhead".

Selected discography[link]

2006

• "Daddy's Little Girl" - Frankie J
• "Say Something" - Frankie J

2007

• "In The End" - Kat DeLuna
• "Love Confusion" - Kat DeLuna
• "Love Me, Leave Me" - Kat Deluna

2008

• "Forgive Me" - Leona Lewis
• "Circus" - Britney Spears
• "Shattered Glass" - Britney Spears
• "If She Knew" - Lemar
• "Camouflage" - Brandy
• "True" - Brandy
• "Told You So" - Jesse McCartney
• "Not Your Enemy" - Jesse McCartney
• "Oxygen" - Jesse McCartney

2009

• "My Life Would Suck Without You" - Kelly Clarkson
• "Tonight" - Jay Sean
• "Party in the U.S.A." - Miley Cyrus
• "Moments That Matter" - Corbin Bleu
• "Speed of Light" - Corbin Bleu
• "Paralyzed" - Corbin Bleu
• "Fear of Flying" - Corbin Bleu
• "Champion" - Corbin Bleu
• "Rock 2 It" - Corbin Bleu
• "Whatever It Takes" - Corbin Bleu
• "My Everything" - Corbin Bleu
• "Angel Cry" - Corbin Bleu
• "Close" - Corbin Bleu
• "The Cure" - Jordin Sparks
• "For Your Entertainment" - Adam Lambert
• "Priceless" - Melanie Fiona
• "In My Head" - Jason Derülo
• "Love Hangover" - Jason Derulo
• "Queen of Hearts" - Jason Derulo
• "We Don't Care" - Akon
• "Over The Edge" - Akon
• "Symphony" - Marié Digby
• "The Time of Our Lives" - Miley Cyrus
• "If I Knew Then" - Backstreet Boys
• "Bye, Bye Love" - Backstreet Boys
• "Alone" - E.M.D.
• "Like I Never Left" - Whitney Houston
• "For The Lovers" - Whitney Houston
• "I Got You" - Whitney Houston
• "Notebook" - Chrisette Michele
• "Blame It on Me"- Chrisette Michele
• "Playin' Our Song" - Chrisette Michele
• "Fragile" (featuring Wale) - Chrisette Michele
• "Mr. Right" - Chrisette Michele
• "I Hate Love" - Toni Braxton

2010

• "Woohoo" - Christina Aguilera featuring Nicki Minaj
• "Desnudate" - Christina Aguilera
• "Glam" - Christina Aguilera
• "Prima Donna" - Christina Aguilera
• "Vanity" - Christina Aguilera
• "Express" - Christina Aguilera
• "Show Me How You Burlesque" - Christina Aguilera
• "Little Miss Perfect" - Sugababes
• "Kissin' U" - Miranda Cosgrove
• "In This Song" - Charice
• "Falling Stars" - David Archuleta
• "Complain" - David Archuleta
• "What A Night" - Lil Jon
• "Ms. Chocolate" - Lil Jon
• "Bittersweet"- Fantasia
• "I'm Doin' Me" - Fantasia
• "Permanent December" - Miley Cyrus
• "Take It Off" - Ke$ha
• "Stuttering" - Fefe Dobson
• "Music Sounds Better With You" - Alexandra Burke
• "Please Don't Let Me Go" - Olly Murs
• "Falling Up" - The Cab
• "Grenade" - Bruno Mars
• "Maze" - Jessica Mauboy
• "The Worst Part Is Over" - Fantasia Barrino
• "Hold My Hand" - Michael Jackson featuring Akon
• "Who Dat Girl" - Flo Rida featuring Akon

2011

• "International Love" - Pitbull ft. Chris Brown
• "Price Tag" - Jessie J ft. B.o.B
• "Nobody's Perfect" - Jessie J
• "Abracadabra" - Jessie J
• "Gasoline" - Britney Spears
• "Don't Turn Out The Lights" - NKOTBSB
• "Summer Rain" - Matthew Morrison
• "Hypnotico" - Jennifer Lopez
• "Yes" - Musiq Soulchild
• "Pieces of Me" - Ledisi
• "Bravo" - Ledisi
• "Shine" - Ledisi
• "As Long As You're There" - Glee ft. Charice
• "Four Letter Word" - David Cook
• "Loser of the Year" - Simple Plan
• "Domino" - Jessie J^[5]
• "Be Careful" - Jason Derulo
• "Make You Mine" - Joe Jonas
• Dance With Me Tonight" - Olly Murs
• "In Case You Didn't Know" - Olly Murs
• "This Song Is About You" - Olly Murs
• "Honestly" - Hot Chelle Rae
• "Right By Your Side" - James Morrison
• "One Night" - Martina McBride

2012

• "Better Than I Know Myself" - Adam Lambert
• " Brokenhearted" - Karmin
• "Hello" - Karmin
• "Walking On The Moon" - Karmin
• "Beautiful Surprise" - Tamia
• "Gold Forever" - The Wanted
• "Open All Night"" - Jay Sean featuring Lil Jon

References[link]

External links[link]

• Interview, HitQuarters May 2010

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]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2010)

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

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the French Wikipedia. (November 2010) Don't speak French? Click here to read a machine-translated version of the French article. Click [show] on the right to review important translation instructions before translating. Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. After translating, {{Translated|fr|Claude François}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

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Claude François
Claude François in 1976
Background information
Birth name	Claude Antoine Marie François
Also known as	Cloclo
Born	(1939-02-01)1 February 1939 Ismaïlia, Egypt
Died	11 March 1978(1978-03-11) (aged 39) Paris, France
Genres	Pop music
Occupations	Musician, singer, songwriter
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1962–1978
Labels	Fontana, Phillips, Flèche

Claude François (1 February 1939 – 11 March 1978) was a French pop singer, songwriter and dancer. He notably wrote and composed Comme d'habitude," the original version of "My Way" and Parce que je t'aime mon enfant, the original version of "My Boy." Some of his most famous songs are Le lundi au soleil, Magnolias for ever and Alexandrie Alexandra.

Claude François sold some 70 million records during his career (and after his death) and was about to embark for the U.S. when he accidentally electrocuted himself in 1978 at age 39.^[1] His place in the entertainment world was roughly analogous to Cliff Richard in Great Britain, with a dash of Tom Jones.In France, he is described as the French Elvis Presley. Live, Claude François was also seen as James Brown with a soul bypass. Former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is quoted as saying Claude François was, to him, the equivalent of The Beatles.^[2]

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

The son of an Italian (Calabrian) mother and a French father, Claude François was born in Egypt, in the city of Ismaïlia, where his father, Aimé François (1908–1961), was working as a shipping traffic controller on the Suez Canal. In 1951 the job took the family to the city of Port Tawfik on the Gulf of Suez.

The singer's full name was Claude Antoine Marie. It was traditional in his father's family to give boys names that start with the letter A, but his mother managed to impose her will and named him "Claude." "Antoine" was then given as a middle name, and "Marie," the name of the Virgin Mary, was also given in order to protect the child. Claude François had an older sister, Josette ( 1934- ), who wrote her memoirs in 2008.

François' mother, Lucia Mazzeï (1919–1992), also known as Chouffa, was very musical and had her son take piano and violin lessons. On his own, the boy learned to play the drums. As a result of the 1956 Suez Crisis, the family returned to live in Monaco, where they struggled financially after François' father fell ill and could not work. A young François found a job as a bank clerk and at night earned extra money playing drums with an orchestra at the luxury hotels along the French Riviera. With a good but untested nasal singing voice, he was offered a chance to sing at a hotel in the fashionable Mediterranean resort town of Juan-les-Pins. His show was well received and eventually he began to perform at the glamorous night-clubs along the Côte d'Azur. While working the clubs, he met Janet Woolcoot, an English dancer whom he married in 1960.

Professional career[link]

On stage

Ambitious, François moved to Paris, where there were many more opportunities to pursue his career. At the time, American Rock and Roll was taking hold in France and he took a job as part of a singing group in order to make a living. With the goal of eventually making it as a solo act, he paid the cost to record a 45rpm. Trying to capitalize on the American dance craze "The Twist", François recorded a song titled "Nabout Twist" that proved a resounding failure. Undaunted, in 1962 he recorded a cover version in French of an Everly Brothers song, "Made to Love" (aka Girls Girls Girls). Written by Phil Everly, it had been only a minor hit in America (Eddie Hodges took the song to number 14 in the Billboard charts in July 1962), but François' rendition titled "Belles Belles Belles" rocked to the top of the French charts, selling close to two million copies and making him an overnight star.

Under a new manager, François' career continued to blossom. In 1963 he followed the first success with another French adaptation of an American song, this time recording If I Had a Hammer and Walk Right In in French as Si j'avais un marteau and Marche Tout Droit. François met Michel Bourdais who was working for the well-known French magazine Salut les Copains ("Hi Buddies"). He liked the rigor and the precision of Michel’s drawings and asked him to draw his portrait. This drawing has remained very famous until now. Capitalizing on his blond good looks, he mimicked Elvis Presley's stage style as well as the slicked-back hair. Performing in sequined suits, François gave high-energy stage performances that had hordes of adoring teenage fans racing to the music shops to purchase his latest record or lining up to buy a ticket for his shows.

5 April 1963,^[3] he headlined at the Paris Olympia, a sign that he had arrived. At the end of that year, François created original new dance steps, and Michel Bourdais drew them. For the first time, they brought up the idea of setting up a show with female dancers. In January 1965, while returning from a trip to Las Vegas, Francois, fascinated by the American shows, decided to take them as a model, and eventually the project of performing on the stage with a female dancer band became clear in his mind.

A dedicated professional, François worked hard to achieve success, producing a string of massively popular hit songs and touring constantly. With the onslaught of Beatlemania, he covered their hits in French, adjusted the hair style a little and kept his success moving ahead. But his talent for kitsch extended beyond copying the works others had made famous, and he wrote songs for himself and displayed a melodic voice when singing romantic ballads.

In 1966, François created a complete new stage act using four female dancers as backup. Named "Les Claudettes," the sexy girls danced in the background while François did his own energetic work center stage. In a return to the Paris Olympia he added eight musicians and a full orchestra to his backup dancers, putting on a spectacular show that filled every seat in the large theater and left fans standing in the street for lack of tickets.

Divorced from his wife, in 1967 he began a relationship with Eurovision-winning singer France Gall. Their affair was short-lived and he soon met Isabelle Forêt, with whom he had two sons in two years. Flushed with enormous success and confidence, he established his own record company. In 1967, he and Jacques Revaux wrote and composed a song in French called Comme d'habitude ("As Usual"), which became a hit in Francophone countries. Canadian singing star Paul Anka reworked it for the English-speaking public into the now legendary hit most famously sung by Frank Sinatra as "My Way".

He also sang the original version of "Parce que je t'aime, mon enfant" (Because I Love You My Child) in 1971, which, while remaining relatively little-known in France, was taken over by Elvis Presley under the title "My Boy".

Although François continued his successful formula of adapting English and American rock and roll hits for the French market, by the 1970s the market had changed and the disco craze that swept North America took root in France. For the versatile François, this was not a problem. He simply re-invented himself as the king of French disco, recording La plus belle chose du monde, a French version of the Bee Gees' hit record, Massachusetts.

Looking for new talent, he came across a singing family of two sisters and their cousins. These ladies became known as "Les Flêchettes" (named after "Flêche", the production label he owned). He produced a couple of albums for them before his death, and the ladies went on to sing for some of the major stars in European music.

He worked non-stop, touring across Europe, Africa and at major venues in Quebec in Canada. However, in 1971, his workload caught up with him when he collapsed on stage from exhaustion. After a brief period off, he returned to the recording studios, releasing several best-selling hits throughout the early 1970s. He expanded from owning his own record company to acquiring a celebrity magazine and a modeling agency. Although driven to achieve financial success, in 1974 he organized a concert to raise funds for a charity for handicapped children, and the following year he participated in a Paris concert to raise funds for medical research. By the mid-1970s he was single again, dating several well-known European stars. He continued to perform while overseeing his numerous business interests. In 1975, while in London, he narrowly escaped death when an IRA bomb exploded and two years later a gangster tried to shoot him while he drove his car. In 1977 and 1978, more than 15 years after his first hit record, he was still topping the musical charts with multi-million sales from hits such as Alexandrie Alexandra (this one was issued on the exact day of his burial) and performing to large audiences.

International career[link]

He performed an international career mostly in Belgium and Switzerland but also in Italy, Spain, England and Canada. In 1976, his song Tears ont the telephone in n°34 in the english Top 40. In 1978, January 16, he performed a gala at the Royal Albert Hall in London (6000 spectators).

Death[link]

Claude François burial site in Dannemois (Essone), south of Paris

After working in Switzerland on 9 and 10 March and recording a television special for the BBC on Saturday, 11 March 1978, he returned to his Paris apartment in order to appear, the next day, on "Les Rendez-vous du Dimanche" with TV host Michel Drucker. As he was standing in a filled bath, with wet hands he tried to straighten a lighting sconce on the wall above the tub and was accidentally electrocuted. His tragic death at only 39 years of age brought a wave of public sympathy for a French "national treasure."

François owned a house near the village of Dannemois in the Essonne department about 55 km (34 mi) south of Paris. It was a place where he liked to spend time relaxing—in the quiet countryside—and Dannemois is the town where he was buried.

On 11 March 2000, on the 22nd anniversary of his death, Place Claude-François in Paris was named in his memory; it is located right in front of the building where he died.

A biopic called Cloclo (My Way internationally) was released in March 2012 to coincide with the anniversary of his death. It runs two and a half hours long and stars Jérémie Renier .

Discography[link]

This section requires expansion with: comprehensive list of albums.

• 2012: Génération Cloclo
• 2012: 30 ans - Édition aniversaire (Compilation album)

Partial list of his original songs[link]

• Nabout twist (Claude François)
• Pauvre petite fille riche (Hubert Giraud, Claude François, Vline Buggy)
• Je sais (Gérard Gustin, Claude François)
• Même si tu revenais (Bernard Kesslair, Claude François)
• Mais combien de temps (Claude François, Vline Buggy)
• Hip! hip! hip! hurrah! (Serge Gainsbourg)
• Dans une larme (Jean Renard, Gilles Thibaut)
• Mais quand le matin (Eric Charden, Gilles Thibaut)
• Comme d'habitude (Jacques Revaux, Claude François, Gilles Thibaut)
• Pardon (Jean Renard, Gilles Thibaut)
• Avec la tête, avec le cœur (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Yves Dessca, Vline Buggy)
• Dans les orphelinats (Claude François, Gilles Thibaut)
• Le Magicien (Claude François)
• Tu n'as pas toujours dit ça (Jean-Pierre Alanne, Claude François, Vline Buggy)
• Un monde de musique (Claude François, Ralph Bernet)
• Les ballons rouges (Eric Charden, Michel Delancray)
• C'est de l'eau, c'est du vent (Alice Dona, Pierre Delanoe)
• Des Roses de Noël (Alain Chamfort, Michel Pelay, Yves Dessca, Vline Buggy)
• Olivier (Jacques Revaux, Vline Buggy)
• Parce que je t'aime, mon enfant (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Yves Dessca)
• Les Ballons et les billes (Alice Dona, Pierre Delanoe)
• Plus rien qu'une adresse en commun (Alain Chamfort, Yves Dessca)
• Un peu d'amour, beaucoup de haine (Alice Dona, Michel Mallory)
• Y'a le printemps qui chante (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Jean-Michel Rivat, Franck Thomas)
• En attendant (Claude François, Michèle Vendôme)
• Le lundi au soleil (Patrick Juvet, Jean-Michel Rivat, Franck Thomas)
• Ninna Nanna (Patricia Carli, Jean-Loup Dabadie)
• Celui qui reste (Jean Fredenucci, Jean Schmitt)
• Je viens dîner ce soir (Paul Sebastian, Lana Sebastian, Michaële)
• Je t'embrasse (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Yves Dessca, Jean-Michel Rivat)
• Immortelles sont les filles (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Yves Dessca)
• J'ai perdu ma chance (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Eddy Marnay)
• Chanson populaire (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Nicolas Skorsky)
• La musique américaine (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Jean-Michel Rivat)
• Toute ma vie je chanterai pour toi (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Eddy Marnay)
• C'est toujours le même refrain (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude Morgan, Vline Buggy)
• Le Téléphone pleure (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Franck Thomas)
• Toi et moi contre le monde entier (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Eddy Marnay)
• Le chanteur malheureux (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Martial Carceles, Jean-Michel Rivat, Michel Renard)
• Joue quelque chose de simple (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Jean-Michel Rivat)
• Le spectacle est terminé (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Eddy Marnay)
• Une chanson française (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Nicolas Skorsky)
• Dors petit homme (Claude François,Eddy Marnay)
• La solitude c'est après (André Popp, Gilbert Sinoué)
• Le vagabond (Cyril Assous, Eddy Marnay)
• Les anges, les roses et la pluie (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François,Claude François, Vline Buggy)
• C'est comme ça que l'on s'est aimé, with co-singer Kathalyn Jones (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François)
• Magnolias forever (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Étienne Roda-Gil)
• Alexandrie Alexandra (Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Claude François, Etienne Roda-Gill)

Partial list of his songs in English[link]

• Go Where the Sun Is Brighter (Viens à la maison, English lyrics by Norman Newell)
• Monday Morning Again (Le lundi au soleil, English lyrics by Norman Newell)
• Love Will Call the Tune (Chanson populaire, English lyrics by Norman Newell)
• Hello Happiness (original song by The Drifters, lyrics by Les Reed and Roger Greenaway)
• Tears on the Telephone (Le Téléphone pleure)
• I Know (Je sais, English lyrics by Norman Newell)
• You Are (Une chanson française, English lyrics by Norman Newell)
• My Boy (Parce que je t'aime, mon enfant, English lyrics by Phil Coulter & Bill Martin)
• My World of Music (Un monde de musique, English lyrics by Norman Newell)
• Crying in His Heart (Avec le cœur, avec la tête, English lyrics by Norman Newell)
• My Way (Comme d'habitude, English lyrics by Paul Anka)
• I Believe in Father Christmas (original song by Greg Lake)
• Stop, Stop, Stop
• Keep on Driving

Partial list of songs he covered[link]

This section requires expansion with: standard discography and organizing the singles as per year. The list we have is confusing and not clear.

• Reach Out I'll Be There (The Four Tops): J'Attendrai
• It's The Same Old Song (The Four Tops): C'est la même chanson
• Bernadette (The Four Tops): 'Bernadette
• Baby I Need Your Loving (The Four Tops): Tout le monde a besoin d'amour
• If I Had a Hammer (Pete Seeger): Si j'avais un marteau
• Stop in the Name of Love (Diana Ross and the Supremes): Stop au nom de l'amour
• You Keep Me Hangin' On (The Supremes)
• You Can't Hurry Love (The Supremes)
• A Little Bit of Soap (The Jarmels): Ne t'en fais mon vieux (Recorded as Koko, on his first record)
• Made to love (The Everly Brothers): Belles! Belles! Belles!, his first hit
• Venus in Blue Jeans (Mark Wynter): Ma Venus en blue jeans
• I'll Be Around (The Spinners): Soudain il ne reste qu'une chanson
• I Can See Clearly Now (Johnny Nash): Toi et le soleil
• Guava Jelly (Johnny Nash, a song from Bob Marley): Rubis
• Tears on My Pillow (Johnny Nash): Des pleurs sur l'oreiller
• Who do you think you are? (Jigsaw): On est qui on est quoi?
• Chicago (Crosby Stills & Nash): Et je ne pense plus à toi
• Terry (Twinkle): Terry
• I Want to Hold Your Hand (The Beatles): Laisse-moi tenir ta main
• Telephone Line (Electric Light Orchestra): Sacrée chanson
• Ease on Down the Road (from The Wiz): Doucement sur la route
• Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver): J'ai encore ma maison
• Freedom Come Freedom Go (The Fortunes): Il fait beau, il fait bon
• You've Got Your Troubles (The Fortunes): Tu as tes problèmes, j'ai les miens
• There's a Kind of Hush (The New Vaudeville Band): Qu'est-ce que tu deviens?
• Silhouettes (The Rays): Silhouette
• Daydreamer (David Cassidy): Le mal aimé
• Baby Now That I've Found You (The Foundations): Pourquoi?
• Simon Says (1910 Fruitgum Company): Jacques a dit
• D.I.V.O.R.C.E. (Dolly Parton): Les mots secrets
• Nasty Dan (Johnny Cash): Sale Bonhomme
• Yesterday Once More (The Carpenters): Sha la la (Hier est près de moi)
• Wild World (Cat Stevens): Fleur sauvage
• Wonderful World, Beautiful People (Jimmy Cliff): Le monde est grand, les gens sont beaux
• By the Devil I Was Tempted (Blue Mink): A part ça la vie est belle
• Winchester Cathedral (The New Vaudeville Band)
• The Reason Why (The Byrds): Toute la vie
• It Takes Two (Marvin Gaye): Il faut être deux
• Carrie Anne (The Hollies): L'homme au traineau
• My Guy (Mary Wells): Ma fille
• In the Country (Cliff Richard and The Shadows): A la campagne
• Bend Me, Shape Me (The Outsiders): Serre-moi, griffe-moi
• Young Girl (Gary Puckett & The Union Gap): Prends garde, petite fille
• Eloïse (Barry Ryan): Eloïse
• Daydream (Wallace Collection): Rêveries
• Proud Mary (Creedence Clearwater Revival): Roule
• Games People Play (Joe South): Jeux dangereux
• Beggin' (Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons): Reste
• Oh What a Night, AKA December '63 (Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons): Cette année-là
• Show Me (Joe Tex): Cherche
• Torn between Two Lovers (Mary MacGregor): Drame entre deux amours
• Every Face Tells a Story (Olivia Newton-John): Chaque visage dit une histoire
• Statues without Hearts (Larry Gatlin): Statues sans coeur
• Mandy (Scott English): Mandy, toutes les filles de ton age
• Now Is the Time (Jimmy James and the Vagabonds): Laisse une chance à notre amour
• I Go To Rio (Peter Allen): Je vais à Rio
• At Seventeen (Janis Ian): 17 ans
• I Write the Songs (The Captain and Tennille): Je chante des chansons
• Don't Let the Good Times Fool You (Melba Montgomery): Combien de temps faut-il donc?
• Please Mr. Please (Olivia Newton-John): Pourquoi pleurer (sur un succès d'été)
• Reggae Tune (Andy Fairweather Low): Où s'en aller?
• I'm Leaving It Up to You (Dale & Grace): Il ne me reste qu'à partir
• You Are Everything (The Stylistics): Tu es tout pour moi
• Our Last Song Together (Neil Sedaka): Notre dernière chanson ensemble
• Brother Louie (Hot Chocolate): Dis-lui pour moi
• I'm Gonna Make You Love Me (Diana Ross & The Supremes): Où tu veux, quand tu veux
• Breaking Up is Hard to Do (Neil Sedaka): Moi, je pense encore à toi
• Tell Him (The Exciters): Dis-lui
• Walk Right In (Gus Cannon): Marche tout droit
• Language of Love (John D. Loudermilk): Langage d'amour
• Bachelor Boy (Cliff Richard and The Shadows): Moi je voudrais bien me marier
• From Me to You (The Beatles): Des bises de moi pour toi
• [[[How Do You Do It?]] (Gerry and the Pacemakers): Comment fais-tu?
• 24 Hours from Tulsa (Gene Pitney): Maman chérie
• Gentle on My Mind (John Hartford): Si douce à mon souvenir
• American Pie (Don McLean): Feu de paille
• Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves (Cher): Voleurs bohémiens
• I Got You Babe (Sonny & Cher): Je t'aime trop toi
• Jesus Christ Superstar (Murray Head): Jésus-Christ superstar
• By the Time I Get to Phoenix (Glen Campbell): Le temps que j'arrive à Marseille
• Puff, the Magic Dragon (Peter, Paul and Mary): Le dragon magique
• Rose Garden (Lynn Anderson): Je te demande pardon
• You've Got a Friend (Carole King): Un jardin dans mon cœur
• River Deep, Mountain High (Ike & Tina Turner): Combien de rivière
• Another Saturday Night (Sam Cooke): La vie d'un homme
• Reggae Like It Used to Be (Paul Nicholas): C'est le reggae
• Surrender (Diana Ross): Aime-moi ou quitte-moi
• Sugar, Sugar (The Archies): Douce Candy
• The Marvelous Toy (Tom Paxton): Le jouet extraordinaire
• And I Love You So (Don McLean): Et je t'aime tellement

References[link]

External links[link]

• http://www.claudefrancois-lesite.fr/
• Claude Francois biography
• Claude François at the Internet Movie Database
• Official web-site

Claude Barzotti, (born 23 July 1953 as Francesco Barzotti) is a Belgian singer of italian origin of the 1980s. Barzotti recorded several songs which each sold hundreds of thousands of copies. He first achieved success in 1981 with his song "Le Rital."

Biography and Career[link]

Barzotti, whose real first name was Francesco, was born in Châtelineau, Belgium, but raised in Italy. Barzotti moved back to Belgium at the age of 18, settling in the town of Court-Saint-Étienne. Barzotti began his musical career in France in 1981 with his song "Madame," which sold 400,000 copies. However, later in the year, Barzotti found widespread success with his song "Le Rital," which propelled him to household-name status.

"Rital" is a difficult to translate French slang term used to refer in a derogatory sense to people of Italian descent, the song deals with Barzotti's experiences as a young child and how "he wanted to be named Dupont (a common French surname)," but the song also deals with his pride concerning the term, exemplified in lines such as "Je suis rital et je le reste," which translates to "I'm Italian and will so remain." Barzotti's career continued throughout the 1980s, and his last major successful song was in 1990s "Aime-moi" (English:Love Me), at which point many people believed his career was far from over. Although Barzotti profited from the wave of nostalgia which gripped France at the turn of the 21st century, he was unable to capture the musical prominence he had once held. Because of his distinctive voice and great successes in the French music industry, he is considered one of the most prominent French pop musicians of the 1980s. Barzotti's music was also popular in Francophone Canada, with songs such as "Je ne t'écrirai plus" (English: I Won't Write You Anymore), "Prends bien soin d'elle" (English: Take Good Care of Her), "C'est moi qui pars" (English: It's Me Who's Leaving), and "J'ai les bleus" (English: I Have the Blues).

Barzotti's songs have also been featured in movies and DVDs in France, the movies in which his songs have been featured have sold more than five million copies. He also wrote the Belgian entry to the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest.

Today[link]

Barzotti's compilation "best of" was released in France in 2003, and he also recorded a more traditional Italian song, "Vado Via." He has released a new single, "Jada," on 8 August 2007, the proceeds from which go to benefit children in poor countries who do not have access to education. His 2012 album C'est mon histoire debuted at #39 on the Canadian Albums Chart.^[1]

Selected discography[link]

• 1981: Madame
• 1981: Le Rital
• 1982: Je te n'écrirai plus
• 1989: Elle me tue (English: She Kills Me)
• 1990: Aime-moi

References[link]

External links[link]

• Barzotti Fan Club (French)
• Lyrics for Barzotti's songs (French)

This article incorporates text translated from the corresponding French Wikipedia article as of 27 September 2007.