Accessibility links
Claude Debussy Claude Debussy artist page: interviews, features and/or performances archived at NPR Music

Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy Plays His Own Jazzy 'La Plus Que Lente'

Claude Debussy, photographed ca. 1908. He died 100 years ago on March 25, 1918. Wikimedia Commons hide caption

toggle caption
Wikimedia Commons

Review

Deceptive Cadence

Claude Debussy Plays His Own Jazzy 'La Plus Que Lente'

Marking the 100th anniversary of the visionary composer's death, hear Debussy play his own music on a 1913 piano roll.

14La plus que lente

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/592926620/592930020" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

  • Buy Featured Music

    Song
    La plus que lente
    Album
    Claude Debussy: The Complete Works
    Artist
    Claude debussy
    Label
    Warner Classics
    Released
    2018

    Your purchase helps support NPR programming. How?

Carnegie Hall Live: The Chicago Symphony Plays A Colorful Concert

Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a concert of powerhouse orchestral works at Carnegie Hall. AJ Wilhelm for NPR Music hide caption

toggle caption
AJ Wilhelm for NPR Music

Carnegie Hall Live

Carnegie Hall Live: The Chicago Symphony Plays A Colorful Concert

WQXR Radio

Hear the CSO and its charismatic conductor Riccardo Muti in a program showing the muscle and subtlety of the of orchestra in music by Scriabin, Debussy and Mendelssohn.

Carnegie Hall Live: The Chicago Symphony Plays A Colorful Concert

Audio is no longer available
Seattle Symphony, New Pulitzer Winner At Carnegie Hall

Composer John Luther Adams accepts enthusiastic applause from the Carnegie Hall audience after the New York premiere of his 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning piece, Become Ocean, performed by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Melanie Burford/for NPR Music hide caption

toggle caption
Melanie Burford/for NPR Music

Classics in Concert

Seattle Symphony, New Pulitzer Winner At Carnegie Hall

WQXR Radio

John Luther Adams' prize-winning piece Become Ocean headlines a concert devoted to sea and sand that includes Debussy's La mer and an Edgard Varèse piece inspired by the New Mexico desert.

Seattle Symphony, New Pulitzer Winner At Carnegie Hall

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/308067525/310165736" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Reneé Fleming And Susan Graham At Carnegie Hall

Reneé Fleming (right) and Susan Graham — two "cheerful Americans" often mistaken for each other — are planning an intimate evening of French song. Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging hide caption

toggle caption
Craig T. Mathew/Mathew Imaging

Classics in Concert

Reneé Fleming And Susan Graham At Carnegie Hall

Two opera stars conjure the intimate atmosphere of the late 19th-century Parisian salon, telling stories and singing songs by Saint-Saëns, Fauré and Debussy.

Reneé Fleming And Susan Graham At Carnegie Hall

Audio is no longer available
Marc Andre Hamelin: The Praiseworthy Pianist

Marc-Andre Hamelin plays one of his own transcriptions of a second-hand arrangement of an old French chanson in the Performance Today studio. Fran Kaufman hide caption

toggle caption
Fran Kaufman

Favorite Sessions

Marc Andre Hamelin: The Praiseworthy Pianist

American Public Media

Hamelin doesn't like to be called a virtuoso, but his skills are hard to deny. Hear him indulge his two pianistic passions in the APM studio: making the treacherously difficult sound easy and uncovering pieces by little-known composers.

Hear Marc-Andre Hamelin At The Performance Today Studio

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/112039260/111579900" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Favorite Sessions

Yolanda Kondonassis: Impressions Of The Harp

American Public Media

The adventurous harpist joins flutist Joshua Smith and violist Cynthia Phelps in the Performance Today studio to explore the musical connections between two impressionist composers — Toru Takemitsu and his hero, Claude Debussy.

Hear Yolanda Kondonassis And Friends In The APM Studio

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/105927495/105923179" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Music Interviews

N.Y. Philharmonic Bids Farewell To Clarinetist

When clarinetist Stanley Drucker retires from the New York Philharmonic at the end of June, he will have played in more than 10,200 concerts, with 400 different conductors, over a 60-year tenure.

N.Y. Philharmonic Bids Farewell To Clarinetist

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/104790741/104813703" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Music Interviews

Chicago Symphony Tops U.S. Orchestras

The city of Chicago has one more thing to boast about: Its hometown orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, has been named America's top orchestra in a new critics' poll published in the venerable British magazine Gramophone.

Chicago Symphony Tops U.S. Orchestras

Listen
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/97291390/97296010" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript

Music

Debussy's Musical Game of Deception

The Cleveland Orchestra is matched against Claude Debussy's tennis-inspired ballet Jeux, which conductor Franz Welser-Möst calls one of the most difficult symphonic pieces to perform.

Hear Franz Welser-Möst discuss Debussy and the Cleveland Orchestra

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/92338564/92346555" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Favorite Sessions

Leif Ove Andsnes: Pianist on the Precipice

WGBH Radio

Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes has traveled Europe to explore the life and music of his country's greatest composer, Edvard Grieg. The quest continues as Andsnes plays Grieg in the WGBH studio.

Hear Leif Ove Andsnes play Grieg in the WGBH studio

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/19238898/19240596" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">

Music

Debussy, Schubert at Chamber Music Northwest

We close a week of conversations and performances from Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Ore., with the Premiere Rhapsodie by Claude Debussy. Clarinetist David Shifrin and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott are together on stage. Then we welcome violinist Ida Kavafian, cellist Peter Wiley, bassist Edgar Meyer, and Ani Kavafian, who plays viola this time around. Along with Anne-Marie McDermott, they play the closing two movements from Franz Schubert's "Trout" Quintet.

Debussy, Schubert at Chamber Music Northwest

Audio will be available later today.
Browse archive or search npr.org