RaveThe New York Review of Books\"This year has brought some appropriately thoughtful celebrations of Debussy’s life and work, notably Stephen Walsh’s Debussy: A Painter in Sound ... Walsh’s joy, and maybe his relief, at having such a manageable subject is palpable on every page of his book, which is written with an aptly Debussyan lightness and attention to detail. Perhaps most impressively, Walsh has managed the rare tightrope act of describing and analyzing widely beloved music in ways that will neither seem simplistic to connoisseurs nor confuse a general audience ... Walsh also makes the astute decision to focus on Debussy’s music, rather than on his social life, precisely to the degree that Debussy himself neglected personal obligations in favor of the inner world of his work ... It is hard to imagine a better guide than Walsh to the delights of Debussy’s sound world. Clearly he loves it, yet he’s refreshingly unsentimental about it. Many of Walsh’s main ideas have been expressed before, but rarely with such clarity.\
