In the...outstanding Debussy, Walsh offers yet another kind of book about a composer, a work-life with just enough extramusical detail to claim being a biography ... Walsh discusses nearly every one of Debussy’s compositions and points out their innovations and their narratives, so to speak—and speak pertinently, for Debussy was as concerned with literature as any great musician ever has been.
Walsh... treats Debussy both as a creature of his own time and as a harbinger of 20th-century modernism ... While acknowledging the composer’s 'unsatisfactory treatment' of [the women in his life], Walsh is hard put to find reasons any of them are quite deserving of the great composer’s (or our) respect, often referring to them in cringeworthy descriptions ... Even worse, he analyzes the composer’s behavior by applying the old-school 'genius card' myth, to wit, that behind this bad treatment 'lay the instinctive feeling — which ordinary men usually manage to suppress — that emotional ties are a nuisance unless kept firmly in the drawer marked "when I need them."' Walsh’s study is focused on the music, less so on the historical and cultural setting. As an exposition of this unique and original music it does great service to the composer. Nonetheless, a casual classical music fan may find it daunting, as most of it is devoted to analyses of a lifetime of compositions.
Compelling ... Walsh insists on pulling Debussy’s compositions into the heart of this biography, treating them as the essential register of emotional and intellectual existence ... deploys a delightfully fluent prose to carry the general reader along in the right direction.
Squarely oriented on the music ... Walsh’s primary focus on the music means the biography is at times light on anecdote and psychological analysis, but it’s a fair trade-off. Walsh’s narrative, without neglecting how Debussy’s art chimes with its historical contemporaries is a bravura account of how the force of genius can in any age create the new and unforeseen.
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.
Lucid and elegant ... Picking up on Debussy’s view that music is 'a matter of colours and rhythmicised time, Walsh admires his 'refusal to be bullied by history or its debris'...A mighty bow to draw, you may think, but long before the end of this excellent book the reader may well be won over to that view.
In his engaging critical biography Debussy: A Painter in Sound, Stephen Walsh demonstrates with wit and intellectual muscle how these emblematic extremes of the composer’s career are inextricably connected ... Most of the biographical material is a skillful distillation of previously published work, though he also corrects several previously published errors. What is original here is Mr. Walsh’s lucid technical discussion of practically every Debussy composition in its biographical context, and he’s especially revealing about [various] masterpieces ... I’d have liked to read how these recordings came about and what Mr. Walsh makes of them. That odd omission is one of my few reservations about this illuminating and compelling book.
... lively yet learned ... Mr Walsh depicts Debussy’s Paris with the same verve and scholarship that he applies to the man ... As Mr Walsh says, his book is a musical biography, which aims to show the connections between the composer’s life and his music, not a blow-by-blow chronology. He explains how each of the major works was conceived and written and analyses key passages bar by bar. It is an enjoyable and impressive achievement.
The author, Steven Walsh, has penned an intellectual history of the evolution and rise to greatness of this French composer. He has written a masterful work of musical analysis ... This book is for the music lover who wants to explore the textures and unconventional harmonies which set Debussy apart as the greatest French composer of his time. The book includes bibliographical references. It would have been useful for the reader if the author had also included a list of Debussy's works.
Walsh... explores [Debussy’s] genius with erudition and style. Tracing the evolution of Debussy’s methods and imagination, he also probes the toll the composer’s labors took on himself and those around him.
A sensuous portrait ... [Debussy] was dedicated to creating, and redefining, beauty, and as Walsh amply demonstrates, he brilliantly succeeded. A richly detailed life of a modernist master.
