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.
