Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 254
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Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-1-4422-6982-8 • Hardback • September 2017 • $51.00 • (£39.00)
978-1-5381-3715-4 • Paperback • October 2019 • $33.00 • (£25.00)
978-1-4422-6983-5 • eBook • September 2017 • $31.00 • (£25.00)
Catherine Kautsky is chair of keyboard at Lawrence University and has been lauded by the New York Times as “a pianist who can play Mozart and Schubert as though their sentiments and habits of speech coincided exactly with hers.” Visit https://www.debussysparis.com/ to enjoy Kautsky’s performance of many of Debussy’s works, as well as additional artworks, poems, and primary source materials from this book.
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Ch. 1: Pierrot Conquers Paris
Ch. 2. Poets, Clowns, and Circus Daredevils
Ch. 3. Dance Steps out of Line
Ch. 4. The Cakewalk Wars
Ch. 5. A Taste for the Orient
Ch. 6. Asia on a Pedestal
Ch. 7 Child’s Play and Make Believe
Ch. 8. Fairies and Fairy Tales
Ch. 9. Crossovers on Land and at Sea
Ch. 10. The Floating World
Ch. 11. Fair-haired Maidens
Ch. 12. Edgar Allan Poe’s “Imp of the Perverse”
Ch. 13 The Sounds of Nationalism
Afterword: In Conversation with Baudelaire and Proust
In this fascinating fusion of music, literature, and social history, Kautsky, a pianist and piano professor, transports us to the milieu of a composer whose music captured the spirit of the times. Her purpose, she writes, isn't to ‘to provide a lengthy biography of Claude Debussy but rather to view him through the lens of his piano music and the city he so fully embraced.’ Debussy, ‘the dreamy French composer par excellence,’ counted among his acquaintances luminaries of the worlds of art (Degas, Gauguin, Rodin); literature (Proust, Mallarmé, Colette); and dance (Nijinsky, Diaghilev, Loie Fuller). Setting a number of his compositions in the context of the times, Kautsky explores a glittering world of music, dance, art, and poetry as well as its less appealing underside of racist minstrel shows, colonization, and nationalism. Her graceful and erudite prose is embellished with period illustrations and bolstered by a carefully selected bibliography. Kautsky has also recorded the complete Debussy Preludes (Centaur, 2014), a work that figures prominently in these pages. A treat for music lovers, Francophiles, and anyone who appreciates the arts.
— Booklist
Debussy’s Paris offers social and historical background for the time and place in which Debussy wrote his music. . . . the gorgeously written, colorful prose that is vividly presented immerses the reader in the Parisian Belle Époque and the culture that inspired Debussy. After reading this book I have a deeper and more holistic understanding of Debussy’s world— his influences, contemporaries, and artistic and musical philosophies.
— Clavier Companion
The book is enlivened by an often informal writing style, and the notes and bibliography reveal the depth of Kautsky’s research into a wide variety of graphic and literary sources.
— Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association
Catherine Kautsky has written a wonderful book, a kind of total immersion in the Debussyan magic, and in the endless fascination of fin-de-siècle Paris. The writing fizzes with the excitement of connecting the countless different strands of the composer's artistic influences and inspirations. Musicians will particularly appreciate the masterly survey of the piano works, and all readers will enjoy the extraordinary cast of characters, from Poe and Baudelaire to half-forgotten clowns of the circus and music hall. I was entranced and delighted throughout.
— Richard Goode, Grammy Award–winning concert pianist and teacher
Debussy's Paris presents a unique and panoramic view of this remarkably rich time in the history of both music and a changing world. It will delight both musicians and non-musicians alike.
— Gilbert Kalish, pianist, distinguished professor at Stony Brook University and artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
With her exceptional gift for bringing to vivid life the context of this great composer's work, Ms. Kautsky succeeds brilliantly in offering new and arresting perspectives regarding Debussy, Paris, and the extraordinary world that defined them.
— Robert McDonald, award-winning concert pianist and professor, the Juilliard School and Curtis Institute of Music
[An] often entertaining exploration of Debussy’s Belle époque “piano portraits”
— H-France Review