Préludes Claude Debussy
The work
n 1884 Claude Debussy won the Prix de Rome for composition, and found himself on a three-year residency in the Italian capital. He played to Liszt, was introduced to Verdi (he liked the man, not the music), and was already exploring Wagner’s operas at the piano, his devotion to these igniting when he visited Bayreuth in 1888-9. Yet even at this early stage he was starting to show misgivings, writing in a letter from Rome that
