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Emma and Claude Debussy – The Biography of a Relationship

Gillian Opstad

Boydell Press 408pp (hb) £40

Gillian Opstad’s tireless research has here produced a genuine addition to Debussy studies, based on the substantial correspondence between the couple (though much of Emma Debussy’s side of this is not extant), plus copious contemporary documentation. The result should put an end to any residual sneering along the lines that Debussy and Emma Bardac – a gifted amateur singer, married to a rich banker

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