By which of his Christian names is the French composer Debussy (1862-1918) known?
Claude Debussy Claude Debussy Achille-Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born to a family of modest means and little cultural involvement, Debussy showed enough musical talent to be admitted at the age of ten to France's leading music college, the Conservatoire de Paris. He originally studied the piano, but found his vocation in innovative composition, despite the disapproval of the Conservatoire's conservative professors. He
Claude Debussy Kramer, Debussy escapes the shadow of the older composer and "smilingly relativizes Wagner into insignificance". A contemporary influence was Erik Satie, according to Nichols Debussy's "most faithful friend" amongst French musicians. Debussy's orchestration in 1896 of Satie's "Gymnopédies" (which had been written in 1887) "put their composer on the map" according to the musicologist Richard Taruskin, and the Sarabande from Debussy's "Pour le piano" (1901) "shows that [Debussy] knew Satie's "Trois Sarabandes" at a time when only a personal friend of the composer could have known them." (They were not published until 1911). Debussy's interest in the popular music of