| The musical worlds of St. Petersburg and Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century closely resembled each other: both were unevenly developed and thoroughly dominated by Western imported traditions. Italian opera virtually ruled the stage and overshadowed instrumental music in popularity. Orchestral and chamber music were considered to be a domain of German genius. Between the 1860s and 1870s, aspiration toward national musical independence became the main focus for the composers of both Russia and France.;In 1880, nineteen-year-old Claude Debussy was recommended by his piano professor at the Paris Conservatory, Antoine Marmontel, to Madame Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meek, one of the most enlightened representatives of the Moscow bourgeoisie and a patroness of Pyotr Tchaikovsky whose music she passionately admired. Debussy spent the three summers of 1880, 1881, and 1882 with von Meck's family as a piano instructor and a pianist for the trio in residence. His Russian trips as well as the World Expositions of 1889 and 1900 in Paris greatly contributed to Debussy's knowledge and appreciation of the Russian music of The Five.;The composers of The Five: Milii Balakirev, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky, and Cesar Cui, made a collective contribution to the "Russian Style" designed to oppose the Western tradition in music. "Russian gestures," developed and established as essential in the style of The Five, are reflected in a number of Debussy's piano and vocal compositions. Some of the gestures did not have a lasting effect and gradually disappeared in later works; others remained and became essential features of Debussy's compositional writing. |
