Today 22 August 2013, As you can see, todays Google Doodle celebrates the 151th birthday of French composer Claude Debussy. Clicking on the Google Doodle in Google Now has the same effect as clicking the Doodle on the Google Search webpage, it takes you to the search results for ‘Claude Debussy’s 151th Birthday‘.
Claude Debussy Biography
Claude Debussy was born into a poor family in France, but his obvious gift at the piano sent him to the Paris Conservatory at age 11. At age 22, he won the Prix de Rome, which financed two years of further musical study in the Italian capital. After the turn of the century, Debussy established himself as the leading figure of French music. During World War I, while Paris was being bombed by the German air force, he succumbed to colon cancer at the age of 55.
Claude Debussy Early Life
The oldest of five children, Claude Debussy was born on August 22, 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. While his family had little money, Debussy showed an early affinity for the piano, and he began taking lessons at age seven. By age 10 or 11, he had entered the Paris Conservatory, where his instructors and fellow students recognized his talent but often found his attempts at musical innovation strange.
Clair de Lune (poem)
Your soul is a chosen landscapeWhere charming masqueraders and bergamaskers go
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fanciful disguises.
All sing in a minor key
Of victorious love and the opportune life,
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight,
With the still moonlight, sad and beautiful,
That sets the birds dreaming in the trees
And the fountains sobbing in ecstasy,
The tall slender fountains among marble statues. (Source)
