Debussy: the musical genius who erupted out of nowhere

At the end of his study of Debussy, Stephen Walsh makes the startling, but probably accurate, claim that musical revolutionaries tend to be popular. We generally think of radicals as being primarily like Schoenberg, Charles Ives and Pierre Boulez, whose works, after decades, still mainly appeal to a small group of sophisticates. But if one takes the larger view, there is no doubt that most composers who transformed the art of music were almost always immediately popular. Monteverdi, Beethoven, Chopin and Wagner commanded substantial audiences, with often beguiling surfaces and revolutionary substance. Schumann said that Chopin’s music was ‘a cannon buried in flowers’.

The same might be said of Debussy, who could not have broken more decisively with the past. His major works were written over not much more than 20 years, from the prelude ‘L’après-midi d’un faune’ in 1894, to the piano etudes and the three chamber sonatas dating from the middle of the first world war.

Much earlier, a curious and by no means hostile teacher at the Paris Conservatoire had asked Debussy what principles guided his harmony: ‘My pleasure,’ he replied. That approach extended to pleasure in form and development, not merely as a succession of delicious moments: Debussy’s pieces are never just improvisations, one thing after another.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2018/02/debussy-the-musical-genius-who-erupted-out-of-nowhere/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8gm14zMY0U
L'apres midi d'un faune

I have to have romance & passion, whether overt or subdued, and structure and lyricism, just to be going on with. Which is why I like Chopin or Mozart or Charlie Parker.
Debussy gives me that sometimes, as in Claire de.Lune or the piece you quoted. But a lot of his stuff leaves me cold as does much avant garde classical music (a contradiction in terms?).
I have listened to quite a bit of it in past years.

I hasten to add, well a day later in fact, that there is much I find to enjoy in post-classical orchestral music, viz. Vaughan Williams, de Falla, Ravel, Delius.

This is a stupendous example of the sublime and the passionate taking each other's breath away for half an hour. It is a marvel to watch Barenboim pay the piano solo and conduct at the same time. Another musical genius. The end is tremendous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEYajsa8NeM