Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Piano Works, Vol. 1

Suite bergamasque (1890)
Nocturne (1892)
Danse bohémienne (1880)
Rêverie (1890)
Mazurka (1890)
2 Arabesques (1890)
Valse romantique (1890)
Ballade (1890)
Danse (1890)
Pour le piano (1894-1901)

Claude Debussy was born in 1862, the son of a shop-keeper who was later to turn his hand to other activities, with varying success. He started piano lessons at the age of seven and continued two years later, improbably enough, with Verlaine's mother-in-law, who claimed to have been a pupil of Chopin. In 1872 he entered the Conservatoire, where he abandoned the plan of becoming a virtuoso pianist, turning his principal attention to composition. In 1880, at the age of eighteen, and in the following two summers, he was employed by Tchaikovsky's patrone