Songs for Madame Vasnier

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BBC Radio 4 Extra - Songs for Madame Vasnier

Richard Langham Smith on the songs Debussy wrote for his muse Madame Vasnier.

Richard Langham Smith explores the songs the young composer Claude Debussy wrote for his muse, Madame Vasnier. From 2012.

Relish the lyrical riches of Théodore de Banville, Alfred de Musset, Paul Bourget, Théophile Gautier and Paul Verlaine - the poets French composer Claude Debussy chose to express his love for an older, married woman, Marie Blanche Vasnier.

Hearing her sing moved Debussy - an impressionable young student - to create a treasury of songs specially with her voice in mind. 
Among the many songs he wrote for Madame Vasnier is the unpublished "La fille aux cheveux de lin". It was the starting point of Debussy's fascination with setting words to music; an obsession that reached a high point in "Pélleas et Mélisande" some 20 years later. But it was Madame Vasnier that Debussy acknowledged as "the only muse to ever inspire musical feelings". And that is, he confessed, "only to talk of the musical ones!"

Presented by Richard Langham Smith and originally broadcast on the 150th anniversary of Debussy’s birth. 

Producer:  Johannah Smith

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2012.

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