Emma Bardack, lover of Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy (1862–1918) was a French-born composer and an innovative musician who used Russian and Eastern music with unconventional freedom and pursued his own music.
It is highly evaluated musically, but not in terms of rational relationships.
There were always many women around Debussy, who was not good-looking but had a strange charm with his princely appearance.
Mari Basnier’s meeting with a young Gyabi Dupont, a married woman, as seen in the first part,
In the second part, we looked into the history of Gyabi Dupont’s love affair with his friend Lili Texier.
In this episode, let’s listen to Debussy’s love story with his last lover, married wife Emma Bardak, and the story of the Japonism music “Sea.”
1. Debussy’s meeting with the banker’s wife Emma Bardac
It’s not fair to put a bullet in Lily’s chest and go out alone. Debussy was forced to go into hiding in a hermitage under the public finger and move away from the public’s attention.
Instead of moving away from this public interest, he brings back another creative passion.
His representative work “The Sea” is completed in the midst of repeated cycles of encounters, breakups, and suicide.
Debussy’s orchestral song “The Sea” was born at such a time. The story of “The Sea” will be discussed in a moment.
Emma Bardac (1862–1934) was a French singer, wife of a wealthy banker, and a lover of Gabriel Fore.<<<<
Emma, of Jewish descent, married Sigismond Bardac, a Parisian banker, at the age of 17, and already had two children. She was a lover of Forrest. She was as strong a woman as Debussy was in her powers of reason.
After an affair with Fore, Emma was introduced to Debussy in late 1903 through her son Raul, one of Debussy’s students.
She also showed great talent in music, often inviting musicians and writers to her home to throw parties, and often holding meetings such as salon concerts in the early 19th century.
Debussy felt that his reputation as a musician was gradually becoming stronger even as he was in the midst of a craze for love affairs.
She had a daughter, Chouchou, with Emma in 1905 when she completed “The Sea”.
Bardac eventually married Debussy in 1908, and their rocky union lasted until Debussy’s death a decade later.
Debussy was not only a lucky man who did not sink in the midst of the tumult of affection at the time, but his creative energy, who had already reached his 40s, was at its peak.
As above, he and Bardak paid a lot of money for suicide and seclusion. However, their marriage was not as happy as I thought.
Debussy later said that the only woman he truly loved was Shushu, his daughter. Seeing that he even said this, it seems that only the child who was attracted to blood rather than love between the other sexes drew him a lasting feeling of love.
Debussy’s affection for his daughter Shushu was special. He even left six props called “Children’s World” for Shushu.<<<
When you listen to this song, you will be shocked to hear, “How can the person who composed such pure and lovely music and the mess-up Nambonger be the same person!”
Emma was already the mother of two daughters, Debussy, who broke up with Lily and married Emma, repeatedly tries to date another woman.
Emma, hurt by Debussy’s continued acts of affection, repeated lies, and Debussy’s betrayal, ends up filing for divorce from Debussy.
At the time, the court gave Debussy a ruling to pay Emma a substantial amount of alimony and living expenses.
Despite this court ruling, Debussy was so brazen that he did not send Emma any money.
2. Debussy’s vile nature of love for women
It wasn’t just because of his cheating that two women attempted suicide because of Debussy.
He didn’t break up with women cleanly, but because of Debussy’s persistent love method, which seemed to have a lingering affection for women in the past.
It was also not enough to meet other women, which made the other woman stressed and crazy.
It is widely known that the two women who attempted suicide did not choose to die because they loved Debussy, but because of their increasingly insane miserable appearance.
Claude Debussy was born in St Germain Laye, a suburb of Paris. Both parents ran a dish vendor, and Claude was the eldest son and had four younger siblings.
His life was not good enough, and by chance his wife Mauté, the foster mother of Verlaine, recognized his talent for music. This was how Debussy became a musician.
Mauté, an amateur and accomplished pianist, took lessons for free, and was admitted to the Paris Conservatory in 1872 (age 10), which shifted Claude’s interest from piano to composition.
Debussy’s youth, as it is known, was very poor. At the time, artists in Paris who were aiming for ‘Ar Nouveau’ (new art) were as poor as all of them.
For those who longed for a Bohemian life, their passion and poverty for art formed both sides of the coin, and what was indispensable would have been a romantic relationship.
The love story between men and women was not only a good subject for people to talk about in the past and now, but it is also because Debussy of the time was already in the ranks of high-profile musicians.
But Debussy’s over-the-top female experience pointed fingers at Debussy, even past colleagues who shared the Paris back alley together, and friends like Eric Saty, who was still living a “Bohemian” life.
What made Debussy so popular with women? A fashionable gentleman?” A noble-looking look?
Isn’t the mysterious French tone and the ever-changing harmony that touched the hearts of many women?
Wagner is said to have made many women cry, but Debussy is a level above Wagner and he did not hesitate to act inhumanely.
Therefore, he is a musician who received more criticism in his relationship with women.
Did Debussy’s many relationships and encounters with women, known as flirtations, inspire and stimulate her to explore her own artistic world and create original works?
In any case, as a musician, Debussy had a great influence on later generations as a musician with excellent creativity and innovation.
Many of Debussy’s women above played a role in bringing Debussy’s constant creative passion into and out of her physical relationship.
They played an important role in growing Debussy’s music through music and symphonic poetry.
Thanks to the sacrifices of his lovers, his music is still played and enjoyed a lot today.
3. The Sea, an Oriental painting by Claude Debussy
Japanese artist Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849)’s colored woodblock painting “The Great Wave of Kanagawa” is a very famous painting.<<<
Katsushika looked at Mount Fuji from a distant view. Two ships are swaying in the wind and waves, roaring waves as big as a house right in front of him.
And in the distance, Mount Fuji, with white snow on its head, is watching the whole situation politely. It’s like a piece of island floating peacefully on a wave.
In any case, Iukiyoe, or Nishiki, has an important status in Japanese traditional culture.
In the 19th century, it became very popular as it was known to Europe, and today, you can easily meet the style of ukiyoe in Japanese animation.
In Europe in the late 19th century, especially France, there was finally an exotic culture-loving wind that could be called ‘Japonisme’.
At the center of it, Ukiyoe in Katsushika, especially “The Big Wave in Kanagawa”, was a representative picture of Japanese style at the time.
French composer Claude Debussy faced the painting one day. The impressive colored woodcut painting was one of the motifs of Debussy’s symphonic sketch, “La Mer.”
Towards the end of the 19th century, the oriental style first encountered at the Paris Expo finally landed in Debussy’s music.
The composition year of “The Sea” is from 1903 to 1905. Like Katsushika’s engraving “The Big Wave of Kanagawa”, it was a period of turbulence in Debussy’s life.
There were lovers Lily and Emma, and Debussy’s daughter Shush was born.
If Saint-Saëns is a person who developed music creation based on German music, Debussy showed his natural musical talent through “Moonlight”, “Prelude to the Afternoon of Wildlife”, and the Eastern style of Zaponism “Sea”.
He was a brilliant musician who created Debussy’s unique and independent music world based on this talent.
However, compared to the favorable reviews of musical works, the inhumane behaviors he showed to his women were pointed at by many regardless of the world of art, and are evaluated differently from his musical works.
Debussy gave his last recital on September 14, 1917, and was bedridden in early 1918. World War I was still in full swing, and Paris was under aerial bombardment and shelling by the German military.
Debussy died at his home on 25 March 1918. Emma and Debussy’s daughter Shushi died in 1919 due to wrong medical treatment while recovering in diphtheria.
Emma died in 1934, and was buried with her daughters Shouche and Debussy at the Fasci Cemetery in Paris.
