With reference to the works we have studied (or others you have knowledge of) discuss Debussy's use of timbre, texture and harmony in his piano and orchestral works. Use musical examples to illustrate your argument when and where appropriate.
             "The history of music, it has been said, is the history of infraction of the rule; and the terrifying though heartening gesture of genius flouting the academic canons of his art is not unfamiliar."
             Claude Debussy's work had a significant influence on Western music. His ideas transformed the way that musicians approached harmony and tonality. Born in 1862 he began to study at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of ten. Debussy was influenced by, but later rejected the ideas of the German composer Wagner who is often cited for the destruction of tonality through his chromatic systems.
             Debussy's greatest achievements as a composer were his development of texture and timbre and his approach to harmony. Although tonal relationships and harmonic content were of great significance to Debussy he began to create a revolution in the area of pure sound. In his orchestral works he combined different instruments in varying ways that created radical new textures. Jarocinski states " In order to exploit to the full all the potentialities of an instrument Debussy rejected the myth of 'natural registers'". Debussy's ideas about the ranges that orchestral instruments were capable of were utterly original. In his piano music he began to explore the resonance of the instrument, furthering the developments made by the great piano writers of the nineteenth century such as Chopin and Liszt who had already exploited the full range of the piano through harmony and melody.
             Debussy's music was often deemed to be 'impressionistic', because of its thin texture and blurred soft sounds. This term was also applied to Monet and Degas, artis
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