20th Century
...significant in terms of lasting influence was the atonal and serial approach of Schoenberg and his followers, Berg and Webern. Claude Debussy was born 22 August, 1862, at St. Germain-en-Laye, France. From the age of ten on, Debussy was a brilliant student at the Paris Conservatoire de Musique, where he won the highest prizes for composition - including the Prix de Rome for his cantata L'Enfant prodique. He was also a rebel and would often alarm his professors by sitting at the piano and playing chords that broke every textbook rule. What he was beginning to do was search for a new musical language, and slowly but surely he found it. Though Maurice Ravel became closely associated with Paris, he was not actually born there. He was born on 7 March, 1875 in Ciboure, France (the heart of Basque country in southwestern France). He was the son of a Franco-Swiss engineer and a Basque mother. The family moved to Paris when he was 3 months old. He began his musical studies at the age of 7, and entered the Paris Conservatoire de Musique at 14. He continued his ...