Claude Debussy
Debussy attended Stephane Mallarme's Tuesday gatherings on the rue de Rome and drew directly on Mallarme's poetry, most famously for the Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune.
Mallarmé's salon, 89 rue de Rome
Still standing
Outside only
A building
The small flat where Stéphane Mallarmé held the Tuesday evenings that drew most of literary and musical Paris — Debussy among them, and the source of the poem behind his Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune.
- 89 rue de Rome, 75017 Paris
- Stéphane Mallarmé's Tuesday gatherings, from the 1880s until his death in 1898
Illustration
The place, briefly
Mallarmé taught English for a living and lived modestly. What he had instead of money was Tuesday evening: a weekly gathering in a small flat on the rue de Rome, where he talked and everyone else largely listened. Over the years the room drew Verlaine, Valéry, Gide, Yeats, Whistler and a long list of others, and it became one of the most consequential rooms in European letters.
Claude Debussy attended, and the connection went well beyond sociability. Mallarmé's poetry gave him the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, the orchestral piece of 1894 that is as close as music has to a hinge between the nineteenth century and the twentieth, and later the Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé.
The relationship between Symbolist poetry and Debussy's music is the essential context for everything he wrote. Both were after suggestion rather than statement — mood, implication and shifting colour instead of clear narrative argument — and the Tuesdays on the rue de Rome are where that idea was worked out in conversation.
The building is private.
Key facts
- Stéphane Mallarmé's, on Tuesday evenings
- Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, and the Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé
- Verlaine, Valéry, Gide, Yeats and Whistler among many
- With Mallarmé's death in 1898
- Private — exterior only
In images
Timeline
Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, after Mallarmé's poem, is first performed.
Mallarmé dies and the Tuesdays end.
On the map
Questions before you go
What were Mallarmé's Tuesdays?
Weekly evening gatherings at his flat on the rue de Rome, attended over the years by a large part of literary and artistic Paris, including Debussy.
How did Mallarmé influence Debussy?
Directly. Mallarmé's poem gave Debussy the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune of 1894, and he later set the Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé.
People who knew this place
Art & literary movement · circa 1860–1910
Symbolism was seen here first
Symbolism gave form to dreams, ideas and inner experience. Its artists, poets, paintings, music, history and Paris collections.
Enter the movementWithin walking distance
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The star-shaped junction in the Quartier de l'Europe where Gustave Caillebotte set Paris Street; Rainy Day — and one of the few places in Paris where you can stand almost exactly where a famous painting was composed and recognise everything.
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4 rue de Saint-Pétersbourg
Manet's studio through the 1870s, whose windows looked down on what was then the rue Mosnier — the street he painted repeatedly, flags and all, in the summer of 1878.
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39 rue de Saint-Pétersbourg
The apartment Édouard Manet moved to in 1878 and remained associated with until his death in 1883, in the last years when illness had reduced what he could physically paint.
Visit the placeReferences
References
The sources below include histories, archival materials, scholarly research, and official records that informed this page. They document Mallarmé's salon, 89 rue de Rome, the people connected to it, and its place in Paris.
1Debussy: Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé
WebsiteMusic in the RoundUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Mallarmé's salon, 89 rue de Rome page.
2Debussy in fin-de-siècle Paris
WebsiteAcademia.eduUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Mallarmé's salon, 89 rue de Rome page.
3Symbolism — Debussy in Context
EssaysCambridge University Press, 2024Used forPublished analysis and historical context used in preparing the Mallarmé's salon, 89 rue de Rome page.
4Relationships with Poets and Other Literary Figures — Debussy in Context
EssaysCambridge University Press, 2024Used forPublished analysis and historical context used in preparing the Mallarmé's salon, 89 rue de Rome page.
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Why these sources are here
These references provide the documented foundation for this page's history and context. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.
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Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.