Mallarmé and Debussy Unheard Music, Unseen Text

by McCombie, Elizabeth

• ISBN13: 9780199266371
• ISBN10: 0199266379
• Edition: Bilingual
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-25
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book examines afresh the web of similarities and differences between music and poetry using works by Mallarme and Debussy as case studies. It challenges the easy metaphorical impressionism that has characterized much of the scholarly literature to date. Analyzing Mallarme's vision of a shared musico-poetic aesthetic, Elizabeth McCombie derives a set of performative structural motifs, analytical tools that express our experience of the two arts and their middle ground.

Table of Contents

Note on Editions and References	xi
Prologue	xii
INTRODUCTION: SEARCHING FOR THE INTERMEDIARY	1	(15)
1 The meeting ground	1	(4)
2 Music In poetry and poetry in music	5	(3)
3 Critical connection	8	(8)
1. MUSIC IN MALLARMÉ: A MUSICO-POETIC AESTHETIC	16	(29)
1 Rhythms of sound and sense
1.1 'La face alternative'	16	(1)
1.2 The rhythm of reading	17	(3)
1.3 The keyboard of verse	20	(2)
1.4 Two-way terms	22	(2)
1.5 Configuring (non-)representations: artistic affinities	24	(6)
1.6 Rhythms of sound and sense: meaning and non-meaning	30	(1)
2 La Musique et les Lettres
1.7 The thyrsus, or 'selon un thyrse plus complexe'	31	(2)
1.8 'Cette mentale poursuite'	33	(1)
1.9 'Saisir les rapports'	34	(2)
1.10 Reading music in La Musique et les Lettres	36	(2)
1.11 'Une inaptitude delicieuse à finir': music and cadence	38	(2)
1.12 'La totale arabesque'	40	(5)
2. THE POETICS OF DISCONTINUITY: EXPLOSANTE FIXE AND ÉCLAT	45	(50)
2.1 'Ce procédé, jumeau, intellectuel, notable dans les symphonies'	45	(3)
2.2 Conflicting temporalities in Debussy's La Mer	48	(9)
2.3 Stretching the linear in music	57	(6)
2.4 Conceptual motifs from Boulez: éclat and explosante fixe	63	(2)
2.5 Explosante fixe in Debussy's Préludes	65	(10)
2.6 Éclat in the Études	75	(3)
2.7 Reading Mallarmé's 'Petit Air I'	78	(7)
2.8 Mapping the intermediary: aligning poem and pieces	85	(2)
2.9 'Enroulements'	87	(2)
2.10 Topological surfaces	89	(6)
3. 'L'ADORABLE ARABESQUE'	95	(60)
3.1 Un coup de Dés	95	(2)
3.2 Chromatic complexities	97	(2)
3.3 Towards the arabesque: the law and grammar of ornament	99	(3)
3.4 Un coup de Dés as musical score	102	(4)
3.5 Analysis of Un coup de Dés	106	(12)
3.6 The acoustic drama of Un coup de Dés	118	(1)
3.7 Figuring the arabesque	119	(1)
3.8 Jeux	120	(2)
3.9 An initial analysis of Jeux	122	(27)
3.10 'La totale arabesque': the ornamental principle	149	(1)
3.11 Differences	150	(2)
3.12 Concluding remarks	152	(3)
4. SONG AND THE ÉVENTAIL	155	(43)
4.1 Theories of song	155	(4)
4.2 Trois poèmes	159	(1)
4.3 Figure and fragmentation in the languages of Debussy and Mallarmé	160	(3)
4.4 Debussy's Soupir	163	(1)
4.5 Mallarmé's 'Soupir'	164	(5)
4.6 When 'Soupir' becomes song: conflicts of similarity and difference	169	(5)
4.7 Reading 'Soupir': towards defining the interface	174	(6)
4.8 Figuring the intermediary	180	(2)
4.9 The thyrsus in Soupir: poem and song	182	(1)
4.10 Charged rhythmic space: 'Autre Éventail de Mademoiselle Mallarmé'	183	(3)
4.11 The pli of the fan	186	(2)
4.12 'Autre Éventail' as song	188	(6)
4.13 Mobile figures and the Trois poèmes: a summary	194	(2)
4.14 The fan	196	(2)
EPILOGUE	198	(6)
Glossary	204	(1)
Bibliography	205	(12)
Index	217