Debussy and the Fragment (Chiasma 18) PDF
Preview Debussy and the Fragment (Chiasma 18)
Debussy and the Fragment Chiasma 18 General Editor Michael Bishop Editorial Committee Adelaide Russo, Michael Sheringham, Steven Winspur, Sonya Stephens, Michael Brophy, Anja Pearre Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006 Debussy and the Fragment Linda Cummins Cover design: Pier Post The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of ‘ISO 9706: 1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence’. Le papier sur lequel le présent ouvrage est imprimé remplit les prescriptions de "ISO 9706:1994, Information et documentation - Papier pour documents - Prescriptions pour la permanence". ISBN-10: 90-420-2065-2 ISBN-13: 978-90-420-2065-8 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006 Printed in The Netherlands CHIASMA Chiasma seeks to foster urgent critical assessments focussing upon joinings and criss-crossings, single, triangular, multiple, in the realm of modern French literature. Studies may be of an interdisciplinary nature, developing connections with art, philosophy, linguistics and beyond, or display intertextual or other plurivocal concerns of varying order. Michael Bishop Halifax, Nova Scotia * Rather than solid frames, some less than perfect aesthetic objects have permeable membranes which allow them to diffuse effortlessly into the everyday world. In the parallel universes of music and literature, Linda Cummins extols the poetry of such imperfection. She places Debussy’s work within a tradition thriving on anti-Aristotelian principles: motley collections, crumbling ruins real or fake, monstrous hybrids, patchwork and palimpsest, hasty sketches, ellipses, truncated beginnings and endings, meandering arabesques, irrelevant digressions, auto-quotations. Sensitive to the intermittences of memory and experience and with a keen ear for ironic intrusion, Cummins draws the reader into the Western cultural past in search of the surprisingly ubiquitous aesthetic of the unfinished, negatively silhouetted against expectations of rational coherence. Theories popularized by Schlegel and embraced by the French Symbolists are only the first waypoint on an elaborately illustrated tour reaching back to Petrarch. Cummins meticulously applies the derived results to Debussy’s scores and finds convincing correlations in this chiasmatic crossover. Anja Pearre Halifax, Nova Scotia 2006 This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Professors Matthew G. Brown, now of the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, and Jan Herlinger and Adelaide Russo of Louisiana State University, co-directors and minor professor respectively, for invaluable guidance and generosity with their time during the completion of the dissertation on which this book is based; and since. The Graduate School of Louisiana State University, the Bourse Chateaubriand, and the Camargo Foundation provided indispensable financial support for research and writing, for which I am mostgrateful. Dover Scores kindly provided permission to use their publications as models for all musical examples. Thanks also to Alaric Haag, who responded with characteristicélan to arequestfor cover art; to Anja Pearre, whose conscientious and thorough editing saved me frommany infelicities ofexpression;and to ChristaStevens, for seeing the manuscript expeditiously through the press. Finally, I thank my family and friends for their unflagging support and encouragement. This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Introduction 11 Chapter1 RuinsofConvention;ConventionsofRuin 21 Chapter2 Beginningsand Endings 63 Chapter3 Arcadias and Arabesques 95 Chapter4 TheSketch 117 Chapter5 Auto-Quotation 135 Chapter6 Preludes:APostlude 151 Bibliography 171
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