MA in Music Studies (Arts and Culture)

MA in Music Studies (Arts and Culture) Continuity and discontinuity in Claude Debussy’s

music: Two perspectives on listening attention

proposed by Vladimir Jankélévitch Supervisor: prof. dr. J.J.E. (Julia) Kursell

Second reader: dhr. dr. M. (Maarten) Beirens

Ana Álvarez Calleja

July 2018

Continuity and discontinuity in Debussy’s music: Two perspectives on listening attention proposed by Vladimir Jankélévitch

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Abstract

Vladimir Jankélévitch articulates a musical critique on Claude Debussy in Debussy

et le mystère and La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy. This thesis studies these two

books to describe Jankélévitch’s idea of listening to Debussy’s music. To begin with, this

thesis analyses the listening and discursive influences developed in France between the early

and the mid-20th century that triggered these writings. To support the analysis of

Jankélévitch’s writings, the thesis also proposes a musical analysis of Debussy’s work

Reflets dans l’eau. Jankélévitch presents two main ideas in his writings: the symbolic idea

of Debussy’s listening to nature and the idea of variability in the focus extent of an attentive

listening. The first idea considers that Debussy’s music was not inspired by his personal

feelings, whilst the second entails that the same musical feature is qualified either as

continuous or discontinuous. A more outstanding finding is that, in his critique on Debussy,

Jankélévitch coins presence-absence, which is studied as a new concept that represents the

two previously mentioned ideas.


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Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 5

I. Characteristics of written music critique and music analysis in France in the 1950s ........... 9

1. Attentive music listening ...................................................................................................... 11

1.1. The concept of sensation in Debussyists and experimentalists’ discourses ........................ 12

2. Symbolism ............................................................................................................................ 14

2.1. Debussy’s listening to nature as a symbolic ideal ............................................................... 14

3. Continuity and discontinuity in philosophy and music analysis in France .......................... 16

II. Variability in the boundaries of attention in listening ......................................................... 20

1. Debussy as a composer ......................................................................................................... 23

2. Concepts that symbolically reflect Debussy’s compositional ideal ..................................... 24

2.1. Absence of Debussy’s voice in music .......................................................................... 25

2.2. Musical immediacy ...................................................................................................... 25

2.3. Objectivity .................................................................................................................... 26

3. Concepts that describe musical features in music analysis .................................................. 27

3.1. Instant, continuity and discontinuity ............................................................................ 27

3.2. Stasis and prelude as form ............................................................................................ 29

3.3. Connection between musical immediacy and discontinuity ......................................... 31

4. Presence-absence as a concept to convey Jankélévitch’s ideas ............................................ 32

4.1. The effect of distance ................................................................................................... 33

III. Articulating (dis)continuity and presence-absence in music ............................................... 38

1. Methodology of analysis ...................................................................................................... 40

2. Analysis results..................................................................................................................... 42

3. Discontinuity and continuity in music.................................................................................. 43

3.1. Continuity and discontinuity in melodic development ................................................. 44

3.2. Continuity and discontinuity in harmonic development ............................................... 45

3.3. Discontinuity in form ................................................................................................... 47

3.3.1. Formal continuity and discontinuity in Reflets dans l’eau depending on melodic

development ............................................................................................................................. 47

3.3.2. Form considering harmonic development ................................................................ 48

4. Presence-absence and distance in music .............................................................................. 49

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 52

Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 56

Appendix .................................................................................................................................... 59


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1. Referred passages in the text ................................................................................................ 59

2. Brief descriptions of the musical features in each passage .................................................. 64


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Introduction

Vladimir Jankélévitch was a Russian philosopher and musicologist who moved to

France in his early life and so his writings are embedded in French scholarship. He wrote

critique on different composers’ music between the 1940s and the 1960s although he always

avoided commenting on German composers due to his Jewish origins. His philosophy of

music, which is concerned with topics such as decadence, death and the moment, was highly

influenced by Henri Bergson’s concept of durée.

Jankélévitch’s discourse is an example of critique in French philosophy of music that

was developed before 1968. This was a key moment of change in French scholarship. By

1968, Bergson’s philosophy was partially abandoned and Debussy’s studies had just been

revisited five years before in the international meeting Debussy et la evolution de la musique

au XXe siècle. This revision included a musicological discourse which presents symbolist

language and musical analyses that consider musical characteristics such as discontinuity in

music.1 Jankélévitch’s discourse also contains symbolist language and articulates the

concepts of continuity and discontinuity to describe musical features. Therefore,

Jankélévitch’s texts on Debussy show a general tendency in musicological discourses during

the mid-20th century in France. Consequently, the study of Jankélévitch’s writings on

Debussy is relevant because they are an example of the coexistent musicological discourses

in France between the 1950s and the 1960s reflecting upon music listening.

This thesis focuses on the study of Jankélévitch’s writings on Debussy, Debussy et

le mystère (1949)2 and La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy (1968)3 as primary

sources to draw Jankélévitch’s music listening perspectives. The meaning of the concepts he

articulates in his books in comparison to their meaning in other musicological discourses

and the results from a music analysis of Debussy’s work Reflets dans l’eau is determinant to

understand his perspective of an attentive music listening.

The thesis is organised in three chapters. The first chapter examines discursive and

listening practices that influenced Jankélévitch’s texts. It explores factors that have triggered

attentiveness in listening in France since the late 18th century and French music critique and

1 Édith Weber and Colloques internationaux du Centre national de la recherche scientifique,

Sciences humaines, Debussy et l'Évolution de la Musique au XXe Siècle: Paris 24-31 Octobre 1962

(Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1965). 2 Vladimir Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère (Neuchâtel: Baconnière, 1949). 3 Vladimir Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort dans la Musique de Debussy (Neuchâtel: Baconnière,

1968).


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musicological traditions which articulate the concepts that Jankélévitch applies to describe

Debussy’s music. The second chapter focuses on the variability of attentiveness in listening

within Jankélévitch’s texts referring to concepts which he presents in relation to music. The

third chapter deduces variability of listening attention from an analysis of Reflets dans l’eau

as an example of Debussy’s works. It proposes a new analysis of this work and compares

the results to the relations that Jankélévitch and other scholars’ analyses establish between

musical characteristics and the concepts of continuity and discontinuity.

The following texts have been employed to understand the conditions of music

listening that influence Jankélévitch’s writings on Debussy. In Listening in Paris, J. H.

Johnson explains that attentive listening has been a common practice in France since the late

18th century. In addition, Jonathan Crary4 in Suspensions of perception: attention, spectacle

and modern culture and Benjamin Steege in Helmholtz and the modern listener 5 reflect the

increase of attentiveness in science and, in particular, in sound sciences. Furthermore,

sensation was frequently used for describing musical experiences in musicological writings.

These three scholars account different meanings of sensation in socio-historical and

physiological studies in musicology. For this reason, the meaning of sensation in

Jankélévitch’s texts is minimally misleading.

Jankélévitch applies different concepts to describe Claude Debussy’s music such as

musical immediacy, discontinuity and presence-absence. Whereas some concepts are

encountered in Debussy’s music critique by a group of French critics named Debussyists

such as Pierre Lalo, Louis Laloy and Jean Marnold6 and in Debussy’s text Monsieur Croche

Antidilettante,7 produced in the early 20th century, others appear in music analysis that arose

in the 1950s. The term of immediacy was articulated in the former whereas continuity and

discontinuity appeared in the latter. Contemporary musicological sources analyse these

terminological influences on Jankélévitch’s texts. In current musicology, Alexandra Kieffer

and Marianne Wheeldon provide a description and analysis of Debussyists’ discourse and

the concept of immediacy. They portray a compositional ideal based on listening to nature

which symbolically represents an aesthetic conception of composition. In addition, in current

4 Jonathan Crary, Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture

(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999). 5 Benjamin Steege, Helmholtz and the Modern Listener (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge

University Press, 2015). 6 Christian Goubault, La Critique Musicale dans la Presse Française de 1870 à 1914 (Genève etc.:

Slatkine, 1984). 7


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research on Debussy, Jann Pasler, Marianne Wheeldon and Keith Waters comment and

analyse musical features of Debussy’s music in relation to the concepts discontinuity and

continuity. Marianne Wheeldon puts forward an explanation of discontinuity in melodic

development in Debussy’s music, whereas, in contrast, Keith Waters defines melodic

continuity. These scholars also discuss formal continuity in Debussy’s music and recall Jean

Barraqué’s ideas in relation to continuity and discontinuity. He derived these ideas from an

analytical study of Debussy’s work. Temporally, Barraqué and Jankélévitch produced their

texts in a similar context. In fact, they also propose similar statements in relation to formal

discontinuity; however, whereas Barraqué offers a detailed explanation of discontinuous

musical features, Jankélévitch describes them superficially. The concepts of continuity and

discontinuity will be interpreted according to analytical writings of Barraqué, Waters,

Wheeldon and Pasler. Furthermore, Jankélévitch coins a new term in his books which he

relates to Debussy’s human agency and to music itself: presence-absence. Julian Johnson

and Carolyn Abbate provide an analysis of presence-absence in relation to Debussy’s

musical works with text. The interpretation of presence-absence will be particularly

supported by a new proposal of analysis of Debussy’s music in chapter III. All in all, the

analysis of written sources which articulate the same concepts that appear in Jankélévitch’s

texts on Debussy will serve to draw characteristics of Jankélévitch’s listening proposal.

The analysis of Jankélévitch’s text requires the interpretation of concepts according

to other discourses and listening practices. This thesis considers the enumerated written

sources as the main texts for the analysis of the meaning of the concepts. This is particularly

important because Jankélévitch’s discourse applies certain terms to describe Debussy’s

music symbolically or metaphorically; that is to say, their significance is not literal but

ambiguous to a certain extent. Symbolic terms or ideas use natural objects or facts to

indirectly refer to abstract reality. Metaphors do not define music directly, instead they

portray musical characteristics using comparisons to other realities. For this reason,

observing the articulation of the terms in these written sources is fundamental for the analysis

of Jankélévitch’s texts.

Jankélévitch’s critique on Debussy becomes contradictory at certain points because

he connects the concept of immediacy and discontinuity. His text not only defines Debussy’s

music as continuous or discontinuous but also points out music characteristics such as

immediacy and objectivity. Discontinuity concerns a listening to Debussy’s music where

sound events are understood as isolated entities. Instead, immediacy and objectivity refer to

a characteristic of Debussy’s compositional procedure, implying that he avoids portraying


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his feelings in music. This occurs due to the fact that Jankélévitch connects ideas from a

tradition of thought in music analysis and French music critique on Debussy. He maintains

this connection between immediacy and discontinuity until the final part of La vie et la mort

dans la musique de Debussy (1968), where there is a shift on Jankélévitch’s perspective on

Debussy’s music that affords ambiguity in the identification of continuity and discontinuity

in musical features. In this shift,8 Jankélévitch admits that musical features can be either

continuous or discontinuous depending on the listening perspective. As a result, the

incongruence between discontinuity and immediacy disappears because discontinuity

becomes ambiguous.

From this thesis, it is deduced that Jankélévitch’s texts suggests two ideas. He openly

defends the idea that Debussy listened to nature as a part of his compositional process but

the real meaning of this is that his personal feelings do not inspire his music. The other idea

supports that listening to Debussy’s music produces two attentive listening perspectives.

Depending on the perspective (narrow or wide), musical characteristics are defined as

continuous or discontinuous and they present a different degree of presence.

8 Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 109.


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I. Characteristics of written music critique and music analysis in

France in the 1950s

Jankélévitch was a scholar who wrote philosophical and musicological texts in

French scholarship between the late 1930s and the 1980s. The books which will be analysed

in this thesis were published after the Second World War. His Russian-Jewish origins

entailed the influence of socio-political conditions in his personality and philosophy, which

reflects on death and decadence. In addition, the musicological content of his books presents

characteristics of musicology in his time. On the one hand, Jankélévitch’s contemporary

musicology in France depicted Debussy’s music by using symbolic and metaphorical

language. This part of the musicological discourse can be traced back to the first years of the

20th century and constituted Debussyism (Debussysme) as a critical current. On the other

hand, another part of the musicological discourse is influenced by musical analyses

developed in the 1950s that identify discontinuity in Debussy’s music. The conference on

Debussy organised by the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique9 in October of 1962

exemplifies the coexistence of these discourses in French musicology at the time.

In this chapter, I will analyse listening and discursive practices conditioning Vladimir

Jankélévitch’s discourse on Debussy in his books Debussy et le mystère (1949)10 and La vie

et la mort dans la musique de Debussy (1968).11 One of the practices I want to look at is

attentive music listening, which was a common practice in Jankélévitch’s time in France.

This custom has developed in France since the mid-18th century. Furthermore, symbolist

language and the concept of discontinuity to describe Debussy’s music characterise

Jankélévitch’s writing style. Symbolism flourished in France in the early 20th century,

affecting Debussyists’ discourse. Since then, discontinuity has thrived as a concept to

describe musical features. The different sections of this chapter examine the characteristics

of an attentive listening and Debussyist and music-analytical discourses as influences on

Jankélévitch’s writings.

The chapter is divided into three sections. The first section briefly reviews discourses

on attentive listening in France and Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. Particularly, it

regards how the meaning of sensation varied according to factors that also determined

9 The conference presentations are collected in Debussy et l’évolution de la musique au XXe siècle

as part of Colloques Internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. 10 Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère. 11 Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort.


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listening. The second section moves on to study Symbolism as a critical current that affected

Debussyists’ terminology and the symbolic ideal of listening to nature in music critique. The

third section analyses the concepts of continuity and discontinuity articulated to describe

musical features in philosophical and music-analytical discourses.

Some of the written sources that portray these listening and discursive conditions

include Claude Debussy’s text Monsieur Croche Antidillettante12 and some sections of Jean

Barraqué’s thesis on Debussy’s music (compiled in Écrits13 and Debussy et la evolution de

la musique au XXe siècle14). Debussy’s text Monsieur Croche and French critique, compiled

by Christian Goubault,15 present symbolic language. In addition, in the mid-20th century,

French composers began applying the concept of discontinuity to their writings on music.

These composers’ writings include their ideas on composition and also musical analyses of

other composers’ works. In particular, Jean Barraqué, who was involved in the CNRS,

analysed Debussy’s work La mer as part of his thesis. Similarly, Pierre Boulez explained his

ideas on musical time related to the concepts of continuity and discontinuity in Penser à la

musique d’ajourd’hui (1963).16 Boulez’s writings are not directly connected to

Jankélévitch’s texts, however, they are an example of a written source that shows a concern

with the concepts of continuity and discontinuity in music in France in the 1960s.

Likewise, written sources explain socio-historical and scientific factors that triggered

attention in music listening in France. François-Joseph Fétis, as one of the first

musicologists, had already addressed an attentive listening practice in Parisian opera and

concert halls in the 19th century.17 Furthermore, perceptual processes had generally become

more attentive since the Scientific Revolution.18 Concerning listening, Benjamin Steege

points out how sound experiments undertaken in the 1860s by German scholars such as

Hermann von Helmholtz required a higher level of listening attention.19 In particular,

Alexandra Kieffer signs to sound experimentation as a particular influence on French

12 Debussy, Monsieur Croche, Antidilettante. 13 Jean Barraqué, Écrits (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2001), 603. 14 Weber and Colloques internationaux du CNRS, Sciences humaines, Debussy au XXe Siècle. 15 Christian Goubault, La Critique Musicale dans la Presse Française de 1870 à 1914 (Genève

etc.: Slatkine, 1984). 16 Pierre Boulez, Penser la Musique Aujourd'Hui, [Réimpr.] ed. (Paris: Denoël/Gonthier, 1977). 17 James H. Johnson, Listening in Paris: A Cultural History (Berkeley etc.: University of California

Press, 1995). 18 Crary, Suspensions of Perception. 19 Steege, Helmholtz and the Modern Listener.


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critique.20 In this chapter, written sources provide historical discourses to trace

Jankélévitch’s writing style and show factors that determine an attentive music listening

completely established in Debussy’s and Jankélévitch’s times.

Vladimir Jankélévitch’s discourse was produced in a context where attentive music

listening was a common practice. His discourse is also an example of convergence of music

critique which was developed in the early 20th century and music-analytical discourse that

arose around the 1950s in France. The discourse comprises the use of symbolic and

metaphorical language and the articulation of continuity and discontinuity according to

music analysis. All in all, the listening and discursive conditions analysed in this chapter

determined Jankélévitch’s writings on Debussy.

1. Attentive music listening

At this point, it is important to consider that audiences actively practiced an attentive

music listening in Debussy’s times. In Monsieur Croche, Antidilettante, Debussy describes

Parisian audiences as attentive ears (oreilles attentives).21 According to Alexandra Kieffer,

for Debussy, listening was based on ‘heightened acuity and aliveness’. However, this had

been a general practice in Western European musical culture since Romanticism.22 Indeed,

James H. Johnson locates the shift towards an attentive listening in French opera around the

1770s. Since then, the degree of attentiveness in listening progressively increased as a result

of different historical facts.

An attentive music listening was predominant in France in the 19th century and early

20th century due to socio-political issues and the reception of theories which resulted from

sound experimentation in Germany. The basis of this development occurred when new social

attitudes and the access of the bourgeoisie triggered new habits of listening in opera. ‘The

artistic considerations of sight lines and sound were a growing preoccupation among

spectators in the closing decades of the [18th] century. [...] Spectators in the 1770s reported

something new in audiences’ behaviour: genuine attentiveness’.23 This was the initial step

in an attentive listening practice, which was also encouraged by the birth of public concerts

20 Alexandra Kieffer, "Riemann in France: Jean Marnold and the “Modern” Music-Theoretical

Ear," Music Theory Spectrum 38, no. 1 (2016), 1-15.; Alexandra Kieffer, "The Debussyist Ear.

Listening, Representation, and French Musical Modernism," 19th-Century Music 39, no. 1 (2015),

56-79. 21 Debussy, Monsieur Croche, Antidilettante, 57. 22 Kieffer, "The Debussyist Ear," 56. 23 Johnson, Listening in Paris, 55-59.


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of instrumental music. Thereafter, the experimental results of Hermann von Helmholtz and

Hugo Riemann on sound became known in France in the early 20th century,24 when

translations in French of some of their writings were completed. Attentive listening was a

requirement for sound experimentation. In order to obtain valid deductions from

experimentation, it was necessary to apply a high degree of attention to the studied sonic

event.25 French audiences knew about Helmholtz’s ideas through the compilation of his

theories in newspapers and magazines.26 Hence, attentive listening had been rising in France

as a result of socio-political conditions but it was also encouraged by new listening

requirements for scientific experimentation developed in Germany.

On this basis, it can be concluded that listening attention in music was a practice

developed in France towards the late 18th century. Listening practices in opera and concert

halls in France conceived a certain degree of attention that significantly grew towards the

end of the 19th century. The interest of the bourgeoisie in witnessing the musical atmosphere,

which was previously preserved for the nobility, made listening attention thrive. In addition,

the increase of experimentation in science also required a higher degree of attentiveness to

obtain valid results. At the same time, it produced a discourse which could influence the

articulation of terms such as impression and sensation in musicological writings.

1.1. The concept of sensation in Debussyists and experimentalists’ discourses

Jonathan Crary explains that, as an increasing concern in experimentation, listening

attentiveness also influenced the meaning of sensation. ‘The model of an attentive human

observer that dominated the empirical sciences from the 1880s on, was also inseparable from

a radically transformed notion of what constitutes sensation for a human subject’.27 In

general, sensation had been related to feelings located in the inner self until the 18th century.

However, Helmholtz deduced a new meaning of sensation in relation to sound

experimentation results.28 Helmholtz’s meaning of sensation entails the most external part

of the human perception system, the ear, which is understood as a machine. Consequently,

he proposed that perception of a sound event (musical or not) depends on the human’s

perceptive system so that listening is subjective.

24 Kieffer, "The Debussyist Ear," 56-79. 25 Steege, Helmholtz and the Modern Listener, 48-49. 26 Ibid. 27 Crary, Suspensions of Perception, 26. 28 Steege, Helmholtz and the Modern Listener, 77.


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In particular, in French musical thought the meaning of sensation varied between the

18th and the 19th century from referring to the inner self and closer to the French term

sensibility (sensibilité)29 to depending on perception of the outer world. The latter

significance is observed in Debussyists’ critique and in Jankélévitch’s books on Debussy.

According to Alexandra Kieffer, Debussyism (Debussysme) as ‘musical-historical

phenomenon’ or critique current was developed between 1901 and 1910.30 It involved

French critics, Debussyists, who eagerly discussed Debussy’s music. Marianne Wheeldon

explains that Debussyists included Debussy and his supporters,31 however, Kieffer asserts

that some of them occasionally criticised him. For instance, Louis Laloy and Jean Marnold

generally defended Debussy’s compositional style. Similarly, Jankélévitch praises

Debussy’s figure as a composer. On the other hand, Pierre Lalo, for example, was more

critical, especially after the publication of Debussy’s work La mer in 1905.32 This thesis

mainly considers the arguments of Laloy, Marnold and Lalo among Debussyists. In

particular, Louis Laloy uses sensation as a mediator between nature and the subject listener.33

Pierre Lalo also portrays this meaning of sensation in his critique of Debussy’s work La

mer.34 As in Jankélévitch’s books, these critiques do not clarify the state of the sonic material

although they agree on situating sensation between a listening act to the outer world and the

musical result in Debussy’s composition.

Furthermore, Alexandra Kieffer suggests the influence of Helmholtz’s definition of

sensation in Debussyists’ critique. She argues that there are historical sources that evidence

the spread of Helmholtz’s discourse within French scholarship since around 1900.35

Helmholtz proposed a distinction between the spiritual ear, which designates the human’s

body region of the mind and relates to sound perception, and the material ear, which regards

the ear as an organ. Taking into account this distinction, sensation is what the sound becomes

in the material ear when a sound wave is processed in the cochlear nerve.36 Indeed, the

introduction of Helmholtz and Riemann’s ideas in France in the first years of the 1900s could

have been a factor that supported Debussyists’ articulation of the terms sensation and

29 Ibid.; Kieffer, "The Debussyist Ear," 59. 30 Kieffer, "The Debussyist Ear," 58. 31 Marianne Wheeldon, "Anti-Debussyism and the Formation of French Neoclassicism," Journal of

the American Musicological Society 70, no. 2 (2017), 433. 32 Kieffer, "The Debussyist Ear," 58. 33 Ibid. 34 Goubault, La Critique Musicale dans la Presse Française, 366. 35 Ibid. 36 Steege, Helmholtz and the Modern Listener, 62-72.


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impression. Helmholtz’s definition of immediate impressions could have affected

Debussyists’ articulation of the term.37 In addition, the Debussyist Jean Marnold translated

Helmholtz’s formulation of the German term Klang for resonance (résonance).38 However,

neither did Debussyists nor Jankélévitch reflect this definition in their writings. Moreover,

the figurative use of the term sensation in Debussyists’ discourse prevents from assuming

that they shared Helmholtz’s definition of sensation. All in all, certain ideas developed by

German experimentalists in early sound physiology and psychology could promote the use

of the terms sensation and impression in Debussyists’ music critique but, in any case, the

meaning of these terms is not equally precise in both discourses.

The articulation of sensation and impression is one of the discursive commonalities

between Jankélévitch’s and Debussyists’ critique on Debussy. Likewise, Debussyists and

also Jankélévitch convey Debussy’s ideal of listening to nature. This is a symbolic

articulation of a new practice of composition focused on the outer world instead of personal

feelings which is explained further in the following section.

2. Symbolism

2.1. Debussy’s listening to nature as a symbolic ideal

In Monsieur Croche Antidilettante,39 Debussy illustrates a listening perspective

which asserts attentiveness in the experience of listening to nature. Apart from being a

composer, Debussy himself was a prolific music critic. He showed his ideas on musical

composition as an aesthetic process and proposed critique on others composers’ music in

this book. It is not possible to deduce if he considered himself as a symbolist composer,

however, he explains a particular idea of listening. It consists on adopting an attentive

listening to the sounds in nature.40 Debussy contemplates this listening perspective as an

essential part of the compositional procedure. He insisted on defending the compositional

ideal of ‘write only what you hear’. ‘Musicians do not listen to anything else than music

written by dextrous hands, they never listen to music inscribed in nature’.41 This shows that

37 Kieffer, "Riemann in France," 10. 38 Ibid. 39 Debussy, Monsieur Croche, Antidilettante. 40 Ibid. 41 ‘Les musiciens n’écoutent que la musique écrite par des mains adroites, jamais celle qui est

inscrite dans la nature.’

Ibid.

Translations from French of quotes and citations of Vladimir Jankélévitch’ and Henri Bergson’s

texts are my own unless otherwise stated.


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the ideal of listening to nature is a symbolic expression of his idea of composition. The ideal

of listening to nature, to the outer world, as an inspirational step in composition was a way

to express the idea that refuses internal feelings as a musical inspiration.42

French critique rapidly incorporated Debussy’s ideal of listening to nature. The origin

of the ideal took place in the early 20th century and was affected by Symbolism critique, but

it appeared in scholarship at least until the 1960s in French critique.43 This is an important

remark because it indicates that Jankélévitch knew about this ideal, which is compiled in his

books on Debussy.

In fact, symbolist critique influenced music critique, including Debussyism, in

France during the first years of the 20th century. Jean Moréas launched the symbolist

manifesto in 1886. Symbolism lasted until around the 1890s, however, scholars also showed

symbolic features in their writings, especially in France, during the following years.

Symbolism initially was a literary current but it spread as a tool for reflecting upon diverse

artistic disciplines such as music, literature and painting. Nevertheless, Symbolists were

interested in portraying their ideas in formats such as newspapers and magazines rather than

books. According to Erin M. Williams, this was possible since a new law on publishing

became more permissive in France, which was a determinant factor for the thriving of

Symbolism as a current of thought. Precisely, the newspaper Mercure de France was

conceived as a medium to transmit the meaning of art works such as paintings and

compositions to the audience.44 The edition of this newspaper showed Symbolists’

enthusiasm for a collaboration between the arts. ‘Their [Symbolists’] efforts to provide a

philosophical explanation for Symbolist aesthetics across diverse media was a large part of

the journal’s early success and signed a changed role for the critic at the fin-de-siècle’.45

Considering a similar idea, Louis Laloy launched the Mercure musical in 1902, following

the Mercure de France. This publication became an essential medium to communicate music

critique, especially on Debussy.46

The articulation of language in Symbolists’ texts derives from their refusal of the

empirical world. Symbolists’ main idea is the rejection of the mimetic role of the arts. In

other words, the purpose of the arts is to depict transcendental or spiritual entities through

42 Kieffer, "The Debussyist Ear," 56-79. 43 Weber and Colloques internationaux du CNRS, Sciences humaines, Debussy au XXe Siècle, 193. 44 Erin M. Williams, "Signs of Anarchy: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Symbolist Critic at the

Mercure De France, 1890- 95," French Forum 29, no. 1 (2004), 45-47. 45 Ibid. 46 Kieffer, "The Debussyist Ear," 58.


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suggestive images, sounds, et cetera.47 Arts cannot imitate tangible objects of the reality.

Instead, they refer to abstract ideas by their association to imagined perceptions of natural

objects or facts. This results in an epistemological concern regarding the meaning of certain

concepts.48 Generally, concepts have an associated significance which, although arbitrary, is

highly concrete. However, Symbolists were looking for a lower degree of concretion of

significance than the usual one. As a result, the meaning of the terms that they used for

describing a transcendental reality is not literal; it grants certain freedom of interpretation.

Symbolists’ epistemological concern influenced the discourse of Debussyists and

Jankélévitch. Regarding the use of language, there are similarities between their discourse

on Debussy and Symbolists’ discourse on other arts. This epistemological characteristic of

Jankélévitch’s discourse on Debussy requires interpretation of certain terminology to

understand his descriptions of musical features and, consequently, deduce characteristics of

his listening to Debussy’s music. It is possible to interpret the meaning of these terms by

understanding the associations that he establishes between symbolically used terms and

musical features.

All in all, Jankélévitch’s discourse shows a combination of symbolist language

originated in Debussyists’ discourse and more concise terminology from music-analytical

discourses. Whereas he symbolically articulates the expression of listening to nature and the

terms immediacy and objectivity to refer to Debussy’s musical features, continuity and

discontinuity respond to a more concrete significance that is also presented in music analysis.

Jankélévitch associates discontinuity to particular musical features that are

encountered in Debussy’s music such as harmonic stasis and prelude as form. He relates

harmonic stasis to particular dispositions of chords. Prelude as form presents a significance

that shows coincidence with Jean Barraqué’s idea of open form (forme ouverte) in his

analysis of Debussy’s music. Whilst symbolic language derives from music critique, music

analysis and philosophical currents of French thought present the concept of discontinuity.

3. Continuity and discontinuity in philosophy and music analysis in France

The discussion on continuity and discontinuity has taken place in French philosophy

of music since the first half of the 20th century. These terms have been articulated or

indirectly recalled by Henri Bergson and Ivan Wyschnegradsky in the early 20th century and

47 Jennifer L. Shaw, 'Symbolism', New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Vol. 5, (Gale Virtual

Reference Library, 2005), 2278. 48 Williams, "Signs of Anarchy," 45-68.


17

Pierre Boulez and Jean Barraqué in the mid-20th century. In the musical treaty La loi de la

pansonorité (1924),49 the composer Ivan Wyschnegradsky stated that continuity and

discontinuity are characteristics which are attributed to frequency, intensity and duration. In

the musical treaty Penser à la musique d’aujourd’hui (1963),50 the composer Pierre Boulez

explains the terms of smooth and striated, which he associates to continuity and discontinuity

respectively. Nevertheless, only the writings by Bergson and Barraqué present similar ideas

on these terms to Jankélévitch’s ideas. In any case, the concepts of continuity and

discontinuity were commonly articulated in French scholarship in relation to music in the

20th century and present several relations and ideas that vary within philosophy and music

analysis.

Henri Bergson’s Essai sur les données immédiats de la conscience (1913) presented

in philosophy the terms continuity and discontinuity in association to time as a magnitude.

Bergson connects continuity to duration (durée) whereas discontinuity refers to a fragment

of duration.51 In fact, Jankélévitch exclusively relies on Bergson’s concept of durée to

portray the meaning of continuity and discontinuity. Nevertheless, discontinuity was

specifically introduced in musical discourses to describe musical features, such as

Barraqué’s music analyses. Due to the common relations that Jankélévitch and Barraqué

establish between discontinuity and particular musical features, Barraqué’s explanations of

continuity and discontinuity are valid in understanding the meaning of these terms in

Jankélévitch’s discourse.

Regarding musical features and the concepts of continuity and discontinuity, Jean

Barraqué’s idea of note-sound (note-son) outlines the characteristic of a note apart from its

pitch height. One of the purposes of his analysis of Debussy’s music was to define the

hierarchical relationships between tones. In his analysis he described two types of notes,

note-tone (note-ton) and note-sound (note-son). The first refers to the hierarchical position

of the note in a musical scale, as a grade or tone, whilst the latter points to other parameters

of the note contributing to its sonority, such as timbre.52 The premise of this classification is

to understand notes as independent entities; that is to say, outside their intervallic functions.

The new consideration of note-sound regarded other of its characteristics rather than pitch

49 Ivan Wyschnegradsky, La Loi de la Pansonorité, ed. Franck Jedrzejewski and Pascale Citron

(Genève: Éditions Contrechamps, 1996). 50 Boulez, Penser la Musique Aujourd’hui. 51 Henri Bergson, Essai sur les Données Immédiates de la Conscience, 23e éd. (Paris: Félix Alcan,

1924). 52 Weber and Colloques internationaux du CNRS, Sciences humaines, Debussy au XXe Siècle, 93.


18

height and tonal function.53 Although Barraqué assumes that the concepts of note-tone and

note-sound are accurate to describe serialist music, he recognises that these terms cannot be

adopted to describe Debussy’s music in every situation. All in all, his reflection to deduce

the terms portrays an analysis of Debussy’s music in a micro-level according to the concept

of discontinuity.

Considering a music work from a broad perspective, in a macro-level, Barraqué

articulated the idea of open form (forme ouverte) in relation to discontinuity. This idea of

form comprises a particular combination of elements in a micro-level that was based on

discontinuity. ‘A thorough study of a Debussyist work demonstrates the impossibility of

existence on itself maintained by a linear and continuous development of one of the musical

parameters’.54 This statement shows that he conceived Debussy’s works as a combination of

discontinuities of different musical parameters individually observed.55

Similarly, Jankélévitch supports prelude as a form which, as Barraqué’s idea of open

form, rejects exposition and development as contrasting parts of the musical structure.

Traditionally, the relation between exposition and development in sonata form implied a

progressive order. Barraqué’s idea of form in Debussy’s music does not create a discursive

interpretation of the work in a macro-level. ‘In Debussy’s music, form cannot be understood

anymore like a succession or a progressive acquisition by a chain of ideas’.56 Barraqué

identifies this conception of form in the fusion between the development and exposition of

La mer.57 The following chapter presents Jankélévitch’s idea of form, which is similar to

Barraqué’s.

In conclusion, according to historical conditions, an attentive music listening

determines Jankélévitch’s critique on Debussy. His discourse is articulated by symbolist

language and terms such as discontinuity and stasis, which appear in the discourses of

Debussyists and music analysts respectively. Debussyism was the origin of Debussy’s music

critique, which was developed in France in the early 20th century and influenced by the

parallel development of Symbolism as a literary and critique current of thought. In contrast,

53 Bill Hopkins, "Barraqué and the Serial Idea," Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 105

(1978), 16. 54 ’Une étude approfondie de l’ouvre debussyste démontre l’impossibilité d’existence “en soi”,

maintenue par développement linéaire et continu, d’un des paramètres musicaux’. Barraqué, Écrits,

280. 55 Ibid. 56‘Chez Debussy, la forme ne peux plus être comprise comme une succession ou une acquisition

progressive par enchaînement d’idées’. Barraqué, Écrits, 280. 57 Weber and Colloques internationaux du CNRS, Sciences humaines, Debussy au XXe Siècle, 130.


19

in the 1950s, music analysis and musical thought introduced the concept of discontinuity to

describe musical features. As a result, Jankélévitch’s discourse is triggered by an attentive

listening and influenced by Debussyists’ critique and French music analysis.

Listening attention was triggered among operatic audiences in France since the

1770s. In addition, the flourishing of sound experimentation and the translation of

experimental results into French reinforced attentiveness in listening in the early 20th century

in France. As a result, music listening was highly attentive in Debussy’s time.

Helmholtz’s sound experiments proposed a new conception of sensation that

considered the ear as a main agent in sound perception whereas the study of the mind was

partially dismissed. In comparison, first Debussy’s critics, Debussyists, adopted a

conception of sensation which also avoided references to the human’s mind agency in

perceptive processes in composition. Nevertheless, there are several differences between the

concept of sensation triggered in sound experimentation by Helmholtz and Debussyists’

conception. Firstly, Helmholtz shows a clear definition of the term whereas Debussyists

apply it non-literally. Secondly, whilst Helmholtz considers listening as a subjective process,

depending on the subject’s ear capacities, Debussyists are not concerned by this aspect. All

in all, the concept of sensation shifts in France from referring to personal feelings to a sort

of knowledge triggered by the perception of the outer world.

The findings of this chapter indicate that Jankélévitch’s texts require interpretation

and the meaning of its language cannot be literally considered. Symbolism influenced

Debussyists’ discourse and, consequently, Jankélévitch’s. Firstly, due to its epistemological

particularity, symbolist language requires interpretation to grasp its whole meaning. In

Jankélévitch’s discourse not all the specified terms are symbolically articulated to the same

degree. In particular, the articulation of ideas such as Debussy’s listening to nature or

musical immediacy require interpretation. According to Debussyists’ discourse, this idea and

term symbolically portray an ideal of Debussy’s compositional process that avoids personal

feelings as an inspiration for composition.

Jankélévitch portrays this ideal of Debussy’s compositional processes through

symbolically articulated terms such as immediacy and objectivity that were originated in

Debussyism. In addition, he applies continuity and discontinuity and stasis to describe music,

which are concepts encountered in music analysis. In particular, Barraqué’s explanations of

discontinuity will serve to understand Jankélévitch’s use of the term and analyse his

perspective on attentiveness in listening.


20

II. Variability in the boundaries of attention in listening

Jankélévitch’s texts on Claude Debussy present us with a historical source that

unfolds two fundamental ideas. One of them considers variability of the focus of attention

in music listening. The other regards an ideal of Debussy’s compositional process where he

neglects personal feelings as an inspirational source. Jankélévitch does not directly imply

these thoughts but they can be deduced from the analysis of the concepts that he coins in his

writings in relation to Debussy’s music. The previous chapter, which examines discourses

that articulate these terms, supports the analysis of Jankélévitch’s texts in this second

chapter. The first idea, which constitutes the focus of this thesis, depends on the classification

of musical features as continuous or discontinuous. Discontinuity appears in Jean Barraqué’s

music analysis of Debussy’s music and is also applied by Jankélévitch in relation to musical

features such as harmony, melody and form. Whereas Barraqué classifies most of Debussy’s

musical features as discontinuous, Jankélévitch accepts that the same musical feature can be

continuous or discontinuous depending on the focus extent of an attentive listening.

The second idea is symbolically articulated by the term of musical immediacy and

the expression of listening to nature. Musical immediacy and listening to nature were coined

as a symbolic term and expression respectively in Debussyists’ musical critique in the early

20th century. According to Debussyism, musical immediacy and the ideal of listening to

nature explain a compositional process in which the composer avoids inspiring his music in

the knowledge originated in their inner self such as personal thoughts or feelings.

Additionally, Jankélévitch coins his own term, presence-absence, to convey his view on

variability of an attentive listening and the idea of a compositional process that avoids

personal feelings as inspirational source. This chapter also includes the analysis of presence-

absence in Debussy’s music accomplished by Carolyn Abbate and Julian Johnson although

they specifically refer to music with text. All in all, this chapter presents these two main

thoughts as a result from an interpretation of Jankélévitch’s books Debussy et le mystère

(1949) and La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy (1968) in accordance to the

meaning of discontinuity, immediacy and listening to nature in musicological written

sources that were explored in chapter I.

In Debussy et le mystère and La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy

Jankélévitch presents a critique on Claude Debussy and his music. He describes musical

features by relating descriptions of sonic events of the real world expressed in a poetic style

to particular musical examples. These descriptions are dismissed in the thesis because they


21

require symbolic interpretation. Furthermore, Jankélévitch articulates an array of concepts

in different sections that include musical immediacy (l’immédiat), objectivity (l’objectivité),

instant (l’instant en instance), stasis (stagnance), continuity (continuité), discontinuity

(discontinuité) and presence-absence (présence-absence) in reference to Debussy’s music.

Nonetheless, Jankélévitch does not define these terms and their articulation is sometimes

symbolic or metaphorical. Whereas musical immediacy and objectivity are symbolically

articulated and instant is metaphorically applied, stasis, continuity and discontinuity relate

to Debussy’s music more concisely. Presence-absence is particularly unique because it has

a symbolic meaning similar to the ideal of listening to nature and, at the same time, literally

refers to the state of being of sound in music. For this reason, it is necessary to provide an

interpretation of the concepts in relation to other discourses to grasp their meaning and

deduce Jankélévitch’s idea of listening to Debussy’s music.

This chapter analyses selected sections of these two books written by Vladimir

Jankélévitch. Both books have three chapters with different sections, introducing terms that

Jankélévitch relates to Debussy’s music. Some of them, which appear in the former book,

such as musical immediacy and objectivity, are revisited in La vie et la mort dans la musique

de Debussy. However, only in the second book Jankélévitch provides a section that portrays

his understanding of discontinuity. In particular, the content of the second chapter, Le

mystère de midi of Debussy et le mystère (1949) provides the foundation for understanding

Jankélévitch’s critique on Debussy. The concepts and ideas discussed in this chapter are

displayed again in the first and second chapters of the second book, La vie et la mort dans

la musique de Debussy (1968). This content is the object of analysis of this chapter. In

addition, both books present a third chapter that contains Jankélévitch’s descriptions of

certain passages of Debussy’s works. In particular, Jankélévitch’s statements on Reflets dans

l’eau, which are presented in the third chapter of La vie et la mort dans la musique de

Debussy, exemplify how discontinuity is related to musical features depending on the focus

of attentiveness in listening. This part of the second book is object of analysis of the third

chapter of the thesis, which looks at this book section in relation to a new proposal of music

analysis of Reflets dans l’eau.

My analysis of the books, provided here, disentangles the meaning of Jankélévitch’s

concepts to derive his ideas on Debussy’s music composition and listening procedures. This

chapter is organised in different sections that analyse the meaning of each term in the same

order in which Jankélévitch presents them in the books. Additionally, the first section

introduces Jankélévitch’s conception of Debussy as a composer by taking into account how


22

he articulates sensation, which was analysed in chapter I. Subsequent sections convey the

meaning of the concepts. The first of Jankélévitch's addressed concepts is immediacy, which

alludes to a characteristic of a compositional process in which the composer’s personal

feelings are not imprinted in music. The second is objectivity, which explains Debussy’s

avoidance of symbolic significance in composition so that music remains inspired only by

the outer world. The third is instant, which is an indivisible segment of time in comparison

to Henri Bergson’s view on durée. Instant is compared to discontinuity, which implies the

idea of indivisibility in different musical features. In relation to musical harmony and form,

stasis refers to a discontinuous harmonic passage and prelude is a discontinuous musical

form. Lastly, presence-absence concerns physical or figurative state of being of the subject

or sounds in music.

According to the main point of the thesis, the aim of the chapter is to analyse

Jankélévitch’s text to infer characteristics of an attentive listening to Debussy’s music.

Chapter I demonstrated that attentive music listening was a common practice among

audiences in France in Jankélévitch and Debussy’s times. Besides, a reading of

Jankélévitch’s text implies conditions of listening to Debussy’s music according to the

interpretation of discontinuity and harmonic stasis that regards their meaning in discourses

analysed in chapter I. The analysis of Jankélévitch’s discourse on musical immediacy and

the ideal of listening to nature support his view on Debussy as a composer but it does not

explain characteristics of listening. All in all, the analysis of the concepts of discontinuity

and presence-absence entails variants of an attentive listening to Debussy’s music.

The interpretation of discontinuity and presence-absence reflects the possibility of

different boundaries of attention in listening. Stasis, continuity and discontinuity literally

point features of Debussy’s music such as melody, harmony and form. Although

Jankélévitch vaguely relates discontinuity to features of Debussy’s music in Debussy et le

mystère, he specifically states that melody, harmony and form are discontinuous in

Debussy’s music in the second chapter of La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy.

Moreover, at the end of the second book, Jankélévitch admits that qualifying a musical

feature as continuous or discontinuous depends on the point of view, that is, on the listening

perspective of the subject. A musical feature is defined as continuous or discontinuous

depending on the boundaries of the listener’s attention. Similarly, presence-absence of sound

acquires a certain degree of significance depending on listening attention. In compound

form, presence-absence means physicality of sound. In any case, discontinuity and

continuity and presence-absence describe sound events which vary on the boundaries of


23

listening attention. As a result, Jankélévitch presents a double perspective of listening

attention.

The analysis of Jankélévitch’s text suggests an attentively narrow perspective of

listening to Debussy’s music and an attentively broad perspective. The former is related to

the identification of discontinuity in musical features and bears a higher degree of freedom

of musical interpretation. The latter is based on the interpretation of musical features within

continuity. The concept of presence-absence also responds to this double perspective. A

narrow perspective of listening provides variable degrees of presence against a broad

listening focused on identifying comparisons between music elements that sustain a

discursive interpretation. Consequently, a broad attentive listening results in an

interpretation constituted in a flow of ideas whereas a narrow perspective affords a fixed

musical idea.

1. Debussy as a composer

Jankélévitch considers the reduction of Debussy’s human agency in music as a

precondition in his compositional process. Jankélévitch’s description of Debussy’s aesthetic

agency as a listener and composer is imprecise. He basically describes Debussy as a mere

intermediary between physical reality or physical presence of sound and music. He states

that ‘Debussy affirms: music is not made for the paper but for the ear, it is not a graphic

abstraction, it is an aural reality’.58 This quote refers to Debussy’s statement portrayed in

chapter I59 where he affirms that composers should only ‘write only what they hear’. This

shows that Jankélévitch supports that Debussy’s intention in composition was to portray in

music what he listened to in the world. Musical immediacy and objectivity also express this

conception. Before the analysis of these terms, Jankélévitch’s use of sensation is observed

because it reveals a similar concern regarding inspiration in composition.

The articulation of the concept of sensation in the texts of Jankélévitch and

Debussyists points to the outer world as object of inspiration for composition. The meaning

of sensation in Jankélévitch’s discourse is vague but presents similarities to Debussyists’ use

of the term, which was presented in chapter I.60 According to Debussyists, sensation refers

to the state of sound between nature and the musical result that it inspires. In the transcription

58 ‘Debussy affirme: la musique n’est pas faite pour le papier, mais pour l’oreille; ce n’est pas une

abstraction graphique, c’est une réalité auditive.’

Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 88. 59 See page 14. 60 See pages 12 and 13.


24

process of sensation, the human mind has a reduced action, that is to say, the composer’s

agency is reduced. Likewise, Jankélévitch frequently uses the term sensation to define the

state of sonic material perceived by Debussy when listening to the world that inspires his

works. This is deduced from Debussyists’ discourse due to the fact that Jankélévitch does

not explain the meaning of sensation. Nevertheless, it is true that he gives some hints on the

mental processes that occur in composition which are accomplished by the hearing sense

(sensorium), which interpretation understands Debussy’s composition process as presented

below.

Firstly, Debussy listens to sounds of the natural world. Sound sensations are triggered

in this listening. He uses data carried by these sensations as a source of inspiration for

composition. Jankélévitch assumes that Debussy knows how to distinguish between sound

sensation and personal thought. ‘Debussy has an innate extra-lucid sense by which the hale

of irrationality that surrounds the person’s presence and the existence of physique things

becomes perceptible for him’.61 After that, aesthetics act between the hearing sense

(sensorium) and sensation (qualité sensoriel). Likewise, sensations are organised by the

human mind in music according to a measured order.62 The role of the human mind in a

supposed listening to nature is reduced; however, it is active in the aesthetic process of

composition.

2. Concepts that symbolically reflect Debussy’s compositional ideal

The following paragraphs of this chapter interpret the meaning of the following

concepts: musical immediacy, objectivity and absence of Debussy’s voice in music.

Jankélévitch employs these concepts to explain his ideal of Debussy’s compositional

procedure. The language articulated by Jankélévitch to explain this is significantly implicit.

But the appliance of musical immediacy in other written sources clarifies the interpretation

of his ideas. As a result, musical immediacy, objectivity and absence of the human voice in

music entail the idea that Debussy’s music displays information inspired in sounds of the

real world instead of the composer’s personal thoughts.

61 ‘Debussy possède de naissance le sensorium extra-lucide grâce auquel le cerne de irrationnel qui

entoure la présence de la personne et l’existence des choses physiques lui déviant perceptible.’

Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 13. 62 Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 74.


25

2.1. Absence of Debussy’s voice in music

The concept of absence explains the idea that Debussy does not depict his personal

thought in music. The assumptions on Debussy’s compositional procedure crystallise in

Jankélévitch’s statement on the absence of Debussy’s voice in music. In Debussy’s music,

‘things are physically present, [...] – but the incarnated man [sic] is absent’.63 Jankélévitch

figuratively states that Debussy is absent in music. Figuratively or non-literally, the

incarnated man refers to Debussy and this quote means that he avoids reflecting his personal

thought in music. In other words, there are no traces of Debussy’s human agency in his music

because he accomplishes composition by a mere transcription of his sensations from his

listening to nature into music.

Julian Johnson’s analysis of presence-absence in Debussy’s early songs shows a

similar interpretation of absence. According to Johnson, absence pertains to an erasure of

the subject in music whereas presence points the emergence of the lyric subject in the sonic

landscape. Likewise, Johnson’s interpretation of the meaning of absence agrees with

Jankélévitch’s statement on absence. However, Johnson proposes a significance of the

concept of presence which is not encountered in Jankélévitch’s text. This is because

Johnson’s interpretation of presence relies on the appearance of the subject in the music

lyrics and Jankélévitch does not specifically address presence-absence in musical works with

text.64 Hence, from Johnson’s interpretation of presence-absence, only the meaning of

absence is similar to Jankélévitch’s.

2.2. Musical immediacy

Musical immediacy symbolically entails that Debussy neglects personal thoughts as

inspiration for composition. With regard to immediacy, Jankélévitch expresses the

possibility of accessing Debussy’s sensations by listening to his music. In addition, in the

section under the title the immediate (l’immédiat) Jankélévitch remarks: ‘the contact with

the real is even more direct when the man [sic] is absent’.65 Whilst Debussy is absent in

music, his music renders a more direct listening; that is, an immediate listening. Indeed,

according to Jankélévitch, musical immediacy procures absence of the human mind and

63 ‘Les choses son physiquement présents, [...] – mais l’homme incarné est absent.’

Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 98. 64 Julian Johnson, "Present Absence: Debussy, Song, and the Art of (Dis)Appearing," Nineteenth

Century Music 40, no. 3 (2017), 242-244. 65 ‘le contact avec le réel est plus direct encore en absence de l’homme’

Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 91.


26

access to sensation, which relate to the portrayal of the outer world in music instead of the

inner self.

Musical immediacy presents a similar meaning in musical critique written by French

20th century critics such as Pierre Lalo. He states that Debussy’s music is: ‘music of

immediacy, music that gives direct access to the whole of things’.66 This shows that

Debussy’s listening and composition processes were conceived by both Lalo and

Jankélévitch as adequate for allowing the listener to grasp the sounds of the real world that

inspired Debussy’s music.

Jankélévitch supports musical immediacy by rejecting Debussy’s use of symbolic

mediation in composition. ‘Evocation of reality is not, in Debussy’s music, a subjective

transportation of reality [...] the lower noises of total presence are transmitted through this

music almost directly; that is, without symbolic mediation’.67 Jankélévitch explains, symbols

are ‘things that are beyond themselves and which are not all what they signify’.68 He

understands that symbols afford the addition of significance to their meaning, carrying

unchangeable significance only to a certain extent. Due to the fact that Debussy’s process of

composition, according to Jankélévitch, does not involve symbolic significance, only

information deduced from sensations is used to evoke the real world in music. This

explanation proposes a definition of symbol and, at the same time, reinforces Jankélévitch’s

idea of Debussy’s compositional procedure music inspired in the outer world and refuses

knowledge originated within the composer’s mind.

2.3. Objectivity

Besides being immediate, Jankélévitch supports that Debussy’s management of sonic

material and sensation in composition is objective. Jankélévitch considers that the

apprehended knowledge from the outer world is objective whereas one’s inner mind’s

thoughts are subjective knowledge. This is the reason why he qualifies Debussy’s listening

to the world and composition process as objective. Nevertheless, according to Helmholtz’s

conception of the material ear, which analyses sound perception by focusing on the

66 Alexandra Kieffer, "The Debussyist Ear," 60. 67 Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 87.

‘L’évocation de la réalité n’est pas, chez Debussy, une transposition subjective de cette réalité [...]

les moindres bruits de la présence totale nous sont transmis dans cette musique presque

directement, c’est-à-dire sans médiation symbolique.’ 68 ‘choses qui sont chacun au delà d’elle-même et qui ne sont pas tout c’est qu’elles signifient.’

Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 14.


27

connection between the outer world and the subject, listening is subjective.69 This means

that the meaning of objectivity does not imply that Debussy’s perception of the outer world

is truthful. In any case, the relevant aspect of Jankélévitch’s conception of objectivity refers

to the absence of Debussy’s thoughts as inspiration to compose music.

Musical immediacy and objectivity support the idea that Debussy inspires his

musical compositions by listening to the world so that the listener of his music can approach

Debussy’s sensations. Chapter I explains the origin of this ideal portrayed in critique on

Debussy and points towards the influence of Symbolism. This implies that this idea has a

symbolic meaning that requires interpretation to grasp its literal meaning. Its significance

does not literally imply that a listener to Debussy’s music can access Debussy’s sensation

produced by his listening to the outer world. Instead, this means that critics and

musicologists, including Jankélévitch, defended that listening to Debussy’s music did not

trigger significance related to personal feelings.

Whereas the first part of the analysis of Jankélévitch’s texts concerns one of the two

derived ideas and reflects a transmitted discourse in Debussy’s critique, the second part of

the analysis considers concepts that directly relate to musical features. This second part of

the chapter includes Jankélévitch’s descriptions of musical features of Debussy’s music in

relation to continuity and discontinuity.

3. Concepts that describe musical features in music analysis

3.1. Instant, continuity and discontinuity

Jankélévitch presents instant and stasis in the second chapter of Debussy et le mystère

and discontinuity in La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy to describe a similar

aspect. These three terms refer to musical features with a different degree of metaphorical

meaning. The concept of instant frequently presents a metaphorical use in Jankélévitch’s

musical descriptions. In comparison, discontinuity and stasis literally refer to musical

features. The following paragraph explains the meaning of these three terms, which qualify

musical features as immobile and isolated entities in a more or less metaphorical way.

In La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy, Jankélévitch relates discontinuity

to the idea of instant, which is deduced from Henri Bergson’s concept of durée. ‘Pure durée

is the form that the succession of our conscience’s states adopts when it rejects establishing

69 Steege, Helmholtz and the Modern Listener, 62-77.


28

a separation between present and past states’.70 This is Bergson’s definition of durée and it

involves the human conscious’ conception of time. Since the human conscious cannot divide

time into different entities, durée is continuous time. On the other hand, Jankélévitch defines

instant metaphorically. He defines noon as an example of instant. Noon is the moment when

the subject observes the decline of the day and, simultaneously, it has not occurred yet.71

Likewise, an instant is a moment of time from which future is looked at by the subject but

has not yet been addressed. Consequently, Bergson’s definition of durée and Jankélévitch’s

conception of instant have opposite significance. Whilst durée implies an unmeasurable time

flow, instant conveys immobility or fragmented time. As a result, considering durée as

continuous time or continuity, Jankélévitch conceives an instant as an opposite of continuity;

that is to say, as a discontinuity.

Instant relates to stasis as a harmonic or formal characteristic in Debussy’s music.

Jankélévitch states, ‘Each Debussyist image is like an instant72 and static view on total

presence’.73 In this quote, Jankélévitch employs ‘Debussyist image (image debussyste)’ to

denominate the musical result inspired in Debussy’s compositional process. In addition, it

offers the musical result the characteristics of instantaneity and stasis. Whereas instantaneity

is a metaphorical characteristic and implies that the ‘Debussyist image (image debussyste)’

is discontinuous, stasis literally points to harmonic and formal musical features.74

Despite the fact that Jankélévitch does not make account of it, music analysis in

France has employed stasis and discontinuity to qualify musical features of Debussy’s music

since the 20th century. In its discourse, discontinuity is not defined but its meaning is explicit

and it is related to musical features. Whereas discontinuity relates to any musical feature or

parameter, stasis particularly refers to harmonic passages or form. As it was portrayed in

chapter I, according to Barraqué, stasis alludes to harmonic passages which do not change

over a period of musical time and open form (forme ouverte). Although Jankélévitch’s

conception of discontinuity and continuity depend at first instance on their connection to

instant, which is a metaphorical concept, he proposes associations between stasis and

discontinuity and musical characteristics that exist in Barraqué’s discourse. For example,

70 ‘La durée toute pure est la forme que prend la succession de nos états de conscience quand il

s’abstient d’établir une séparation entre l’état présent et les états antérieurs.’

Henri Bergson, Données Immédiates de la Conscience, 76-77. 71 Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 76-78.; Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 62-64. 72 Instant as an adjective 73 Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 32.

‘Chaque “image” debussyste est comme une vue instantanée et statique sur la “présence totale”.’ 74 Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 76.; Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 62.


29

pedal notes are defined as a feature denoting a harmonically static passage, which is

understood as a discontinuity. According to this similarity, the following section considers

the articulation of these terms in Barraqué’s music analysis to interpret their meaning in

Jankélévitch’s discourse.

3.2. Stasis and prelude as form

Pedal notes and juxtaposition of sevenths and ninths are harmonic characteristics

proposed by Jankélévitch to articulate stasis in music. In addition, Jankélévitch’s ideal of

Debussy as a tonal composer that developed non-tonal harmonic passages justifies the

identification of stasis in these harmonic passages. In Jankélévitch’s text, stasis relates to

discontinuity in a similar way than note-tone relates to discontinuity in Barraqué’s discourse.

According to Barraqué’s concept of note-tone, explained in chapter I,75 regarding harmonic

development as the relationships between different chords which are built upon the grades

of a scale, certain notes are discontinuous. Likewise, stasis occurs when a harmonically

defined entity or chord remains unchanged for a certain period of musical time. This idea

will be examined in further detail in chapter III. However, Jankélévitch does not state which

music theory he considers to define stasis. Hence, Jankélévitch proposes two examples of

harmonic structures, pedal notes and juxtaposition of sevenths and ninths, which are static

and contribute to discontinuity but he does not explain how they are musically related.

According to Jankélévitch, prelude is an alternative form to sonata that, in

comparison, is discontinuous and does not supply a music listening based on a connection

of different musical ideas. Jankélévitch expresses, ‘It is not surprising that Debussy hasn’t

liked the big structures founded by continuous time, sonata and symphony’.76 Whereas a

prelude is a discontinuous entity within continuous time, like an instant, sonata form is

continuity within time. Internally, sonata form is continuous because the development

section connects two contrasting elements, the exposition and the recapitulation.

Jankélévitch defends the connective role of the development to create discursive time in

sonata form. Time is discursive; that is, it articulates a continuum of dependent musical ideas

that progress from one to the other. Discursive time presents similarities with durée, which

conceives a continuum of thoughts. On the other hand, ‘Stasis and fear to discursive

75 See pages 17 and 18. 76 ‘Il n’est donc pas surprenant que Debussy ait médiocrement goûte les grandes constructions

fondées sur un temps continu, Sonate ou Symphonie.’



30

development have found in the prelude their privileged form’.77 This means that prelude, as

a discontinuity, does not afford a listening of a sound continuum internally based on

connected entities.

Barraqué’s musical analysis defines melodic, harmonic and formal musical aspects

in relation to discontinuity. However, only descriptions of harmonic and formal features in

music analysis present commonalities with Jankélévitch’s discourse and support the

interpretation of these terms. In contrast, the interpretation of Jankélévitch’s qualification of

melody as continuous or discontinuous depends on Bergson’s metaphorical comparison

between melody and durée. Bergson compares durée to melody and defines it as

continuous.78 Consequently, whilst Jankélévitch’s observations of harmonic and formal

features (harmonic stasis and prelude) serve to analyse these concepts in relation to music,

he does not portray the idea of continuity or discontinuity in melody in musical features or

examples.

Regarding melody, Jankélévitch defines Debussy’s arabesque as a discontinuous

structure but he does not explain its musical characteristics. Instead, he compares it to Franz

Liszt’s melodies, which he describes as continuous. They reflect Liszt’s inner thoughts.

Precisely, Bergson’s conception of durée, as continuity, conceives a succession of

conscience states which are, in other words, inner thoughts. Likewise, Jankélévitch relates

continuity to the portrayal of internal life in music. Whereas inner thoughts determine Liszt’s

melodies, Debussy’s melodies depend on his sensations granted by his listening to the outer

world and ensured by immediacy in music.79 As a result, Jankélévitch’s connects the

symbolical concept of musical immediacy to continuity and discontinuity.

The main idea of Jankélévitch’s texts is encountered at the end of La vie et la mort

dans la musique de Debussy, where his discourse shifts and considers continuity and

discontinuity as ambiguous characteristics of musical elements, depending on the listening

perspective. According to the analysis of Jankélévitch’s concepts of instant, stasis and

discontinuity, there are two perspectives of attentiveness in listening to Debussy’s music that

vary in the extent of the focus of attention. Considering continuity, a broad focus of attention

is adopted in listening. Independently of its affordance of meaning, this means that different

77 ‘Le “statisme” et la phobie du développement discursive ont trouvé dans le Prélude leur forme

privilégiée.’

Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 54. 78 Christophe Corbier, "Bachelard, Bergson, Emmanuel Mélodie, Rythme Et Durée," Archives De

Philosophie 75, no. 2 (2012), 3. 79 Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 70.


31

musical ideas that happen at different musical moments are perceived as a conjunction of

ideas. Listening to music occurs as a sound continuum. On the other hand, discontinuity

implies that a narrow focus of listening is momentarily adopted so that the listener identifies

a music event in itself, without comparing it to other entities. Musical features articulated as

discontinuities, as harmonically static passages, produce this listening whereas constantly

changing passages, as harmonically tonal passages, trigger continuity.

3.3. Connection between musical immediacy and discontinuity

In the main part of his discourse, Jankélévitch connects the concepts of musical

immediacy and discontinuity, which entangles his two main ideas in a particular way. As it

was explained in the previous section, discontinuity in music does not suggest a flow of

musical ideas. Instead, it affords an interpretation that evokes a unique entity. Regarding this

aspect, Jankélévitch affirms that sounds of the natural world listened by Debussy are

discontinuities. He assumes that discontinuity is preserved as a characteristic of the resultant

sounds that the natural world inspires in Debussy’s music by immediacy.80 In addition, he

states: ‘The pluralism of discontinuity is a direct consequence of immediacy’.81 This

supposes the connection between immediacy and discontinuity, which Jankélévitch clearly

expresses in La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy.

The analysis of Jankélévitch’s texts in this chapter and the analysis of the terms on

other discourses in chapter I explains the connection between musical immediacy and

discontinuity as a result of convergent discourses in Jankélévitch’s texts. The idea of musical

immediacy explains an ideal of compositional procedure assumed by music critique to

Debussy’s figure as a composer whereas the characterisation of Debussy’s music as

continuous or discontinuous responds to a philosophical discourse adopted in music analysis

in France. For this reason, in this analysis the two concepts have been isolated. Thereby,

perspectives of an attentive listening to Debussy’s music have been deduced in relation to

continuity and discontinuity. This perspective of an attentive listening is also conveyed by

Jankélévitch’s term of presence-absence, which is analysed in the following section.

80 Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 83-85. 81 ‘Le pluralisme de la discontinuité est la conséquence directe de la immédiateté’.



32

4. Presence-absence as a concept to convey Jankélévitch’s ideas

Previously quoted statements from Jankélévitch also reflect a literal meaning of the

term presence-absence, which refers to physical presence of sound. According to

Jankélévitch, Debussy transcribes the sounds of natural objects in the world that trigger

sensations into music as entities with a different degree of physical presence. Likewise,

sounds in the world have total presence and therefore their transcriptions in music always

have a lower degree of presence. Consequently, presence-absence serves to refer to the

musical result inspired in Debussy’s perceptions of the natural world.

With regard to sound physicality in music, presence and absence are not opposite

terms. Understanding presence as a state of being and absence as a state of not being, there

is the possibility of a way of being in-between these states. This implies that presence and

absence have different degrees of meaning. Presence-absence is introduced in the first

chapter of Debussy et le mystère and intermittently appears throughout the discourse. In this

section, Jankélévitch compares presence-absence to the concept of mystery, which suggests

a characteristic of the concept.

Comparing the term mystery of anguish to presence-absence explains the particular

ambiguity of presence-absence. Firstly, Jankélévitch defines mystery by comparing it to

death or secrets because they are entities that exist while the human mind cannot know what

they are. The human mind understands the meaning of the significant of these terms but does

not know the reality that they signal. Amongst these mysteries, ‘the mystery of anguish

means at the same time the presence of the absence and the absent-present, the inexistent

existence and the inexistence of the existence, the invisible presence of that which is not

there’.82 Mystery represents something which is being and not being at the same time. When

something provokes a mental state of anguish in the subject, they have in mind something

which is going to be but still is not, as death or unrevealed secrets. Consequently, presence-

absence signifies a simultaneous state of being and not being in a variable degree of balance

between both terms.

Furthermore, Johnson points out this portrayal of presence-absence in Debussy’s

works since around 1904. He asserts that, from that year onwards, it is possible to conceive

a different balance between presence and absence in Debussy’s music. Whereas in

Debussy’s early songs presence and absence are interpreted as opposite concepts, in his later

82 ‘Le mystère d’angoisse: ‘signifie à la fois la présence de la absence et l’absence-présente,

l’existence inexistante et l’inexistence de l’existence, la présence invisible de celui qui n’est pas là.’

Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 15.


33

works the interpretation of the concept shows a variable balance of significance that refers

to the sound state of being. ‘If the early songs oppose one [presence] against the other

[absence], the latter works present a more dynamic interaction replacing the hard either/or

of absence/presence with a continuous flickering between appearing and disappearing’.83 In

fact, Johnson attributes this observation to Jankélévitch, who refers to the idea that humans

cannot know things in themselves but on their appearance.

The interpretation of presence-absence in this chapter deduces that Jankélévitch

employs presence-absence with different degrees of figurative meaning. At some points on

the discourse he symbolically refers to the absence of Debussy’s human agency in music,

whereas other times he directly refers to physical presence of sound which is intuitively

apprehended by a listening to the musical fragment he appeals to. Considering this second

significance, he proposes that the physical presence of sounds in nature is objective but also

irrational and it is poetised in music by absence. This means that physical presence of sound

in nature is reflected in music as a less physically present entity than in the real world. It

becomes absent to some extent.84 To support this, Jankélévitch rejects naturalistic imitation

as a process for transcription of sounds of the world into music. The use of naturalistic

imitation would result in total physical presence of the sounds of the world in music because

imitation would result in an identical copy to its state in the world. As a result, the musical

results from a compositional process inspired by sounds of the outer world give musical

sounds with a lower degree of presence than the sound in which they are inspired in the real

world.

4.1. The effect of distance

The effect of distance exemplifies the literal significance of presence-absence in

reference to sonic material in music. This term regards how Debussy transcribes a particular

type of sensation into music. The effect of distance refers to a sensation produced by listening

to sounds in the world related to the perception of space. It is an ‘impression’ of immensity,

space and ‘plein air’.85 Jankélévitch explains how musical parameters, such as intensity, are

adjusted so that ‘the noises, in the Debussyist space, are brought closer, are put further, they

83 Johnson, "Present Absence: Debussy, Song, and the Art of (Dis)Appearing," Nineteenth Century

Music 40, no. 3 (2017), 255. 84 Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 75. 85 Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 59.


34

go from presence to absence before they are extinguished in the original silence’.86 He adds

that sounds finally disappear by the continuous action of this effect. This supposes that there

is a progressive change of the presence-absence state of sonorities in music when the effect

of distance occurs.

Jankélévitch explains that the effect of distance is articulated by a particular use of

dynamics and harmony. Regarding harmonic features, a distant note that appears in between

a tonal passage produces an effect of distance. This is dependent on harmonic functions,

where relations are established according to the tonal functions between the chords built

upon the different grades of a major or minor scale. Jankélévitch proposes numerous

examples of the effect of distance in different Debussy’s works. One of the examples is taken

from Reflets dans l’eau. In this piano piece, Jankélévitch signals to a melodic motif at the

end of the piece (m.79) in which A and G become natural in a passage where the main

tonality is assumed to be D♭major87 (see figure 9 in the appendix).

Similarly, this is another example of the effect of distance in music. The final part of

Reflets dans l’eau (mm.82-95) illustrates an example of effect of distance articulated by a

difference in dynamics. The melodic motif appearing in each reprise of A (A♭-F-E♭) is

reduced to a ppp dynamic, being less present than in the other reprises (pp) (see figure 10 in

the appendix). Nonetheless, in this second example, it is intuitively easier to comprehend the

effect of distance. When the melody is more intense, it is perceived as more present and vice-

versa. In contrast, in the former example it is possible to interpret that the A and G natural

are less present than the surrounding notes corresponding to D♭ major. However, this is

only because Jankélévitch expresses this by denominating these aberrant notes (notes

aberrantes).

The effect of distance shows musical results with a different degree of presence-

absence depending on different degrees of listening attention. As an isolated entity from a

piece of music, a melodic motif is ambiguously present; it renders different degrees of

presence. However, comparing a motif to its repetition within the musical composition, as

in the second example, it is possible to state that the repetition is less present than its previous

appearances in the piece. This interpretation of the effect of distance can also take place

when listening to the sounds in the world. When a sound is heard from a certain distance,

86 ‘les bruits, dans l’espace debussyste, se rapprochent, s’éloignent, vont de la présence a l’absence

avant de s’éteindre définitivement dans le silence originel.’

Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 60-61.; Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 79. 87 Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 69.


35

this distance can be estimated by the subject listener with a certain degree of accuracy.

However, if two sounds of the same characteristics are heard from different distances to their

sources, it is possible to articulate a comparison and state that one is closer than the other.

This requires an adjustment of the focus of listening which is also observed in other musical

characteristics analysed by Jankélévitch in relation to continuity and discontinuity.

To sum up, the first part of the chapter analyses musical immediacy, objectivity and

absence of Debussy’s voice in music in Jankélévitch’s discourse. The interpretation of these

terms concerns a symbolic idea that conceives that Debussy inspires his music in sounds of

the outer world instead of his personal feelings. In particular, this idea was also sustained by

critics and musicologists in the early 20th century in France. Likewise, they defended that,

in contrast to Romantic composers, Debussy did not portray his personal thoughts in music.

Consequently, Jankélévitch’s use of sensation and immediacy in relation to music entangle

an ideal of Debussy’s compositional procedure that follows a discursive tradition originated

in France in the early 20th century.

Furthermore, the second part of the chapter analyses discontinuity and presence-

absence of physical sound in music. According to this analysis and Jankélévitch’s idea

concerning ambiguity in continuity and discontinuity, variability in the boundaries of

listening attention to Debussy’s music is deduced. The significance of stasis, continuity and

discontinuity is more directly implied because it is literal and articulated in musical analyses.

These analytical discourses serve to understand their meaning in Jankélévitch’s discourse.

In any case, Jankélévitch’s affordance of continuity or discontinuity to musical features

depending on the listener’s perspective is essential to deduce the main idea of his text.

Whereas discontinuity flourishes from a narrow focus of attention, musical features are

defined as continuous when a broader attentive perspective of listening is adopted.

In other words, the identification of discontinuity in music depends on the different

boundaries of listening attention. For instance, when a harmonically static passage is

identified in a musical work, as a discontinuity, it produces infinite interpretation. The

listener can imply different interpretations from it. However, if a music listener considers a

broader listening attention, involving different sonic events, certain relationships can be

identified between them, triggering comparisons and the possibility of a discourse based on

these comparisons.

Carolyn Abbate explains the implication that the interpretation of presence-absence

produces in listening: ‘Complete absence of the material origin can release and untameable

proliferation of significance, and that until a voice is buried we continue to pursue its


36

enigmas’.88 This statement explains that when sonic material cannot be certainly assessed as

more or less present or absent due to a lack of reference, it affords infinite interpretations.

The same occurs when listening to an isolated and discontinuous entity, infinite significances

are deduced.

Jankélévitch presents one of the significances of the concept of presence-absence to

reflect the idea of musical immediacy – based in Debussy’s ideal of listening to nature – and

a double perspective of listening which is related to the qualification of musical features as

continuous or discontinuous. The first significance concerns the absence of the human mind

in music and relates to a symbolic idea of listening, as stated before, traced back in

Debussyists’ discourse. On the other hand, considering the literal meaning of presence-

absence of physical sound in music, the focus extent of listening attention is determinant to

perceive if a sound is present or absent in music. Broader listening attention allows

establishing comparisons between different sonic elements that present similarities. A

narrower attention offers a higher degree of ambiguity in interpretation.

Nonetheless, in most of his discourse, Jankélévitch does not reflect the two implied

ideas separately. Generally, he presents a view on listening that interconnects the concepts

of immediacy and discontinuity. Whereas musical immediacy refers to a symbolic idea of

listening, which in fact reports to an ideal of Debussy’s compositional procedure,

discontinuity concerns characteristics of music addressed by an anonymous listener. The

connection of musical immediacy and discontinuity results problematic for the

understanding of his writings.

The interpretation of presence-absence also addresses this problem. Whereas Carolyn

Abbate assumes Debussy’s use of Symbolism (as so does Henri Prunières),89 Jankélévitch

rejects this fact. Through this rejection, the connection of discontinuity and immediacy

acquires sense in Jankélévitch discourse but, at the same time, the identification of

discontinuity goes against his thesis. Understanding discontinuity as a trigger of infinite

music meaning, it is not possible to access reality in the same way as Debussy perceived it.

This implies that musical immediacy is not sustained. His thesis becomes rejected by an

interpretation of discontinuity according to strict musical analysis although it remains valid

considering immediacy, instant and objectivity understood in a metaphorical way.

88 Carolyn Abbate, "Debussy's Phantom Sounds," Cambridge Opera Journal 10, no. 1 (1998), 79-

81. 89 Henry Prunières, "Musical Symbolism," Musical Quarterly 19 (1933), 19-22.


37

In any case, Jankélévitch shows certain awareness of this problematic and, for this

reason, he contemplates the identification of continuity in Debussy’s music at the end of his

second book. In the final section of La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy,

Jankélévitch shows that discontinuity is observed depending on the point of view adopted in

listening. According to Jankélévitch, musical immediacy suppie the identification of

discontinuities in music and requires a significant degree of attention when listening to a

particular entity. In comparison, a listening that displays a broader attentive position does

not only identify stasis but its relation to other musical elements offering a more concrete

listening significance. For example, observing stasis in harmonic passages, an attentive

mode of listening which analyses harmonic characteristics would consider this passage as a

discontinuous entity, an isolated characteristic within a musical work. On the other hand,

observing that passage from a broader point of attention and considering the entities around

it, would produce a broader focus of listening and relations between that discontinuity and

other discontinuities.

This section indicates why Reflets dans l’eau is referent to understand a double

perspective of listening. ‘There is a Debussyist continuity which is, somehow, discontinuous

in the infinite and which appears sometimes continuous, sometimes discontinuous

depending on the point of view where we are positioned’.90 This suggests that qualifying

Debussy’s musical features as continuous and discontinuous depends on listening

attentiveness. This idea supports variability of attention in listening.

90 ‘Il y a donc une continuité debussyste qui est, en quelque sorte, discontinue à l’infini et qui

apparaît tantôt continue, tantôt discontinue dépendant on le point de vue ou l’on se place.’



38

III. Articulating (dis)continuity and presence-absence in music

In La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy (1968), Jankélévitch describes

prelude as a discontinuous musical form by referring to the piano piece Reflets dans l’eau.91

According to him, this piece shows melodic and harmonic characteristics that bear

discontinuity. However, he does not specifically point why form is discontinuous. In

addition, as portrayed in chapter II, at the end of the book La vie et la mort dans la musique

de Debussy (1968), Jankélévitch admits qualifying a musical feature as continuous or

discontinuous depends on the focus extent of an attentive listening. Furthermore, the

conception of presence-absence which defines sound physicality also suggests two

perspectives of attentive listening dependent on the focus extent of attention. For this reason,

this chapter accomplishes a musical analysis of Reflets dans l’eau to provide further

interpretation of continuity and discontinuity and presence-absence so as to understand

Jankélévitch’s listening proposal in direct connection to music.

The musical analysis accomplished in this chapter focuses on describing harmonic,

melodic and formal features of Reflets dans l’eau in order to qualify them as continuous or

discontinuous and compare the analysis results to Jankélévitch’s statements on these terms.

A particular methodology of analysis is applied to analyse each musical feature. Functional

analysis discovers tonal functions of particular chords. Additionally, pitch-class set theory

identifies certain melodic similarities between different passages not identified by listening.

Methodologies of analysis respond to the identification of static harmonic passages and

melodic repetition. The musical characteristics are defined as continuous or discontinuous

according to musical analyses that classify them.

The chapter consists on the interpretation of the terms continuity and discontinuity

and presence-absence in relation to certain musical features described in a new musical

analysis proposal. Jankélévitch relates harmonic stasis and prelude as form to discontinuity,

however, he does not explain the meaning of these terms and why these relations are

established. Nevertheless, continuity and discontinuity appear in music analysis referring to

harmonic stasis and other musical features. This chapter revises some of these analyses to

interpret the terms of continuity and discontinuity. These analyses have been undertaken by

Keith Waters, scholar in jazz studies, André Douw, member of the Dutch-Flemish

association for Music Theory, Jean Barraqué, serialist composer who worked on an analysis

91 Claude Debussy, Images, Série 1 (Paris: Durand & Fils, 1905).


39

of La mer for his thesis in the 1960s and Marianne Wheeldon, scholar of contemporary

studies on Debussy. Jean Barraqué’s analysis is contemporary to Jankélévitch’s books. On

the contrary, Marianne Wheeldon and Keith Waters show current examples of analysis

whereas André Douw’s analysis appeared in the 1990s. All in all, Barraqué’s analysis is

more valuable to create a historical perspective on continuity and discontinuity regarding

Jankélévitch’s writings.

Music analysis does not reflect upon presence-absence in music given that it is a

concept coined by Jankélévitch. Chapter II presents a discussion on presence-absence on

Debussy’s music which focused on the interpretation of its figurative meaning in music.92

According to this interpretation, it is possible to analyse a literal signification of the term in

music as Jankélévitch proposes in the effect of distance.93 The identification of physical

presence-absence of sound consists on recognising sonic events as entities and comparing

them to the sonic material or other sonic events around it. Consequently, repetition of sonic

events, melodic passages in particular, determines the judgment on presence-absence of a

musical event.

To portray their ideas on continuity and discontinuity, scholars usually refer to other

Debussy’s works. The chronological order in which they were composed is the following:

La mer and Reflets dans l’eau, as part of Images, were published in 1905 and Ondine, as part

of the second book of Préludes, and the ballet Jeux were published in 1913. This chapter

avoids references to musical pieces with text not to require an extra analysis of the music’s

text.

There are four different sections I will address in this chapter. The first section

discusses methodologies of analysis, considering the written sources on Debussy’s music by

Jankélévitch and Barraqué as primary sources of reference and the melodic and harmonic

aspects of Debussy’s music. The second section proposes the analysis results. The third

section defines continuity and discontinuity in relation to musical features and discusses this

characteristic on the form of Reflets dans l’eau. The fourth section analyses the interpretation

of Jankélévitch’s concept of presence-absence in relation to music.

The aim of this chapter is to illustrate how Reflets dans l’eau, as an example of

Debussy’s work, illustrates two perspectives of listening attentiveness implied by

Jankélévitch’s conception of continuity, discontinuity and presence-absence.

92 See pages 33-37. 93 Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 109-114.


40

1. Methodology of analysis

To a certain extent, the identification of harmonic functions is coherent with the texts

of Jankélévitch and Barraqué. ‘Debussy, like all the princes of tonality, has meticulously

measured the field of aural memory and the resonance ‘duration’ of each tone’.94 According

to this quote, Jankélévitch defines Debussy as a ‘tonal composer’ although he admits that

there are inexplicable harmonic features in Debussy’s music, which he denominates

‘aberrant notes’ (notes aberrantes).95 Jankélévitch justifies inexplicable harmonic passages

emphasising their sonority or resonance. Similarly, Barraqué presents the same position

more clearly explained. Whilst Barraqué agrees that Debussy’s music is predominantly

tonal, he points to an extra dimension of the harmonic passage that needs to be observed by

listening, not only by analysing the score. By doing so, it is possible to perceive a particular

sonority that Barraqué defines by the concept of note-sound (note-son).96 As explained in

chapter I97 note-sound (note-son) and note-tone (note-tone) explain the difference between

pitch height (note-tone) and the note characteristics (note-son) dependant on the combination

of other musical parameters.98 At the same time, Barraqué admits that this classification is

more appropriate to define serialist music than Debussy’s music. Consequently, Jankélévitch

and Barraqué identify inexplicable harmonic features in Debussy’s music in tonal harmony

terminology but they are sceptical on qualifying Debussy’s music as non tonal.

Functional analysis was object of discussion among Debussyists in France in the

early 20th century. This is related to the fact that it was proposed by Hugo Riemann, whose

writings were introduced in France between 1901 and 1902.99 Riemann’s analysis was

rejected by Jean Marnold, who was a Debussyist and one of the strongest defenders of

Debussy. He states that Debussy’s music presented harmonic characteristics that were

inexplicable by Riemann’s harmonic relations based on chordal functions. Consequently,

this shows that Riemann’s proposal of analysis was controversial in relation to Debussy’s

music since it was introduced in France in the early 20th century.

94 ‘Debussy, comme tous les princes de la tonalité, a mesuré minutieusement le champ de la

mémoire auriculaire et de la durée de résonance de chaque ton.’

Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 128. 95 Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 105. 96 Barraqué, Écrits, 281. 97 See pages 17 and 18. 98 Édith Weber and Colloques internationaux du CNRS, Sciences humaines, Debussy au XXe

Siècle, 93. 99 Alexandra Kieffer, "Riemann in France," 1.


41

Analysing the first measures of Reflets dans l’eau, certain harmonic features are not

perfectly explained by tonal functions. For this reason, contemporary analyses identify non-

tonal harmonic patterns by different means than functional analysis. Keith Waters and André

Douw explain these harmonic features by defining diatonic regions or pitch collections and

harmonic fields to denominate them. These terms refer to entities that are organised

according to the prominence of a certain pitch which determines a scale around it.100

Alternatively, André Douw uses modes to explain pitch organisation. The main difference

between the identification of modes or harmonic regions and major and minor tonalities is

the absence of a dominant harmonic function that defines the tonality of the piece.

Consequently, although functional analysis has been used for analysing Reflets dans l’eau,

there are non-tonally defined passages that will be considered in a particular way.

The previous paragraphs show that there are diverse arguments for and against the

application of functional analysis to describe harmonic features in Debussy’s music. On the

one hand, Jankélévitch and Barraqué consider Debussy’s music as predominantly tonal. On

the other hand, they also recognise, as other scholars in the early 20th century such as Jean

Marnold and contemporary analysts such as Keith Waters and André Douw, that there are

inexplicable passages according to functional analysis. Nevertheless, functional analysis is

adopted to describe harmonic features in Reflets dans l’eau because harmonic passages that

describe formal continuity and discontinuity respond to functional harmony. A discussion

on the first measures of Reflets dans l’eau is proposed to observe the use of diatonic regions

in Waters’ analysis proposal of Reflets dans l’eau in comparison to functional harmony.

Waters defines the first eight bars as a diatonic region of D [sic], which he supports

by pointing out the pedal in D [sic] (see figure 1 in the appendix). Nevertheless, it is possible

to identify A♭ major as key determined by its dominant chord in the fourth semiquaver of

the first beat. It is true that G♭ is not a grade of A♭major and supports Waters’ definition

of the passage in D (♭). There are two reasons why, in the new analysis proposal, A♭major

is defended as the key of this passage. Firstly, the majority of the work’s passages can be

explained and related to A♭ major, which would become the main tonality of the piece.

Secondly, when listening, it is possible to identify tension provoked by the use of

traditionally denominated dissonant chords such as dominant sevenths. All in all,

100 Keith Waters, "Other Good Bridges: Continuity and Debussy's "Reflets dans l'Eau"," Music

Theory Online 18, no. 3 (2012).; André Douw, "Lifting the Veils: Analyses of Debussy's "...Voiles"

and "...La Cathédrale Engloutie"," Dutch Journal of Music Theory = Niederländische Zeitschrift

Für Musiktheorie 1 (1996).


42

determining if the passage is in the diatonic region (or harmonic field) of D♭ or in A♭ major

depends, to a certain extent, on the listener’s perception.

In conclusion, the use of functional harmony to identify harmonic characteristics in

comparison to diatonic regions does not affect the discussion of continuity and discontinuity

and presence-absence. This is due to the fact that both methodologies rely on the

identification of chords that maintain a relation (tonal or non-tonal) with the previous and

following harmonic entities.

2. Analysis results

The new proposal of analysis of this thesis identifies rondeau as the form of Reflets

dans l’eau, which consists on the sections ABA’CA’’. This part of the chapter presents the

musical features that define the different sections of the piece. Nevertheless, the boundaries

between A’ and C afford flexibility because its boundaries depend on the focus extent of an

attentive listening. This characteristic will be discussed in connection to continuity and

discontinuity in subsequent sections.

A (measure101 1-1st beat of m. 17) (see figure 1 in the appendix) displays the theme

A♭-F-E♭ in crotchets in the first eight bars, appearing again in A’ (mm. 35-38) (see figure

2 in the appendix) and A’’ (mm. 72-73) (see figure 3 in the appendix). The accompaniment

of this motif in A consists on chords creating a tonal passage in A♭major in semiquavers

that delimit the eight-bar phrase. The reprise in A’ and A’’ is defined by the reappearance of

the melodic motif A♭-F-E♭and the turn to A♭major as the main tonality of the piece. The

accompaniment of the theme A♭-F-E♭in A’ and A’’ is also in A♭major although the

rhythmic pattern of the harmony are minim and quaver triplets respectively. The repetition

of these melodic and harmonic features identifies the reprises and sets rondeau as form.

B (2nd beat of m. 17- m. 35) (see figure 4 in the appendix to observe the beginning of

B) introduces new contrasting ideas in comparison to A. A ends when A♭major is

abandoned and there is a small passage that presents a pentatonic scale and a chord which is

formed by superimposed fifths, concluding A (mm. 16-17). This ending is also implied by a

pianissimo. The beginning of B generally consists on a display of short values in the upper

voices (m. 18) while the bass is silent or performs pedal notes. The passage of mm. 24-31

(see figure 5 in the appendix) becomes particularly relevant for being harmonically static

due to the absence of identified tonal functions. The melodic development of this passage

101 m. as abbreviation of measure and mm. as abbreviation of measures in the following cases.


43

consists on the repetition of the pattern B♭-A♭-G♭-C♭ in the upper voice accompanied

by the pattern E♭♭-F♭-A♭-G♭-F♭-E♭♭-C♭-E♭ and a pedal note A♭ in the bass.

After that passage, tonal functions are identified in the accompaniment of the motif C-D♭-

B♭-C which doubles its value and diminishes its intensity to mark the end of B in m.35 (see

figure 8 in the appendix).

The reprise of A’ (mm. 36-48) is easily identified due to its harmonic and melodic

features (turned back to A♭major and the repetition of the motif A♭-F-E♭) (see figure 2 in

the appendix). After the last repetition of the motif A♭-F-E♭, in the seventh bar of A’, a

harmonically stable passage appears in A’ (mm. 43-49) (see figure 6 in the appendix) and

preludes the second harmonically static passage (mm. 49-52) (see figure 7 in the appendix).

After A’, the reprise of A’’ (mm. 72-95) (see figure 3 in the appendix) is also clearly

identified in m. 72 by the repetition of the motif A♭-F-E♭and the modulation back to A♭

major. Therefore, the passage between A’ and A’’ present different possibilities.

Whereas section B is marked by a clear ending of A, A’ has not a clear ending that

sets boundaries with a potential C section. C is defined as a proper section according to the

repetition of certain melodic and harmonic characteristics also appearing in B. Considering

C, there are two possible interpretations depending on either a narrow focus of listening that

identifies harmonic discontinuity or a broader listening, observing repetitions of melodic and

harmonic patters. These two interpretations are analysed in the following section in relation

to the concepts of continuity and discontinuity.

3. Discontinuity and continuity in music

This section considers musical features deduced in the analysis of Reflects dans l’eau

and classifies them as continuous or discontinuous according to other musical analyses of

Debussy’s music. The first chapter of the thesis reflects how continuity and discontinuity

appeared in philosophical texts and were integrated in musical analyses in the 1960s in

France. In particular, Jean Barraqué defined discontinuity in pitch height organisation and

form. Other scholars such as Keith Waters and Marianne Wheeldon propose their own

analyses of Debussy’s music and add a reflection upon melodic discontinuity. In this section,

discontinuity is separately analysed in harmony, melody and form. Certainly, the

interrelation of melodic and harmonic features determines discontinuity in form. For analysis

purposes, certain particularities of harmonic and melodic continuity are firstly considered

and, after that, they are reconsidered in form.


44

3.1. Continuity and discontinuity in melodic development

Regarding continuity in melodic development, Keith Waters and Marianne

Wheeldon propose two different perspectives. Whereas Waters supports melodic continuity

as a general trend in Reflets dans l’eau, Wheeldon describes melodically discontinuous

passages in Debussy’s work Ondine which are similar to certain melodic passages in Reflets

dans l’eau.

With regard to Reflets dans l’eau, Keith Waters defends that continuous melodic

passages are predominant. Waters explains that melodic development is a particular feature

that presents continuity in music of the 19th century and also in Debussy’s music, in

comparison to 20th century music, when serial composers were looking for methods to

develop discontinuity in their works. Waters’ analysis sets the motif in the upper voice at the

end of the B section (mm. 31-35) (see figure 8 in the appendix) as an example of melodic

continuity.102 The repetition of the motif C-D♭-B at the end of B in diminishing dynamics

and double values denotes a continuous melodic passage. However, Waters does not explain

how melodic continuity occurs in a micro-level. Instead, he is portraying melodic continuity

dependent on repetition of a particle formed by two or more notes which determines

continuity in form.

Wheeldon describes the erasure of the last notes in the melodic development of a

passage as a melodic characteristic that portrays discontinuity in a micro-level in Debussy’s

music. Considering A, A’ and A’’ sections or reprises, Wheeldon asserts that, in Debussy’s

works, these sections are usually incomplete, producing discontinuity. The reprise of Ondine

is an example. Likewise, it is possible to identify a discontinuous melodic passage in the A

section of Reflets dans l’eau: the fifths in the semiquavers in mm. 1-8 which are diluted in

mm. 9-12 (see figure 1 in the appendix) but, formally, its repetition contributes to formal

continuity defining the first section of A.

All in all, continuity is the main tendency in Debussy’s music melodic development

although there are particular cases of discontinuity. On the other hand, repetition of melodic

motives reinforces formal continuity. This aspect will be thoroughly explained in a

subsequent section.

102 Waters, "Other Good Bridges," 4.


45

3.2. Continuity and discontinuity in harmonic development

Tonal harmonic passages are continuous. Understanding a chord as a combination of

three or more notes related by an interval of third, it develops a tonal function in relation to

the previous and following chord. This is because chords depend on each other, creating a

continuous current of musical ideas. In contrast, Jankélévitch metaphorically explains

harmonic stasis as an instant, which means that it is discontinuous. But he does not describe

in detail the characteristics that define harmonic stasis. For this reason, these are analysed in

the following paragraphs.

According to this definition of harmonic continuity, there are certain passages in

Reflets dans l’eau that are not continuous; instead, they are harmonically static. One of the

characteristics of a harmonically static passage is its immutability in a certain period of

musical time. However, this characteristic is also proper of harmonically stable passages.

For this reason, it is necessary to differ between harmonic stability and stasis.

Harmonically stable passages are not discontinuities. Harmonic stability refers to a

harmonic passage where a tonal chord is identified and maintained and does not require

resolution according to tonal functions (it does not portray harmonic tension) whereas stasis

refers to a passage where tonal chords do not exist. For instance, Waters signals to mm.39-

48 (see figure 6 in the appendix) in Reflets dans l’eau as an example of harmonic stability

that stands continuity. He explains that this passage contributes to continuity in melody

because arpeggiated chords replace an inexistent melody. These are clearly defined chords

which, in addition, develop a tonal function of subdominant of A♭ major and its minor

relative. This passage is the only harmonically stable passage in Reflets dans l’eau.

In contrast, harmonically static passages are non-tonal. They do not change within a

period of musical time and do not portray tonal chords. Jean Barraqué identified this feature

in his analyses of Debussy’s music when trying to analyse the hierarchical relationships

between what he called note-tones. In his analysis of Debussy’s La mer, Barraqué states that

‘Music emerges from the shadow, and we do not have a truly tonal sensation’.103 He found

that there were inexplicable harmonic characteristics which he denominated static passages.

The first section of this chapter explains solutions such as diatonic regions as an explanation

that contemporary analysts propose to explain these cases.

103 ‘La musique y émerge de l’ombre, et l’on n’a pas de sensation tonale très nette.’

Barraqué, Écrits, 281-293.


46

In addition, Jankélévitch, Barraqué and Marianne Wheeldon agree that pedal notes

signal harmonically static passages. In his analysis of La mer, Barraqué contemplates the

possibility of harmonic static passages where pedal notes accompany the melody. For

example, he points the introduction of De l’aube à l’après midi of La mer, where the melody

appears on a pedal in B. Jankélévitch and Wheeldon also mention particular examples of this

type of passages in Préludes. Wheeldon states that ‘Most of the sections that make up Ondine

for instance, are harmonically static, with bass pedal-points underpinning large sections of

the music.104 Jankélévitch defines pedal notes as patterns of harmonic stasis105 but he does

not refer to any particular example.

Harmonically static passages are discontinuities within form. Chapter I portrays

Barraqué’s idea of an open form based on discontinuities. According to this idea, harmonic

static passages, as discontinuities, are part of form as a bigger entity. Likewise, Jankélévitch

states that they reflect immobility and do not allow an interpretation based on the

identification of a flow of ideas. This defines static passages as harmonic entities where tonal

functions do not exist. Barraqué, with the point of view of music analysis, and Jankélévitch,

with the point of view of the philosophy of music, explain harmonic static passages as

discontinuities within form as a continuous entity.

Discussion of C section

The form of Reflets dans l’eau is a rondeau, however, section C does not present

clear boundaries. To start with, after the final repetition of the main theme of the reprise in

A’, there are two harmonic passages one harmonically stable and another static, which is a

discontinuity. In contrast, after these passages, a series of diminished 7th chords appear

accompanying certain melodic motives in the upper voice before A’’. Due to the fact that

the harmony between A’ and A’’ is mainly non-tonal and dominated by harmonically static

passages, it is not possible to establish boundaries of C according to harmonic features.

Nevertheless, it is possible to identify certain similarity relationships regarding melodic

passages between section B and a potential C section defined between A’ and A’’. The

following paragraph explains this comparison.

The present analysis settles C in m. 49 (see figure 7 in the appendix) according to the

following melodic similarities between B and C. In B, the motif B♭-A♭-G♭-C♭ can be

104 Wheeldon, "Interpreting Discontinuity in the Late Works of Debussy," 108-109; Jankélévitch,

Debussy et le Mystère, 128 105 Ibid.


47

identified by the pitch class interval (10, 10, 5) and its prime form is [0, 1, 3, 5] (see figure

5 in the appendix). In C the motif is B-C#-F-A, its pitch class interval is (2, 4, 4) and its

prime form is [0, 2, 3, 7] (see figure 7 in the appendix). Following Allen Forte’s theory,106 it

is possible to find a relationship between these two motives by the concept of interval vector.

This is remarkable to point out because it supports section C as a different section from A’

and A’’ and, consequently, defining a rondeau. In addition, there is another motive

accompanying B-C#-F-A in C, F-G-B-A-G-F (see figure 7 in the appendix), which is a

transposition of E♭♭-F♭-A♭-G♭-F♭-E ♭♭-C♭-E♭ in B (see figure 5 in the

appendix). All in all, two melodic similarities are encountered in C in comparison to B,

defining C section by structural similarity to B.

3.3. Discontinuity in form

There are disagreements concerning the identification of discontinuity in form in

Debussy’s music among different analysts but, generally, Jankélévitch’s discourse agrees

with serialist composers’ on the idea of formal discontinuity. Keith Waters, Marianne

Wheeldon and Jann Pasler explain that certain scholars and composers related to the

Darmstadt School (some of them serialist, as Barraqué) in the 1950s qualified early

Debussy’s works as continuous, such as Reflets dans l’eau, and later works as discontinuous,

such as Jeux.107 As a contemporary of these scholars, the French composer Jean Barraqué

shared this perspective. During the 1950s, Jankélévitch also defends discontinuity in form

in Debussy’s works.

3.3.1. Formal continuity and discontinuity in Reflets dans l’eau depending on melodic

development

In the new proposed analysis, similarities between melodic passages in different

sections determine C as a section and part of a continuous form. The definition of C section

relies on the repetition of melodic passages, which are observed in detail by applying pitch-

class set analysis. Apart from the melodic repetitions that define C there are other examples

of formal continuity in Reflects dans l’eau. It is possible to find connections between

passages of different sections such as the main theme of the reprises, which are essential to

define rondeau as form. On the other hand, according to Wheeldon’s definition of melodic

106 Michiel Christiaan Schuijer, Analyzing Atonal Music: Pitch-Class Set Theory and its Contexts

(Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2008). 107 Waters, "Other Good Bridges," 6-7.


48

discontinuity, there is a melodic discontinuous passage in section A. Reflets dans l’eau

presents an A’’ section significantly smaller than A and A’. The melodic pattern in the upper

crotchets of the mm. 1-8 progressively shrinks when repeated. Due to the fact that the

motives A♭-E♭-A♭and A♭-F-E♭ are repeated, melodic passages contribute to formal

continuity (see figures 1, 2 and 3 in the appendix).

3.3.2. Form considering harmonic development

Harmonically static passages are discontinuous according to the definition of stasis

but, at the same time, contribute to formal continuity when a broad attentive listening is

adopted to analyse Reflets dans l’eau. Considering the results of the new analysis proposal,

there are two harmonically static passages, one in mm. 24-31 (see figure 5 in the appendix)

and one in mm. 49-52 (see figure 7 in the appendix). The first passage is part of B whereas

the second passage belongs to C. To a certain extent, these two passages portray a similar

structure depending on harmonic stasis between B and C. The C section is defined by a

listening focused on identifying melodic and, to a certain extent, harmonic similarities

between B and a potential C section. It is necessary to adopt an attentive broad focus of

listening to recognise these similarities. Certainly, adopting a narrow focus of listening,

harmonically static passages contribute to formal discontinuity. As a result, harmonic and

melodic features in Reflets dans l’eau are predominantly continuous and generally

continuous respectively although there are particular cases of discontinuities.

From a serialist point of view, Barraqué proposes discontinuity in form as a similar

idea to Jankélévitch’s idea of prelude as form depicted in La vie et la mort dans la musique

de Debussy. In his essay Debussy: ou l’approche d’une organisation autogène de la

composition,108 Barraqué defines open form (forme ouverte) in Debussy’s works as an

alternative to sonata form. In the first chapter of the thesis, it was explained that Barraqué

considered this proposal of form as discontinuous being that it rejects discursive connection

between exposition and development in a macro-level. Jann Pasler recalls that Barraqué

deduces that exposition and development become the same entity, “they coexist” from the

analysis of Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune and La mer.109 In a lower level, Barraqué

considers that this form is determined by discontinuously designed musical features such as

108 This essay is part of Barraqué’s thesis on Debussy’s music and is compiled in Barraqué, Écrits

and Weber and Colloques internationaux du CNRS, Sciences humaines, Debussy au XXe Siècle. 109 Weber and Colloques internationaux du CNRS, Sciences humaines, Debussy au XXe Siècle,

132.


49

harmonically static passages. Similarly, Jankélévitch contemplates that prelude as form

rejects the differentiation of formal sections such as exposition and development and

harmonically static passages are discontinuities inserted in form. However, whereas

Barraqué maintains his idea of discontinuous form in Debussy’s works, Jankélévitch’s

presents a shift on his critique on Debussy that concerns formal continuity and discontinuity.

As a result, although Barraqué’s description of formal discontinuity is valid to understand

the meaning of these terms in Jankélévitch’s texts, there is a shift on Jankélévitch’s view on

formal continuity that has to be addressed according to the analysis results.

Jankélévitch’s discussion on form in Debussy’s music has some similarities with

Barraqué’s idea of open form (forme ouverte),110 but he portrays a contrasting point of view

on this idea at the end of La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy (1968). He admits

ambiguity in the classification of Debussy’s works as continuous or discontinuous. ‘There

is a Debussyist continuity which is, somehow, discontinuous in the infinite and which

appears sometimes continuous, sometimes discontinuous, depending on the point of view

where we are positioned’.111 According to this idea, the perception of a musical feature as

continuous or discontinuous depends on the point of view of the listener. When adopting a

narrow focus of listening, harmonically static passages are discontinuities, affording formal

ambiguity. On the other hand, it is possible to define formal continuity, for example, in

Reflets dans l’eau if a wide focus of listening is adopted. In conclusion, from a narrow

attentive listening, Reflets dans l’eau is formally discontinuous and it is not possible to

establish C as a contrasting section to A’ and A’’, whereas a broad focus of attention defines

C as a section and produces a musical interpretation based on formal continuity.

4. Presence-absence and distance in music

Presence-absence of a certain sound event in music is identified by analysing

repetition. In chapter II, the interpretation of presence-absence in reference to sound

determined that a point of reference is necessary for designing this category with a significant

degree of concretion. Regarding sonic events or entities defined by particular musical

features, it is possible to observe if they are repeated through a musical piece. As a result,

110 Jankélévitch, Debussy et le Mystère, 38.

‘Il y a donc une continuité debussyste qui est, en quelque sorte, discontinue à l’infini et qui apparaît

tantôt continue, tantôt discontinue selon le point de vue où l’on se place.’ 111 Jankélévitch, La Vie et la Mort, 109.


50

comparisons are established and the degree of presence of a particular sonic entity (melodic

or harmonic passage, for example) is set.

Repetition of the same or similar musical content is perceived by listening to Reflets

dans l’eau at different musical moments with more or less degree of clarity. In a first

listening, without visual stimuli such as video images or music score, particular melodic

motives are identified and recognised at different sections of the piece. They disappear and

reappear; however, their sonority varies, producing an effect of closeness or far distance to

the listener. This effect, which Jankélévitch defines as effect of distance, affects the easiness

to recognise repeated motives. In a second and third listening, with visual stimuli of video

images, the motif C-D♭-B♭(see figure 8 in the appendix) is recognised and markedly

repeated and it makes possible to identify the form of the piece as a rondeau. Despite the fact

that repetition of other patterns occurs, they present more difficulty for being described

without analysing the score. The analysis of the score shows commonalities between sections

B and C such as similarities between melodic motives, supported by pitch-class set analysis.

On the one hand, to discover particular sonic events a narrow focus of attention is required,

attention is focalised on recognising that particular entity. On the other hand, it is necessary

to consider the musical piece in general to realise that a repetition of that sonic event has

taken place. All in all, a dual perspective of listening acts to confirm repetition. The

assignment of a degree of presence-absence to a sonic entity depends on the perspective of

adopted attentive listening. Whereas, in a first listening, the easiest remembered entity is the

melodic motif in the reprise, being present, in a more detailed analysis (supported by visual

stimuli such as the score) the motif identified as similar by pitch-class set analysis is less

present or absent in the first listening.

Considering the analysis of Reflets dans l’eau, it is possible to experiment this double

dimensional listening. There are melodic passages such as C-D♭-B♭that strike and turn the

listener’s attention towards it as an isolated entity. This makes that the listener identifies the

end of B in its last repetition and it becomes an isolated pattern recognised within a sound

continuity. On the other hand, paying attention to the whole piece of music, there are

difficulties for finding similarity between B and C, which is only perceived when analysing

the score.

In summary, the analysis results reflect a rondeau form with the sections ABA’CA’’

with a certain degree of flexibility to define the C section, which depends on the adopted

perspective of listening. In Reflets dans l’eau, in a micro-level, melodic motives are

generally continuous although, exceptionally, a passage of melodic discontinuity is observed


51

in the first bars of the piece. Observing melodic development from a broader perspective, it

is possible to denote formal continuity by observing the repetition of melodic motives.

Similarly, in a narrow approach of listening, it is possible to identify harmonically static

passages, which are discontinuous and denote formal discontinuity according to Jean

Barraqué and Jankélévitch’s discourses. However, observing from a broad listening

perspective, it is possible to find similarity relationships concerning harmony between B

section and a proposed C section. Consequently, depending on the focus of an attentive

listening, the form of Reflets dans l’eau is continuous or discontinuous.

The concept of presence-absence qualifies sound events depending on the focus

extent of an attentive listening. Adopting a close attentive listening, it is not possible to

determine if a sound event or passage is continuous or discontinuous but, if a wider

perspective is adopted, it is possible to state a comparison and determine if that passage is

more or less present in the music piece.

In conclusion, Reflets dans l’eau is melodically and harmonically continuous

although certain melodic and harmonic passages are discontinuous. Concerning form, it

presents characteristics that define it as a rondeau although it affords a degree of ambiguity

that suggests a certain characteristic of open form. This depends on a double perspective of

listening attention that understands form as a discontinuity and triggers infinite significances

when narrowed in particular points and form as a continuity considering relations between

musical elements when a broad perspective of listening is adopted.


52

Conclusion

Jankélévitch’s writings on Debussy are determined by an attentive music listening.

This has been a practice progressively developed in France, as in other places of Western

Europe, since the mid-18th century. The rise of the bourgeoisie’s attendance to the opera was

one of the social triggers of listening attention. After that, a higher attentiveness in listening,

as a requirement for sound experimentation in Germany in the late 19th century, was

imported to France as a custom in music listening in the early 20th century. Likewise, in

Debussy’s time, attentiveness in music listening had acquired a particular degree of acuity,

maintained in Jankélévitch’s time.

The disciplines of literature and philosophy are discursive influences in

Jankélévitch’s books containing his critique on Debussy. His discourse is literary inasmuch

it applies concepts originated in French music critique influenced by Symbolism. Music

critique in the early 20th century in Paris, which includes Debussyists’ critique, adopted the

writing style of Symbolists. In this writing style, Debussyists’ articulate the symbolic ideal

of Debussy’s listening to nature. This ideal refers to a characteristic of his composition

process that was portrayed by Jankélévitch in his books. Jankélévitch’s writing style is,

consequently, symbolic to a certain extent and requires interpretation to understand the

significance of the terms he employs to describe Debussy’s music. On the other hand,

Jankélévitch adopts Henri Bergson’s philosophical idea of durée to understand continuity of

mental thought and he also connects it to music. Consciously or not, he was following a

discursive tendency of music analysis that, similarly, had also embraced the concepts of

continuity and discontinuity to describe music in France in the 1950s. Due to the fact that

the terms of continuity and discontinuity were theoretically connected to music, they present

a more feasible interpretation by listening and analysing music than symbolist concepts.

As it was mentioned in the previous paragraph, Debussyists proposed the symbolic

ideal of Debussy’s listening to nature in his critique on Debussy, which Jankélévitch portrays

in Debussy et le mystère and La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy. In addition,

Debussyists and Jankélévitch symbolically affirm that Debussy’s music is immediate. These

ideas imply that Debussy did not portray his personal feelings and thoughts in music so that

the listener of his music cannot interpret epistemological content referring to Debussy’s

inner thoughts. Instead, they supported an interpretation related to the outer world, which

was also reflected in a shift on the meaning of sensation from the 18th century French idea

of sensibility (sensibilité) to a late-19th and early 20th century conception focused in the


53

reality outside the human mind. In any case, the symbolic ideas of Debussy as a listener to

the outer world and musical immediacy respond to a new aesthetic critique of music which

is related to the reality outside the subject.

The ideas of musical immediacy and Debussy’s listening to nature are a sign of

discursive tradition in French music critique preserved by Jankélévitch. But they do not

directly reflect characteristics of Debussy’s music that imply conditions of an attentive

listening. However, Jankélévitch employs continuity, discontinuity and stasis, which refer

to musical features more literally. These concepts appear in philosophical and music-

analytical discourses in France between the early 20th century and mid-20th century. This

implies that the interpretation of these terms is philosophically and analytically studied in

relation to particular musical examples. What is more, Jankélévitch points out Bergson’s

concept of durée as the philosophical influence to understand continuity and discontinuity

in his books. He does not make account of musical analyses explaining stasis and continuity

and discontinuity but presents similarities to Barraqué’s analysis. For these reasons, it is

possible to analyse Jankélévitch’s statements on continuity and discontinuity in relation to

Debussy’s music considering Barraqué’s and other scholars’ analysis.

According to analysts’ exemplifications of continuous and discontinuous musical

features of Debussy’s music, the analysis results described in chapter III of Reflets dans l’eau

determine that this piece is predominantly continuous with certain discontinuous

particularities. Melodically, most of the passages are continuous and only one melodic motif

is discontinuous, according to Wheeldon’s description of melodic discontinuity.

Harmonically, there are certain examples of harmonically static passages, where two

melodic motives are put together accompanied by a pedal note so that it is not possible to

identify a harmonic relation between two different harmonic entities. Formally, melodic

motives afford to interpret form as a continuous entity whereas harmonic passages afford

two interpretations. On the one hand, adopting a narrow focus of attention in listening, it is

possible to conceive Reflets dans l’eau as a discontinuous form. On the other hand, by

assuming a broad attentive listening perspective, it is possible to define continuous form and

a rondeau. A broad perspective of listening affords to observe repetition, which is a basic

requirement to identify melodic and harmonic similarities between different passages. This

ambiguity in formal continuity and discontinuity is the main thesis deduced from the analysis

of the music but also from Jankélévitch’s text and it appears in the last part of La vie et la

mort dans la musique de Debussy.


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The analysis of Jankélévitch’s texts, accomplished in chapter II, deduced two ideas.

Jankélévitch defends that Debussy’s compositional procedure does not inspire in personal

thoughts and feelings triggered inside the human mind but on the outer world. The second

idea supports that Debussy’s music is perceived as continuity or discontinuity depending on

the listening perspective. The second thesis is illustrated in the musical analysis results of

Reflets dans l’eau. However, Jankélévitch does not portray this idea until the final section

of La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy.

Comparing Debussy et le mystère and La vie et la mort dans la musique de Debussy

discontinuity is one of the topics added to the original text in the second book. In addition,

Jankélévitch’s shows a radical change on his discourse at the end of La vie et la mort dans

la musique de Debussy that is essential to understand the two perspectives of listening.

Jankélévitch’s discursive change on continuity and discontinuity: first he supports that

discontinuity affords an immediate listening and he understands musical form as

discontinuous. Subsequently, he accepts two perspectives of attentiveness in listening with

a wider or narrower perspective. In conclusion, at the end of his second book on Debussy,

Jankélévitch contemplates two perspectives of listening attention that show a change of

paradigm in listening between the 19th century and the 20th century in Western music.

Apart from displaying a conveyance of musicological discourse with diverse origins,

Jankélévitch coins the concept of presence-absence to represent the two theses deduced from

his texts. Firstly, the idea of the absence of Debussy’s voice in music refers to the idea that

Debussy’s compositional process tries to avoid the impression of personal feelings in music.

Secondly, the interpretation of the listening to a sound event in music depends on the width

of the focus of attention. Presence of a sound event affords different degrees. If presence is

defined considering the sound event as an isolated entity, there are infinite degrees of

presence so that the significance of presence is totally ambiguous. On the other hand, if a

sound event is compared to others by observing repetition or similarities between them; it is

possible to state the degree of presence more accurately. All in all, presence-absence portrays

the complexity of affording significance to a music listening.

Jankélévitch’s critique on Debussy is a turning point in-between discursive and

listening practices in French musicology between the 1950s and the 1960s. He presents ideas

deduced from his articulation of concepts such as musical immediacy and discontinuity from

Debussyism and music analysis of Debussy’s music developed in the 1950s in France. In

attentive listening practices, he reflects a double perspective of listening to Debussy’s music

that includes a broad attentive listening, triggering discursive interpretations, and a narrowly


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focused listening that affords indefinite interpretations in music. A further study inquires the

extent of Jankélévitch’s double perspective of listening in music history. But, all in all,

Jankélévitch’s texts are one of several written examples that employ Debussy’s music as an

object in which listening is discussed.


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Appendix

1. Referred passages in the text

Figure 1

Figure 2


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Figure 3 Figure 4

Figure 5


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Figure 6


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Figure 7

Figure 8


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Figure 9

Figure 10


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2. Brief descriptions of the musical features in each passage

Figure 1: mm. 1-11: This passage is part of the A section. It includes the motif A♭-F-E♭,

which defines the reprise. The first eight bars indicate a diatonic region of D according to

Keith Waters. In addition, there is an example of melodic discontinuity according to

Marianne Wheeldon’s definition in mm. 3-12.

Figure 2: mm. 35-36 show the end of B and beginning of A’, where A♭-F-E♭, the reprise,

is repeated

Figure 3: mm. 72-73 show the reprise in A’’.

Figure 4: mm. 16-18 show the ending of A and the beginning of B. There is a pentatonic

scale in measure 16 followed by a chord which is formed by superimposed fifths. The end

of A is reinforced by a pianissimo.

Figure 5: mm. 25-28 present a harmonically static passage that belongs to B section. It is

formed by the motif B♭-A♭-G♭-C♭ whose pitch class interval is (10, 10, 5) and prime

form is [0, 1, 3, 5], in the upper voice accompanied by the pattern E♭♭-F♭-A♭-G♭-F

♭-E♭♭-C♭-E♭ and a pedal note A♭ in the bass.

Figure 6: mm. 43-49 illustrate a harmonically stable passage in which the tonal function of

parallel subdominant in relation to A♭major is identified. This passage is also pointed by

Waters.

Figure 7: mm. 49-52 presents a harmonically static passage. Bar 49 sets de beginning of a

supposed C section. It presents the motif B-C#-F-A, whose pitch class interval is (2, 4, 4)

and its prime form is [0, 2, 3, 7]. This motif is accompanied by F-G-B-A-G-F, which is a

transposition of E♭♭-F♭-A♭-G♭-F♭-E♭♭-C♭-E♭in figure 5 and denotes the

similarity between the passages in figure 5 and 7, which defines C as a section in comparison

to B.

Figure 8: mm. 33-36 presents the motif C-D♭-B♭-C, which is repeated in the passage.

Keith Waters refers to this motif as an example of melodic continuity in Reflets dans l’eau.

In addition, this passage shows the effect of distance according to Jankélévitch’s definition.

Figure 9: m. 79 is an example of effect of distance pointed by Jankélévitch.

Figure 10: example of effect of distance based on dynamics and proposed by Jankélévitch.


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MA in Music Studies (Arts and Culture)

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