Images and Ideas in Modern French Piano Music: Extra-Musical Subtext in Piano Works by Ravel, Debussy, and Messiaen

In our visually-oriented society, music appears to stand apart from other arts. Yet just as a poet can write a poem whose focus is a painting, so musicians have composed scores based on poems, paintings, and other non-musical art forms. In instrumental music such reinterpretations are especially intriguing as the verbal or visual stimulus does not appear in performance but is rendered in musical form.

In this study, Siglind Bruhn investigates how three French composers of the twentieth century, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Oliver Messiaen, express extra-musical subtexts in their piano works. She shows how the relation between the subtexts and the musical works can be broadly catagorized in terms of pictoriality and interiority. In all cases, Bruhn analyzes each musical piece and each source text in its entirety and in depth, drawing on her broad background in both literary and musical interpretation of the twentieth century.

For pianists who seek to better understand an individual work, for scholars in the growing field of musical hermeneutics, and for lovers of music in general, this volume explores and makes explicit connections between music and other arts.

CONTENIDO:

List of plates
Preface
Introduction
-Word and image
-Music and word, music and image
-Music's representational capacities
-The composers
-The works

Part I. Images and impressions

The representation of ficticious images

Times of absorption: Oracles, funerals and celebrations
-Danseuses de Delphes (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 1)
-Canope (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 10)
-Feux d'Artifice (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 12)
-Noël (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", XIII)

Enchanted places
-La cathédrale engloutie (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 10)
-La Puerta del Vino (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 3)
-La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 7)
-La vallée des cloches (Ravel, "Miroirs", no. 5)
-Les collines d'Anacapri (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 5)

Wind and water, fog and snow
-Le vent dans la plaine (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 3)
-Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 7)
-Voiles (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 2)
-Une barque sur l'Océan (Ravel, "Miroirs", no. 3)
-Brouillards (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 1)
-Des pas sur la neige (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 6)

Flowers, insects and birds
-Bruyères (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 5)
-Noctuelles (Ravel, "Miroirs", no. 1)
-Oiseaux tristes (Ravel, "Miroirs", no. 2)
-Regard des hauteurs (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", VIII)

Comedians and other performers
-Minstrels (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 12)
.General Lavine - eccentric (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 6)
-Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C. (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 9)
-La sérénade interrompue (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 9)
-Alborada del gracioso (Ravel, "Miroirs", no. 4)

Part II. Tales and poems

The interarts translation of narratives

Nymphs, fairies and spirites
-Ondine (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 8)
-La danse de Puck (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 11)
-"Les fées sont d'exquises danseuses" (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 4)

Evening harmony, morning delight, and death
-"Les sons et les parfurms tournent dans l'air du soir" (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 4)
-La fille aux cheveux de lin (Debussy, "Préludes", I, 8)
-Feuilles mortes (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 2)

Apparitions and visitations
-Ondine (Ravel, "Gaspard de la nuit", no. 1)
-Le Gibet (Ravel, "Gaspard de la nuit", no. 2)
-Scarbo (Ravel, "Gaspard de la nuit", no. 3)

Part III. Spiritual concepts and divine attributes

The meditative transfiguration of imagery

God's love
-Regard du Père (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", I)
-Regard du Fils sur le Fils (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", V)
-Première communion de la Vierge (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", XI)
-Regard de l'Eglise d'amour (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", XX)

The Child
-Le baiser de l'Enfant-Jésus (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", XV
-Je dors, mais mon coeur veille (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", XIX)
-Regard de la Vierge (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", IV)

Incarnation and suffering
-Regard de l'étoile (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", II)
-Regard de la Croix (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", VII)
-Regard des prophètes, des bergers et des Mages (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", XVI)
-Regard de l'Onction terrible (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", XVIII)

The Word
-Par Lui tout a été fait (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", VI)
-La parole toute-puissante (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", XII)
-Regard des Anges (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", XIV)

The exchange of natures and the nature(s) of time and silence
-L'échange (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", III)
-Regard du temps (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", IX)
-Regard du silence (Messiaen, "Vingt regards", XVII)

Appendix I: "Les tierces alternées" (Debussy, "Préludes", II, 11)
Appendix II: Messiaen's musical language
Appendix III: Brief overview of Olivier Messiaen's Cycle "Vignt regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus"
Appendix IV: French performance indications

Further reading
Index of compositions
The author