"Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" and "Jeux": Debussy's Summer Rites
Author(s): Laurence D. Berman
Source: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Mar., 1980), pp. 225-238
Published by: University of California Press
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Prelude
to
Debussy's
the
Afternoon of
Summer
a
Faun
and
Jeux:
Rites
LAURENCE D. BERMAN
A comparison of these two orchestral works of
Debussy, written twenty years apart, should
eventually be justified by more than the nearidentity of their plots; but that near-identity is
enough to serve as a starting point for our discussion. The obvious connection between the
pursuit of two nymphs by a faun under a hot
Sicilian sky and the dalliance of two girls and a
young man around a tennis court has led Pierre
Boulez to describe Jeux as The Afternoon of a
Faun in sports clothes.1 If we consider the brief
chronology shown in diagram 1, we see how
such a connection might have come about. The
ballet productions of Faun and Jeux took place
within a year of each other. Although it has
never been said outright, I think there is reason
to believe from this juxtaposition that Nijinsky's inspiration for Jeux-for we apparently
1Pierre Boulez, Notes of an Apprenticeship
1968), p. 352.
0148-2076/80/010225+14$00.50
the University of California.
?
(New York,
1980 by The Regents of
owe the idea to him-grew out of his experience with the faun which he had lately created
for the stage.2 We know that Debussy was offered the commission for Jeux in the summer
of 1912, just a few weeks after the premiere of
the ballet version of Faun.
The composer's first reaction to the offer
was blank refusal. A telegram sent to Diaghilev
in London reads, "The subject of Jeux is idiotic.
Cannot be done. Propose another subject to
Nijinsky."3 Debussy began to think better of
the project when the offer was made a second
time, and the fee doubled. Yet despite the skep2There are conflicting reports on the genesis of Jeux.
Whether the idea originated with Diaghilev or Nijinsky,
whether it took form in London or Paris, whether the
commission was offered to Debussy in June, July or even
early August may never be established with total certainty.
For details on these points, see Romola Nijinsky, Nijinsky
(New York, 1972), p. 156; Richard Buckle, Nijinsky (New
York, 1971), pp. 259-60; and Edward Lockspeiser, Debussy: His Life and Mind (New York, 1965), II, 173-74.
3Lockspeiser, Debussy, p. 174fn; unfortunately, Lockspeiser does not provide the date of the telegram.
225
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19TIH
CENTURY
MUSIC
ticism he brought to the composition of this
piece, he was delighted to discover on finishing
it that he had written, to borrow his own
words; a "music that is nevertheless joyous and
alive with droll rhythms."4 The score of Jeux
pleased Debussy. Not so Nijinsky's choreography, which he found as distasteful as the
dancer's conception of The Afternoon of a Faun
the year before. "Faun," he had said, "you are
ugly. Go away!"5 This time, in connection
with Jeux, he went so far as to have his remarks
published in Le Matin on 15 May 1913, the
very day of the premiere-an action hardly
suited to aid the uncertain future of his ballet.6
And uncertain it has remained to this day.
After an initial reception ranging from mild irritation to mild acceptance, it was destined to
be eclipsed by the "scandal" of The Rite of
Spring, the premiere of which took place two
weeks later. One suspects that Diaghilev himself did not have much feeling for Jeux. For
contrary to the position he took with Stravinsky's work, which was to risk presenting it to
potentially hostile audiences until they learned
to respond knowingly to its irresistible assaults, he let Jeux slip from the repertoire,never to revive it. Laterproductions have apparently not met with much more success than the
first. Much of the public indifference to Jeux
has been due to conductors and orchestras unable to come to terms with the nettlesome
rhythmic and textural difficulties of the score.
As Emile Vuillermoz, one of the few supporters
of the piece at the time of its debut, has pointed
out: "It changes speed and nuance every two
measures; it abandons a figure, a timbre, a gesture, in order to go headlong in another direction."7 Vuillermoz is speaking almost literally
when he uses the phrase "every two measures." The score contains upwards of sixty
4Ibid., p. 175. It is worth noting that Debussy composed
Jeux at what must be considered fever-pitch for him. He
seems to have written it in less than a month, between
mid-August and the second week of September 1912.
sIbid., p. 171.
6Debussy's article is reprinted in Lockspeiser, pp. 266-67.
One cannot say that the remarks are openly critical of
Nijinsky and the Diaghilev company, but the tone is distinctively derisive, which is almost worse.
7Quoted in Leon Vallas, Claude Debussy et son temps
(Paris, 1932), p. 334. The translation is mine.
1842
1862
1865
1876
1894, Dec. 22
1898
1912, May 29
1913, May 15
1913, May 29
1918
Birth of Stephane Mallarme
Birth of Claude Debussy
First version of Mallarm6's poem:
Monologue d'un faune
Definitive version of Mallarme's poem:
L'Apres-midi d'un faune: Eglogue
Premiere of Debussy's Prelude d L'Apresmidi d'un faune
Death of Mallarme
Premiere of ballet version of Prelude c
L'Apres-midi d'un faune.
Diaghilev Ballets russes
Choreography: Nijinsky
Premiere of Debussy's Jeux
Diaghilev Ballets russes
Choreography: Nijinsky
Premiere of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du
printemps.
Diaghilev Ballets russes
Choreography: Nijinsky
Death of Debussy
Diagram 1: Chronology
tempo markings, distributed over about eighteen minutes of playing time. Clearly, such
frequency of change must pose serious problems for performers in maintaining continuity
and coherence.
As one of a handful of interpreters to have
overcome these problems, Boulez has said,
"The general organization of the work is as
changeable instant by instant as it is homogeneous in development. A single basic
tempo is needed to regulate the evolution of
thematic ideas, a fact that makes interpretation very difficult, because one must preserve
that fundamental unity while one is casting
into relief all the ceaselessly occurring incidents."8 Yet one may ask whether the fundamental unity is simply a function of a basic
tempo or of something still more basic, and
also more elusive, which is often referredto as
content. Regulation of the tempo should lead
us to the essential order and clarity of the
piece, but can it also be responsible for a "current" which runs through all its parts and turns
rhythm into gesture? The tempo, it seems to
me, succeeds in its unifying function only if
the thematic ideas conceived in terms of it are
thought to be endowed with a unifying energy.
Here the reader is asked to perform a temporary
act of faith and to assume that content is the
8Boulez, Notes, pp. 353-54.
226
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source of that energy-or rather,not the source
but the immaterial aspect of it-which is capable of being converted symbolically into
musical imagery. If this is so, then one of the
primary tasks of this paper has revealed itself,
namely to identify the content of Jeux through
its action and imagery.
II
As stated above, the procedure I intend to
pursue is to characterize Jeux in the light of
The Afternoon of a Faun, by which I mean not
only Debussy's prelude, but also Mallarme's
eclogue on which the prelude is based. Already
in their histories as ballets we can see an essential difference between them. In spite of an initial controversy surrounding Nijinsky's choreography,the ballet version of Faun, sustained
by a music which had immediately won
the day with the Parisian public in 1894 and
was, by 1912, something of a classic, made its
way fairly easily in the ballet world and is still
today very much of a stage success. The fortunes of Jeux were to be limited by an enigmatic score, whose subtleties would go largely
unfelt by even reasonably sophisticated audiences. Debussy's most daring work, and one
whose risks are, in my opinion, masterfully
dealt with, is still very much an unknown
quantity. We are thus concerned with two
works which, on grounds of popularity, are at
the extreme poles of the composer's oeuvre.
From this point of view, Mallarme's poem occupies an intermediate position: while on the
one hand it has continually taunted generations of readers with its deliberate obscurities,
on the other hand it has had considerable impact on the directions Western literature has
taken in this century, and it has been studied
and discussed at length by critics.
Jeux can pretend to no such influence on
later music. Yet the kinship between this late
work of Debussy's and Mallarme's poem is
striking. Both with respect to formal ingenuity
and expressive intention, Jeux, and not the prelude, seems to be the true musical counterpart
of Mallarm6's poem. It is as if Debussy, twenty
years after his first effort, finally realized in
musical terms the open shapes and modifications of imagery that Mallarm6 had worked out
in his own art form.
Demonstrating this argument requires
examining the poem in some degree of detail,
beginning with the basic fact of its almost total
inaccessibility on first encounter (and, more
than likely, on many subsequent ones as well).9
However much Mallarme protested that his
poetry was in its deepest intention "musical,"
the fact remains that his poems are acutely
symbolical in the traditional sense, and the absolute core of a poem's meaning is lost unless
the readerstruggles to extract from the images
the abstract ideas they contain. All that most
of us can get from a first reading of the present
poem is that it is about a faun who, in his
half-waking, half-dozing state, cannot remember whether his pursuit of two nymphs
was an actual experience or only a dream. The
story, such as it is, is told in the first person by
the faun, and is forever being interrupted by his
own musings. The interruptions have the double effect of expressing the faun's confusion
and adding to the reader's.Yet we perceive, albeit dimly, from these musings that the story
line must be a device for containing (and
thereby also concealing) a theme-the theme
of artistic struggle, the problem of transferring
the essence of experience (or desire, or both)
into artistic form. Every commentator takes
note of this aspect of the poem as artistic credo,
calling particular attention to lines 45-51:10
... that we might entertain
The beauty all around us by deceitfully
Confusing it with that of our credulous song;
And further that we might, no matter how high love
May be transposed, distill from vulgar thought of
shoulder
Or thigh, which I pursue with leering scrutiny,
A single line of sound, aloof, disinterested.
9Naturally, I do not intend a degree of detail such as is
found in numerous "glosses" of the poem. Particular attention should be called to Arthur Wenk's recent book,
Claude Debussy and the Poets (Berkeley, 1976), where
poem and prelude are analyzed in close juxtaposition
(Chapter 7, pp. 145-70). William W. Austin's edition of the
prelude in the Norton Critical Score (New York, 1970) is
well known to musicians; its gathering together of rare and
disparate source materials and its extended discussions of
poem and music make it an invaluable reference book for
the subject.
1oAustin's edition is a convenient source for the poem; it
provides the original French text and a translation on opposite pages. Citations from Austin's translation are reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton and Co.
227
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LAURENCE D.
BERMAN
Debussy's
Summer Rites
19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
Two things about this last image are of particular interest to us. The first is that it is indicative of Mallarme's aesthetic thought that the
art work should be symbolized as something so
slender and evanescent, yet so compressed, as a
single undulating line. The second point is that
from the context of the poem it is clear that the
"line" Mallarme is speaking of is a musical
line: it is the melody which the faun plays on
his flute. The faun, therefore, is nothing other
than a musician.
Debussy, inspired by these associations,
saw the possibilities they offered for the opening of his prelude-possibilities he could render with an immediacy beyond the powers of
poetry. Mallarme envied this immediacy, but
also acknowledged and admired it, as is clear
from his having made his artist-prototype a
musician, and not a poet like himself. But such
a prototype, of course, was hardly Mallarme's
personal invention. It has a long history, which
we can follow back to the days when fauns,
nymphs, and satyrs were first brought into
being by the Greeks. The most explicit reference the present story makes is to the myth of
Pan pursuing the nymph Syrinx, who escaped
him by turning into a bank of reeds. In turn,
Pan cut the reeds, and from them he fashioned
his pipes. The conjunction of music and desire,
and the transformation of pure sensory experience into a more permanent form of sensuousness which we call art, are old ideas. Mallarme's use of them provides his poem with the
layered richness of a tradition. But to this tradition he adds a layer of his own. The myth may
tell of instant metamorphosis, but Mallarm6e
lets it be known that the making of an art work
is not so magical: preserving the original truth
of experience is a difficult enterprise because
truth is essentially mysterious, and easily
eludes our grasp.
Truth comes in those odd and unexpected
moments when the two sides of our nature, the
sensuous and the visionary, fuse into a flash of
comprehension and lift us to a state of "higher
consciousness." Of all human activities, only
art has the potential of sustaining that consciousness, of giving it permanent form. But it
is left to the artist to wrest from art its potential and to realize it in an artwork, and this is
not an easy task. The Afternoon of a Faun,
then, is a poem less about artistic transformation than about the struggle to bring about the
transformation--a struggle necessitated by the
elusiveness of artistic truth. The obscurity of
the poem is intentional: it is Mallarme's way of
passing on to the reader the poet's original
struggle; the reader, in experiencing the feelings of uncertainty and vexation involved in
cracking open the meaning of the poem, enters
into it in a spirit of close identification with
the faun and the poet, all three seeking to pin
down in their separate ways the "fugitive impression."
Preserving the fugitive impression was an
ideal which French artists, by the last decade of
the nineteenth century, had been sharing for a
number of years. It is no exaggeration to say
that this ideal had come to be the guiding force
in the evolution of Debussy's style. Debussy
was unquestionably the man to convert the
dream characterof Mallarme's poem into musical terms; and in the first section of the prelude, where, as with the poem, the dreamlike
state of the faun is the central object of interest, Debussy is at his most original. As an evocation of hesitancy and uncertainty, the opening flute solo, followed by its harmonically
ambiguous variations, is one of the most
memorable ever penned. "You have surpassed
me in nostalgia and light," Mallarme wrote to
Debussy." And the sonorous freshness of the
score-its exquisite blending of tints and
nuances into a luminous whole-might well
evoke such an observation. We are struck by its
remarkable consistency and flow. As Austin
has said, "No part spontaneously breaks loose
to lodge in our memories as a tune. While we
listen, the parts seem to overlap each other, so
that the continuity of the work is extraordinarily smooth."12
In writing his poem, however, such a
smoothness of continuity may not have been
what Mallarme had uppermost in his mind.
The French artist of the time, in attempting to
catch the fugitive quality of an impression, had
essentially two means at his disposal. One was
11Austin, Critical Score, p. 12.
12Ibid., p. 71.
228
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LAURENCE D.
BERMAN
Debussy's
Summer Rites
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to present the subject more or less in its entirety but to blur its edges and contours-to
have us see it through the distorting haze of
impressionism. The other way-and one offerto suggest the
ing more radical distortion-was
subject by presenting parts and fragments of it
only. Debussy's prelude, it seems to me, represents the first way, Mallarme's eclogue the
second. Each work offers an essentially different challenge to the reader or listener in coming to terms with it. With the prelude, repeated
listenings will reveal subtle details which enrich
and confirm a sense of the work we have
had from the start. With the poem, repeated
readings are imperative in order for us to piece
together the shards and fragments which only
gradually and resistingly yield up a unified
idea.
In developing any subject matter, an author
initiates some sort of movement which we presume is heading toward a conclusion. Such a
forward movement is established in Mallarme's poem, but the interruptions, detours,
digressions, shiftings of time, and, I daresay,
changes of speed to which it is subjected are
indication that the conclusion will not easily
be reached. The difficulty of the poem may indeed be measured largely in terms of its forward movement, alive with discontinuities. In
this regard Debussy does not, after the notably
exceptional opening twenty measures of the
piece, follow the formal signals of the poem.
The presence of a functional harmonic structure, and what that implies of completed
shapes and fairly sharp distinctions between
stable and unstable areas, limits the possibilities for the sorts of side-steppings and tangents which are a major characteristic of the
poem. It is true that Debussy is on record as
having said that he intended nothing more
than to follow the "rising movement" of the
poem, by which I take him to mean the developing progression of the story line.13 But if
this is true, then Debussy's solution provides a
linear continuity on the surface of the music
which in the poem is buried beneath a network
of surface, i. e., local, interruptions.
By far the most striking divergence between poem and prelude concerns the middle
part of the prelude, mm. 55-74 (the characterization "middle part" already constituting a divergence in itself, for the term is not applicable
to the poem). This middle section corresponds,
as I see it, to the climax of the poem, lines
85-92, where the faun, in gaining what promises to be his final domination of the nymphs,
loses them in a sudden moment of inattention.
For hardly had I hidden an exulting laugh
Under the blessed folds of one of them (keeping my
touch
By just a finger-so her feathery whiteness might
Be colored by her sister's kindling passion-with
The naive little one who was not blushing yet)
When from my arms, relaxed by quasi-deaths, my
prey,
Always ungrateful, slips away, pitiless toward
My gasp of gluttonous intoxication.
The construction of the verse here does
bring a point of climax, but the climax coincides with the very words "slips away" which
signify the frustration of the faun's desire. The
music, on the other hand, expresses complete
fulfillment, its broad melody, firmly planted in
Db major, rising to a peak at mm. 69-70 and
resolving in a perfect cadence in mm. 73-74
(ex. 1). The classically arched shape of this
statement has no parallel in the poem; the
realities of the poem are given to us in far more
mercurial and fragmentary a "form." One may
argue that what Debussy is trying to express
here is not the faun's experience itself but the
momentary clarity it takes on for the faun after
his efforts to overcome his initial confusion. In
13Ibid., p. 14.
229
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19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
this sense, the schema of the prelude taken as a
whole would proceed from the hazy state of the
dream in the first part to a phase of sharper
focus, namely the section now under consideration, and then dissolve back into the dream
state in the closing part. I have no argument
with this interpretation; I would even maintain that on one level of meaning this was Debussy's conscious intention. But I would also
maintain that in the middle section Debussy
has given us an area of clarity, where Mallarm6
has given us points and flashes, or at most, narrow bands. Taking the prelude in its entirety,
we may say that it sustains one unbroken
mood, which is that of the wish-fulfillment
dream. It has, to be sure, its dynamic rises and
falls, even its distinctions between motives,
and certainly its profusion of colors and
timbres. But these are so gently commingled
and folded one into the other that the abiding
effect is an aura of pastoral charm.
Mallarme is more ambivalent about the
dream. To be sure, his poem is deeply rooted in
the pastoral tradition; but his motivations in
developing his imagery from that tradition are
not, one suspects, the straightforward and ingenuous ones of the Parnassian poets with
whom in the early days of his career he was
closely allied. Let us for a moment consider a
few aspects of this imagery. The pastoral archetypes which have been made familiar
through European art from the Renaissance on
and which pervade Mallarme's poem are the
product of antiquity, but of a fairly late stage
of it. We owe the flowery meadows, shaded
groves and gentle zephyrs to the Idylls of
Theocritus, appropriately named. For a picture
of pastoral life which is closer to the facts, it is
necessary to back up several centuries and
catch a glimpse of historic Arcadia, a harsh,
stony, chilly region of central Greece, where
shepherds tended goats, played pipes, and worshipped their local god Pan with a mixture of
violence and ecstasy which we commonly associate with the better-known
rites of
Dionysus. That an even more idyllic vision of
the pastoral world than Theocritus's should
subsequently spring from the fertile imagination of Virgil and be named Arcadia bears a certain irony. In Virgil's poetry no trace of Diony-
sian frenzy remains; Arcadia is henceforth
equated in the European mind with Apollonian
harmony and bliss.
In endowing Arcadia with qualities it never
possessed, Virgil may have brought into being
the first totally unadulterated wish-fulfillment
dream of Western art. Is it too much to see in
the exquisite tranquility of Debussy's prelude a
late but genuine offshoot from the Virgilian
seed? I do not think so. Erwin Panofsky, in his
famous essay "Et in Arcadia Ego," credits Virgil with the creation of that mood we call nostalgia, and he continues: "With only slight
exaggeration one might say that he 'discovered'
the evening. When Theocritus's shepherds
conclude their melodious converse at nightfall,
they like to part with a little joke about the behavior of nannies and billy goats. At the end of
Virgil's Eclogues we feel evening silently settle
over the world."'l4 In this distinction between
Theocritus and Virgil I think a close parallel
can be seen to the situation presently under
discussion. We may have come closer to
measuring the distance which separates our
own two artists in terms of motivation and
outlook.
It is not that Mallarme does not show decided leanings toward Virgil; his characterizing
the poem as an eclogue is testimony enough. In
addition he is capable of writing verses imbued
with true Virgilian sentiment:
At twilight when this wood turns gold and grays
a rite
Is celebrated in the dying foliage:
Along your slope, O Etna! visited by Venus,
Who treads your lava with her harmless heels
when sad
Sleep rumbles or the final flame goes flickering out.
But in the very next line, a more Theocritan
spirit takes over, and the harmonious mood is
broken:
I hold the queen! Oh, certain punishment ...
The faun's fantasizing has carried him too far.
He sees himself coupled with no less than
14Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts (Garden
City, N.Y., 1955), pp. 300-01.
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Venus, and the incongruity of this alliance
makes him absurd. Realizing this himself in
certain punishthe next moment-"Oh,
ment"-he has no recourse but to fall back to
sleep, to forget, as he puts it, his "blasphemy."
Mallarm6's quick shiftings of mood here are
exemplary of an ambivalence which runs
throughout the poem: it is the comic or erotic
spirit exerting its pull on the purely idyllic.
Nowhere is this ambivalence expressed in
more compressed terms than in the final line:
Couple,adieu:je vais voir l'ombreque tu devins.
Couple,adieu: I'll see the shadowyou became.
One can imagine the faun saying this with
some feeling of nostalgia. But given the fact
that he dismissed the nymphs earlier with an
abruptTant pis! one can also imagine the same
line being rendered with a certain flippancy.
Which is the final interpretation, flippancy or
nostalgia? The fact is, it is both, and the truth
of this ambivalence is confirmed by the realization that in this last line a process of identification has taken place between Mallarme and the
faun such that Mallarme is now speaking for
himself at least as much as for his creature. In
one of his characteristically playful moods
Mallarme expects us to supply the letter t at
the end of the first word of the line, and thereby
discover that he is not only speaking of the
couple-the
nymphs-but
of the couplet, the
rhymed alexandrine, the cornerstone of French
poetry. Thus on another level the faun's
farewell is paralleled by Mallarme'svaledictory
to the great French poetic traditions which
have gone before him, and specifically to that
of the Parnassians who nurtured him in the
ways of their Virgilian beauty. But he must
leave them, and this poem constitutes the
leave-taking. The last line left standing by itself is a most delightful trick of irony to play on
a rhymed couplet. This sort of irony has already been presaged in other acts of the poem.
A poet who breaks off the thought of an
alexandrine in mid-verse and permits such expletives as Tant pis! and Mais bast! to intrude
into an otherwise exalted line is clearly poking
fun, clearly committing his own blasphemies.
Yet the writing is fastidiously crafted, and
the basis of it is still the rhymed couplet. It is
characteristic of Mallarme that he should perform his act of departurein the context of that
from which he is departing. He probably hopes
to make the break as gently as possible. But
with the old and new juxtaposed as they are,
the pull between them is only further
dramatized. Thus the shiftings in the poem to
which we have referredearlier are now seen to
be not mere random movements symbolizing
the elusiveness of truth, but a matrix of relations expressing what that truth is. For in these
shiftings are to be found the tensions between
contrasting elements: between nostalgia and
flippancy, reverence and iconoclasm, action
and dream. These tensions constitute the truth
of the poem: they connote a new pattern of
poetic thought, which is the pattern of gentle
and sophisticated irony. Mallarme's departure
is a radical one, made with a rare selfconsciousness. The creation of this pattern gets
modern poetry definitively under way.
Pierre Boulez has claimed roughly the
same historical role for the prelude as for the
eclogue. He bases his opinion on Debussy's
treatment of "form," by which I have taken
him to mean "continuity." "One is justified in
saying that modern music was awakened by
L'Apres-midi
d'un faune;
what
was over-
thrown was not so much the art of development as the very concept of form itself, here
freed from the impersonal constraints of the
schema."'i Aside from the fact that "overthrown" seems to be a strong word to use for so
gentle a piece, it may be more precise to say
that while Debussy feels no obligation to
adhere to the old formal types, neither does he
seem guided by any conscious motivation to
break away from them. His solution is very
personal, but not epoch-making; if it results in
a treatment of A-B-A' form which seems almost casual, the schema itself is clearly perceptible, and thus not yet overthrown.
If Debussy is being guided by any formal
principle at all, it may be the one exemplified
in the later music dramas of Wagner, where a
new atmosphere emerges by means of a slowly
moving and ultra-graduated phase of transi-
1SBoulez, Notes, pp. 344-45.
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Debussy's
Summer Rites
19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
tion. I am thinking in particular of the portion
toward the end of Act II, scene 2 of Tristan,
where the two lovers, after their lengthy exertions in the first part of the scene, fall onto a
grassy bank to the unfolding strains of Brangine's watch-tower song. It is difficult not to
see in this memorable moment a direct
influence on the transition from the middle to
the last part of The Afternoon of a Faun (andon
the return of the opening flute theme four measures after ex. 1, in particular).Debussy's purpose in smoothing over the points of articulation here, as elsewhere in the piece, is
genuinely Wagnerianin spirit, and it produces
the same Wagnerian effect of imperceptible
transformation. There is no question that the
smoothing-over process can and should be
equated with a disregard for the points of articulation which are at the core of any formal
scheme. And it is therefore understandable
that Debussy's lack of concern about such
schemes should strike Boulez as an eminently
modern, even modernist tendency. That tendency, however, was already very much alive
with Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner.
If I find the continuity of the prelude retrospective in character, I find the imagery even
more so. The evocation of Tristan just mentioned is a case in point. Austin calls attention
to a remarkableparallel between the Db-major
middle section and the eighth Nocturne of
Chopin, in the same key.16He has also pointed
out the close connection between the opening
flute melody and Dalila's famous aria "Mon
coeur s'ouvre d ta voix" from the opera by
Saint-Saens.17 To these may be added the love
music of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, also
in Db major and bearing close affinities to the
middle section of the prelude. Indeed, if I were
to try to fix the expressive center of this middle
section, I would say it stands midway between
the exquisitely poised and unruffled surface of
the Chopin nocturne and the more ardent feeling of the Tchaikovsky theme with its accented melodic line and throbbing accompaniment. But more important for our argument
than their individual distinctions is their close
16Austin, Critical Score, p. 73.
l7Ibid., p. 9.
relatedness: each of the images refers to what
we may call, borrowing an expression from
literary criticism, a common archetype. Archetypes are much more than mere earmarks
of a style. They are the very patterns of thought
which an age or even a culture shares; as such,
they are our most reliable measure of artistic
content. In the case at hand, we know very well
what the archetype is referring to: it is an
idealistic vision of erotic love, particularlydear
to the nineteenth century, although not restricted to it.
If we think back on the love Mallarm6 describes, it is of a passing, carnal sort, flaring up
like a brightflame and dying out just as abruptly.
The theme of eternal, undying passion of
the nineteenth century has for Mallarme become an illusion, but Debussy, in clinging to
the old archetype, does not yet want to let the
illusion go. In drawing these comparisons between poem and music, I do not mean to disparage the music in any way, nor to suggest
that Debussy misread the poem. What he did
was to take a certain characterof the poem and
exalt it in a music which contains its own
genuine truth, creating an aura of deep nostalgia and wish-fulfillment. Debussy is not unfaithful to Mallarm6 in this regard, for those
elements figure importantly in the poem and
may even constitute its original center. But
other, contrasting elements exert their force on
this center, enough to pull the poem into another realm. What I have tried to provide is an
historical appreciation of the two works, with
out prejudice for the artistic merits of one or
the other. Debussy's prelude remains an Apollonian lyric, while Mallarme's eclogue has become a Dionysian comedy. The first genre is
closer to the nineteenth century; the second,
closer to the twentieth.
III
We must now reconsider Jeux, using the
same criteria of continuity and imagery as we
have for The Afternoon of a Faun. Mention has
already been made of the number of tempo
changes in the piece, suggesting a type of continuity at least superficially like that of Mallarm6's poem. Is it possible that the multiple
shiftings in tempo and mood imply a basic ten-
232
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Debussy's
Summer Rites
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sion such as we have already seen develop in
the poem? I believe the answer is yes, and that
Debussy, unlike Mallarme, intends to reveal
the signs of it to us immediately-in the form
of a dramatic contrast. On the opening page of
the score he juxtaposes the two extreme speeds
of the piece in quick succession, the first
is needed to regulate the evolution of thematic
ideas" says Boulez, and the tempo he has in
mind is that of the Scherzando at m. 9 (ex. 2a).
Jeux, therefore, is essentially a fast piece, the
last in a line of quick triple-time orchestral
movements, beginning with Fetes from the
Nocturnes and continuing with Jeux de vagues
marked Tres lent, the second Scherzando. It is
from La Mer, the first movement of Iberia, and
clear, however, from Debussy's inclusion of
the indication Tempo initial in parenthesis
next to the Scherzando that the two elements
are not on equal footing. "A single basic tempo
Rondes
de printemps.
The
slow,
almost
rhythmically amorphous opening measures,
with their whole-tone sounds and chromatic
inner-voice motive, are to be felt as a prelude to
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19TH
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MUSIC
the scherzando figure of m. 9, which announces the central argument of the piece, the
theme of excited pursuit and seduction. But
just in case we do not hear the opening as a
preparation-if, instead, the haziness of the
opening measures gives the impression that we
are listening to a dream piece in the spirit of
The Afternoon of a Faun-that impression is
quickly dispelled by the dry, agitated chatter of
the scherzando motive as it suddenly enters
upon the scene. The rhythmic edge and sharpness of this fast music leave no doubt that the
events of the ballet are being played before us
in all their immediacy, and not as if seen
through the glazed eyes of their protagonist, as
in the case of the Faun. Emile Vuillermoz has
said, "Supple, ready at any instant for a sudden
shift of thought, this music is of inconceivable
fleetness. It is awake like the players it depicts."18
But if this music is fleet and awake, it also
seems to run out of energy quite often, giving
over to more languid periods, and lapsing into
momentary phases of tempo rubato. (A striking
example of this occurs on pp. 56-65 of the
score.) What expressive function do these moments serve? In order to answer this question,
we must temporarily take the point of view of
the listener, who presumably comes to the
work with the faith that its varied and changeable movements are not random digressions,
but elements in a general progression leading
to a goal. Herein, however, lies the basic plight
of Jeux: listeners have too often been unable to
sustain that faith, because performers have
been unable to project a general feeling of
growth and development. Jeux does have a
goal, an unmistakable point of culmination
marked Tres modere and fortissimo at mm.
677-78, twenty-two measures from the end
(ex. 3). In itself this climax is an extraordinary
gesture compressing into its single shape the
tension between the two fundamental elements of the piece (just as the final line of Mallarme's poem functions for that work). On the
curtain rises (see ex. 2b); on the other hand this
motive is rhythmically augmented and sustained in the context of the slow tempo. It is a
case of classic dialectical action, in which the
energy supplied by the one element is given its
fullest expression through the other.
Still to be considered is the effect of the
climax on the motions leading to it. It is typical
of Debussy's later compositional practices that
a single gesture followed by a short aftermath
should be responsible for resolving a significant
development. This is in keeping with his
avoidance of heroic statement-his preference
for the effect of paroxysm or the blinding flash
of clarity. In the present case the climactic
moment must resolve a momentum which has
been accumulating (albeit with varying energy)
since m. 284 (p. 48 of the score), in other words,
for four hundred bars. In order to keep
this momentum alive a conductor must never
permit the slow passages which periodically
intervene to relax beyond a certain degree.
They must always carry a certain level of tension, so that their collective function as interruptions to the "single basic tempo" is not
forgotten.
There is only one slow passage which
should not be considered an interruption, because its advent is carefully set up and because
it has a fairly complete shape in itself. This is
the section from mm. 224 to 283 (pp. 38-48).
Coming in between the active expository section and the four hundred measures of buildup,
it serves as an extended pause, a breathing
space before the "breathlessness" resumes.
This passage might seem deserving of the name
"middle section," except for the fact that it is
so asymmetrically placed. The feeling of relaxation here is created in great part by the presence of a genuine key, F# major. This is in distinct opposition to the functioning of the
so-called tonic of the piece, A major, which appears for 42 out of the total 709 measures, and
then at such scattered intervals-now eight
measures, now six-that it never takes root. It
one hand we hear the four-note scherzando
motive from m. 49, the moment at which the
is true that the final note of the piece is an A,
but insofar as its advent has not been prepared
by the preceding events, it can hardly be said to
carry its weight as a tonal point of repose. Debussy seems to be paying perfunctory homage
18Quotedin Vallas, Debussy, p. 334.
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Le jeune homme, dans un geste passione, a reuni leurs trois
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Debussy's
Summer Rites
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to a convention. But in so doing, is he not to
some extent mocking it? There is in this ambivalence the same sort of irony we have
already found in the final isolated line of
Mallarme's rhymed couplet.
More important for tonal organization than
the A is the note Cg, which as a third of A, the
fifth of Fg, and the enharmonic equivalent to
Db (an important area of development in the
latter part of the piece), serves as a connective
between them all. It is what might be called
the "radialpitch," generating movement away
from itself toward another point. As such, it
has the opposite force of a tonic, toward which
tonal material moves in search of repose. The
presence of Cg as the guiding tonal force of a
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MUSIC
passage seems always to go hand in hand with a
feeling of heightened anticipation, of breathless excitement.
Breathless excitement is, of course, the
general condition of the ballet's protagonists,
as Vuillermoz remarked. But breathlessness
without any counteragent would deprive the
musical continuity of poise and leave the dancers exhausted long before their course were
run. Besides, the stops and starts of the music
are, on another level of meaning, indicative of
the feints, strategies, and dangers involved in
these games of seduction. More than simply
following the physical action outlined by the
scenario, the music, with its forward movement periodically frustrated,is a deeper kind of
action underscoring the feelings of the protagonists, which alternate between states of
frustration and exhilaration. Their efforts to
come to a conclusion are finally achieved at the
above-mentioned point of climax, at mm.
677-78 (ex. 3), where the scenario tells us that
"the young man, in a passionate gesture, brings
together their three heads ... and a triple kiss
unites them in an ecstasy."
There is something clearly ritualistic in
this design, insofar as a ritual is a succession of
events which move toward the consummation
of a central, efficacious act. The act in question
here-the triple kiss-may seem slight by
comparison with those of true sacred ritual or
with that of The Rite of Spring, for instance,
which is a conscious imitation of a solemn fertility rite. But the singlemindedness with
which the act is envisaged and pursued in Jeux
endows it with a significance it might not
otherwise have had. Debussy has spoken of
"episodes" in his score, but Jeux strikes me as
being less episodic in construction than The
Rite of Spring, each of whose sections is
brought to a climax of its own. The fact that
the music of Jeux finds no real place of relaxation for four hundred measures implies an
enormous buildup of tension, further increased
at those points where the slow tempo intervenes and causes temporary obstructions to
forward movement. But most of all, the energy
with which the music bounds forward as the
obstructions are removed and the fast triple
tempo resumes its course creates an effect of
wildness which, in terms of typical Debussyan
expression, must be considered exceptional.
The marking Violent in the score at m. 645 (p.
107) is the only use, to my knowledge, of such
an indication in the entire Debussy oeuvre.
Whether or not we make direct associations
between this moment and primitive ritual, the
frenzy expressed here seems worthy of the
name Dionysian.
Other associations, closer in time and
place to Jeux than primitive ritual, suggest
themselves and should not be overlooked.
These are the bacchanal and orgy scenes of
nineteenth-century operas and ballets, especially those tinged with a pseudo-oriental or
Spanish flavor. Perhaps the most direct source
of the musical imagery of Jeux, aside from Debussy's own works, is Rimsky-Korsakov's
Scheherazade. Performed by the Diaghilev
company as a ballet in 1910, it took Paris by
storm with its mixture of virtuoso dancing,
exotic decor, and colorful eroticism. In spite of
Debussy's deprecatingremarks about Rimsky's
score-he once said that it evoked a Turkish
bazaar more than the true Orientl9-there are
more than a few moments in his own music
that betray the fact that Scheherazade had
penetrated deep into his consciousness. Yet the
harmonic language of Jeux, varied and extended beyond anything Debussy had written
previously, transforms the source material on
which the imagery is based to such a degree
that the images are totally new and carry their
own original content. In terms of complexity of
feeling, Jeux is as far removed from Scheherazade as Scheherazade is from La belle Helene.
One further aspect of ritual Jeux embodies:
the connection of ritual with the concept of recurrence and the natural cycle. As Northrop
Frye has written, "Rituals cluster around the
cyclical movements of the sun, the moon, the
seasons, and human life. Every crucial periodicity of experience: dawn, sunset, the
phases of the moon, seed-time and harvest, the
equinoxes and the solstices, birth, initiation,
marriage, and death, get rituals attached to
them."20 The rituals of which Frye speaks are
cosmic in character, organizing the life of
19Lockspeiser, Debussy, p. 275.
20Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, 1957),
p. 105.
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whole societies and cultures. But there are
rituals of a more personal kind as well-events
which have the element of recurrencein them,
either because they figure regularly in a given
individual's experience or happen sooner or
later to everyone.
In the present case, the typically recurring
experience is the fragmentation of man's erotic
feelings, embodied in the eternal triangle; and
its ritualistic character is explicitly presented
in the final moments of the ballet. On the surface Jeux seems to be a comedy, because it
builds to a happy ending and brings together
the three protagonists in a symbolic uniting of
their heads. But this is not the ending: the
point of climax is quickly dispelled, and
another event supersedes it. A dozen bars later,
at m. 689, the scenario reads: "A tennis ball
falls at their feet; surprisedand frightened, they
bound away and disappear into the depths of
the nocturnal park."The meaning of this event
is clear: with the advent of the new tennis ball
comes the promise of a new triangle. Although
the personalities will change, the situation remains the same. The end of Jeux is thus a rebeginning, and the music closes as it opened.21
The climax of Jeux, with its brief aftermath, contains a triple message. First, it tells
us that the act of joyous consummation, like
the artist's truth, is achieved only with considerable effort. Second, it tells us that, after all
the effort, the experience passes, almost as if it
had been a dream. We have seen that Mallarme's insurance against such fugitive experience is to capture it-to perpetuate it-in the
form of an art work. But the third part of Jeux's
message indicates a solution outside the realm
of art, in the world of experience itself. If there
is any consolation to the ephemeral nature of
our existence, the message implies, it will be
found in the idea of recurrence. For us, the experience may be over and done with. But in the
sense that the essentials of it will recur
through another set of circumstances and
another set of protagonists who succeed us, the
experience will have been renewed and perpetuated.
The inspiration for this ending of Jeux
came from Diaghilev, who, dissatisfied with
Debussy's original ending which he found too
conclusive, asked the composer to change it to
something more up-in-the-air. Debussy grudgingly complied, coming up with a music whose
wispiness faithfully carries out Diaghilev's
idea. Indeed, in the light of this information,
the tenuousness of the final A, which was discussed earlier, is now more fully revealed. For
if the final gesture is not a traditional ending,
21In her biography of her husband (see fn. 2), Romola
But whereas contemporary art has often painted this
theme in the darkest of hues, Jeux suggests that it not be
taken too seriously (no more so than the faun's failure with
the nymphs). Thus the content of Jeux, at least as conceived in the scenario, seems to be not simply a theme, but
the composite of theme and its commentary. The music
may go still one step further, in a more vigorously positive
direction, for it deals not only with the emotional insufficiencies of the characters, but also with their essential
vitality and youth. It expresses, as I have already said
above, not only their frustration but their exhilaration. In
the tension between these two states may well lie the emotional center of the ballet. To describe in detail how Debussy accomplishes this tension must be the task of
another paper, but I suggest that a significant element in
the process is Debussy's ability to create images with "pagan," or Dionysian, connotations.
Mme Nijinsky's remarks about the type of love expressed in Jeux give strength to my conviction that
Nijinsky was influenced by The Afternoon of a Faun,
whether consciously or not, in working out his scenario for
Jeux. This is why I cannot altogether go along with her contention that the treatment in Jeux of the theme of the eternal triangle was "utterly new." Mallarme's poem anticipates just such a treatment by many years.
Nijinsky writes provocatively about the "modem feeling"
in Jeux:
Love becomes, not the fundamental driving force of life,
but merely a game, as it is in the twentieth century. The
object (here the excuse of finding the ball) is easily abandoned and flirtation begins, but this is also quite as easily
given up when the idea of the former activity is recalled.
He [Nijinsky] sees here love as nothing more than an
emotion, a pastime, which doesn't even require consummation, which can be found among three as well as
among the same sex (p. 170).
If not actually "required," the consummation is nevertheless provided in the ballet, as we have just seen, although
so briefly that it turns out to be as evanescent as any other
state the protagonists experience in the course of their actions. In dealing with the archetype of "the eternal triangle
under an utterly new aspect" (p. 156), Jeux was shaping a
theme which in very little time would become an archetype of its own: modern man's failure to come to terms
with his own feelings, his inability to sustain clearly defined emotions.
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LAURENCE D.
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Debussy's
Summer Rites
19TH
CENTURY
MUSIC
but a re-beginning, then the A which it contains must carrythe same expressive weight as
its counterpart at m. 9.
IV
On this note, the present essay must draw
to its own tenuous close. A piece of the complexity of Jeux requires a much more detailed
analysis than the scope of this essay will allow.
At least a few directions which could be followed in a further development of the subject
have been indicated. And let us hope that further development will take place, for both as an
artistic achievement and historical product
Jeux is deserving of more scholarly scrutiny
221 am indebted to Jann Pasler of the University of Virginia
for calling my attention to two articles which have recently appeared in German periodicals: Claudia Maurer
Zenck, "Form- und Farbenspiele: Debussy's 'Jeux'," Archiv
fiir Musikwissenschaft 33 (1976), 28-47; and Marcus Spies,
"Jeux," Musik-Konzepte 1-2 (1977), 79-96. Until the appearance of these two pieces, Herbert Eimert's article,
"Debussy's 'Jeux'," Die Reihe 5 (1959; English version,
1961), 3-20, represented the only intensive study of the
work. The interest in Jeux of the members who constituted
the group behind Die Reihe in the 1950s (notably Boulez,
Stockhausen, Eimert, and Ligeti) must not be overlooked,
but it should also be pointed out that they were looking at
Jeux primarily as it related to formal procedures being de-
(and also, by the way, of more authoritative
performance) than it has received. The other
works we have considered have a substantial
critical literature behind them. Of the Prelude
to the Afternoon of a Faun, Debussy's most accessible and popular orchestral work, there is
no doubt in this regard.In spite of its intrinsic
inaccessibility, Mallarme's poem has an established place in the annals of Western literature.
In spite of, or perhaps because of its initial
shock value, musicians and non-musicians
alike have come to terms with The Rite of
Spring. Our accounts, however, with Jeux, Debussy's rite of summer, are only
now beginning to be settled.22
veloped in their own music. While this perspective offers
some fascinating insights, it also leaves room for many
other approaches to the work.
Claudia Zenck's article is a case in point. As part of her
attempt to widen the earlier perspective, she questions the
validity of certain assertions made by Stockhausen with
regard to Jeux and "statistical form" (Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Von Webern zu Debussy, Bemerkungen zur
statistischen Form," Texte zur elektronischen und instrumentalem Musik, vol. I [1963], p. 75). At the same time,
she does not fail to acknowledge the service the Die Reihe
group performed in breaking the spell of oblivion surrounding Jeux for more than forty years.
238
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