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Jacob Derkert: Debussys Nocturnes, cyklisk och transformativ form: ett kritiskt möte mellan receptionshistoria och musikanalys

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Overview of Marnold’s analysis of Nocturnes: Nuages and Fêtes

In very broad terms, Marnold views the three movements of Nocturnes as an introductory Exposition of cyclical motives and themes (Nuages), a quasi-Sonata movement (Fêtes) and a quasi-Rondo (Sirenes). These terms might seem traditional enough, but not unlike Barraqué in regard to his analysis of La Mer,1 Marnold qualifies the relevance of his analytical categories:

Je suis loin de méconnaitre ce qu’il y a d’arbitraire dans cette systématisation. Il faut se garder de la prendre à la lettre, en l’assimilant au frationnement [sic ! fractionemment? rationemment ?] régulier d’un allegro de symphonie classique. Les mots « cadence », « développement », « trio » en particulier sont ici plutôt des expédients d’analyse et de coordination: car c’est une infirmité naturelle et constitutive de notre entendement, que de devoir nous expliquer ce que nous rencontrons pour la première fois à l’aide de ce que nous connaissons déjà.2

(I am far from being unknowing about the arbitrariness of this systematisation. One must take care not to take it literally, assimilating it with the regular way of fractioning a classical symphonic allegro. The words ‘cadence’, ‘development’, ‘trio’ in particular are expedients of analysis and coordination. For it is a natural and constitutive weakness of our reason [entendement] that it has to explain what we find for the first time in terms of what we already know.)

More concretely Marnold distinguishes two themes as the common ground for the whole work. These are identical with the most obvious thematic shapes of Nuages, reproduced by Marnold, see Figs 1 and 2.

1 In his discourse Barraqué is less explicit than Marnold, but in his answer to M. Costère, who was questioning the use of ‘traditional criteria’ in an analysis of Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and La Mer presented by Barraqué in 1962 at a ‘colloque’ of CNRS, he made clear that one really had to ‘destroy the traditional forms of analysis’, and that the actual analysis presented was just preliminary. ‘Debussy ou l’approche d’une organisation autogène de la composition’, in Jean Barraqué, Écrits réunis, présentées et annotés par Laurent Feneyrou (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, n.d.), 261-75, 274. 2 Marnold, ‘Les Nocturnes’, 81-2.

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The capitals A and B designate what Marnold dubs ‘motives’, while the small letters c and d indicate ‘fragments’. Marnold does not give much detail when it comes to the actual process of Nuages, but he relates in an elliptical way the order of presentation of the themes and the final dying out of the music. The substantial part of the analysis regards the manner in which the themes recur in the movements Fêtes and Sirènes, and the forms of these movements.

Marnold renews the designations for themes with each movement. He discerns three themes in Fêtes (henceforth Movement II), figs. 3-5:

Fig. 3 = Marnold Ex. 4 bis = Movement II Theme I

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Fig. 5 = Marnold Ex. 8 = Movement II Theme III

These three themes of Movement II all have clear individuality: none of them has any evident relation to the themes or motives of Movement I. Still, Marnold’s statement is that Nocturnes is an example of cyclic thematicism, and he even argues that each of these themes, though in rather different ways, exemplifies this: they are directly (Themes I and III) or indirectly (Theme II) related to Theme I of Movement I or its motives. To complicate the picture, Marnold also distinguishes a few other motivic-thematic shapes of Fêtes (Motives I-III), which will be introduced below, one of them ‘easily’ identified as a ‘derivative’ of a motive of Movement I, two of them less so.

I shall not here give a full account of Marnold’s argument, but will mainly concentrate on Fêtes. This will suffice to identify the principles and a few important problems involved. The second movement’s Theme I in fig. 3 is to be found at rehearsal mark 2: ms 3-6. It is rather similar to, though not identical with, the initial thematic shape of Fêtes, 0: ms 3-6 (see Fig. 6), and it is through the mediation of this initial shape that Marnold claims a relation between the theme I of Movement II and the ‘generative theme I’ of Nocturnes. The initial thematic shape of II is interpreted as ‘an amplification’ of ‘the cadence of the English horn’ of motive B of Movement I Theme I (compare

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system 3 and 2 respectively of Fig. 6).3 If amplification seems to denote ornamentation of held out notes, the time-relations between B in Movement I and the melody of the initial shape in Movement II are analogous, though not identical. As we shall see later, the actual term is also used by d’Indy, though for another kind of procedure.

Fig. 6 = Marnold Ex. 4 = Movement II Introduction

Several other themes and motives of Fêtes are likewise put in direct relation of generation with motives from Theme I of Nuages. Thus Theme III, fig. 5, which Marnold identifies as a variety of Motive B in fig. I, and Motives I, II, and III, are discussed below. Theme II of Fêtes is a different, and in a sense more complex case. According to Marnold it is not a direct transformation of the cyclical theme I or any of its elements, but the result of a local process of transformation – Marnold even uses the words transfiguration and transmutation (in its verbal mode: ‘transmuer’) which alludes to the concept of transcendence, i.e. a change that in a fundamental way breaks with the initial identity of a thing.4 The first element of this process, ‘Motive I’ (the name is implicated by the context, Marnold never explicitly uses that denomination), (2: ms 1-2) is easy to accept on a common sense basis as a variety of part of motive A of the generative theme I:

Fig. 7 = Marnold Ex. 5 = Movement II Motive I (‘incive’ of Motive A)

It is a clearcut derivative of Motive A for which Marnold uses the term ‘incive’ of A, perhaps best translated as ‘cutout’ of A. It is immediately followed by the appearance of the Movement II Theme I as related in Fig. 3, and

3 Marnold, ‘Les Nocturnes’, 70. 4 Marnold, ‘Les Nocturnes’, 71.

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Debussy: Nocturnes, Mvt 2

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Marnold in fact sees this appearance as a juxtaposition of the derivative of Motive B of Fig. 6 (upper system of Fig. 3) and a derivative of the variety of Motive A of Fig. 7 (lower system of Fig. 3).

In 5: ms 1-2 a new shape, ‘Motive II’, appears which is less obviously ‘derivative’ of other themes, but for which Marnold will once again identify a multiple heritage:

Fig. 8 = Ex. 6 = Movement II Motive II

According to Marnold this is a complex configuration of different motives and fragments: Fragment d of Motive B (measure 1), the whole of B (measures 1-3), and the cutout of A/Theme II of Movement II (last part of measure 1 to measure 3).

So far Marnold has managed to keep the music wholly inside a frame of thematic variety in direct relation to the generative Movement I: Theme I – all themes and motives in simple or multiple ways are varieties of elements of this theme. But apropos rehearsal mark 4 = Fig. 4 = Movement II: Theme II, Marnold introduces the notion of transformations of a motive that transcends the limit of identity between origin and end:

ce nouvel élément joue ici le rôle intermédiaire du motif de transition des vieux maîtres et, certes, avec une rare pertinence, car si l’identité d’origine établit entre lui et le thème I que l’on vient d’entendre, une parenté intime, c’est de ce motif II lui-même que va naître tout à l’heure le second thème du mouvement.5

(this new element [i.e. Motive II in fig. 8] plays here the role of the transitional motive of the old masters, and certainly with a rare pertinence, for if the identical/identity of the origin establishes an intimate kinship between it and Theme I, as we just have understood, it is from this motive II in itself that the Theme II of the movement soon will be born.)

The notion played with here is that the second motive (Fig. 8), itself multiply related to generative theme I, ‘gives birth to’ the second theme, while the latter theme per se is not directly related to generative theme I, that its relation is purely genealogical. The actual process of ‘birthgiving’ is a critical link in Marnold’s discourse, that significantly marks a change in argumentative technique, where metaphor, always prevalent, takes over more or less completely.

In the musical process, Theme II becomes intermingled with ‘Motive III’, whose uppermost melodic line in the first system would once more be a direct derivate from a motive in Nuages, this time, once again, Motive B:

5 Marnold, ‘Les Nocturnes’, 71.

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Debussy_Marnold_Nocturnes_1Debussy: Nocturnes, Mvt 1

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Fig. 9 = Marnold Ex. 7 = Movement II Motive III

The less clear and less concrete argument in the case of Movement II, Theme II, compared to the rest of the cases of thematic-motivic transformation, coincides with a change in Marnold’s objective: The other cases are about inter-movement thematic relations between Nuages and Fêtes. In this case it is about intra-movement relations with regard to Fêtes, including both a process and a comparison between an initial and a final state. This in fact, and interestingly, corresponds to an important distinction made by d’Indy in Cours, between two fundamentally different ways of motivic-thematic change.

D’Indy: Means of development versus means of variation

In a study on Saint-Saëns, Daniel Fallon recognized that there is an important distinction in d’Indy’s Cours between development and variation, the two ways by which a theme or motive might change.6 He cites the following passage from d’Indy (1909):

Thematic metamorphoses also differ, in most cases, from organic development ... which consists of setting a previously stated theme in motion or propelling it forward, by amplification, elimination, or by combining it with other themes; in general, the same means do not suffice for giving a theme or a cyclic motive the ability to move through pieces of a different character, while still remaining recognizable. This procedure ... is closer to variation than to development.7

Fallon continues:

Development, according to d’Indy, implies action or motion toward a goal; modulation and forward movement are characteristic features. Variation, on the contrary, is the art of exposing various aspects of a theme, ‘a sort of interpretation or musical commentary’ which does not recognize movement or agitation. ... D’Indy feels that the basic procedures used to transform a theme are those associated with variation and not those characteristic of development. This proposition can be readily accepted on the basis of the musical examples he provides.8

6 Daniel Fallon, ‘Saint-Saëns and the Concours de Composition musicale in Bordeaux’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 31:2 (1978), 309-25. 7 Fallon, ‘Saint-Saëns’, 321, translation of d’Indy, Cours: Deuxième livre, première partie, 379. 8 Fallon, ‘Saint-Saëns’, 321.

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Exactly what is at stake? There are two separate processes that, according to d’Indy, tend to correlate with two different functions: One is about intra-movement thematic changes, and takes the form of organic development, while the other is about inter-movement thematic transformation, which mostly (i.e. not always) takes the form of variation of a sort. The sub-text is that inter-movement thematic transformation also can be about organic development. The difference or contrast in character between movements is a critical factor.

d’Indy distinguishes three means of development, and three means of variation. A systematic treatment of the former is to be found in the section on organic development in Cours II:1. Three developmental modifications of ‘the thematic organs’ are distinguished: amplification, elimination, and superposition.9 Of the three terms, only amplification and elimination figure explicitly in Marnold’s articles, and in senses that deviate from the ones d’Indy seems to have intended. Superposition on the other hand is wholly absent, but in this case the notion they signify in d’Indy are clearly present though under other headings.

Amplification ‘consists in a kind of strengthening or widening of one of the elements constituting the idea, which takes on a more marked importance through the augmentation of note values, or through the addition of new notes, as if the personality, under the influence of some expansive force, was seeking to expand itself’.10 The example d’Indy gives, with regard to what he calls motif ‘a’ in Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 106, confirms the difference from Marnold, which one suspects already from the verbal rendering: It has the form of a simple sequential repetition of a motive, while Marnold’s example (fig. 7) is closer to an ornamental variation. The expected contrast between developmental techniques typical for an intra-movement transformation and variational techniques typical for inter-movement transformations thus is borne out.

Elimination is ‘the opposite operation’ of amplification, diminishing the importance of a thematic element through the shortening or withdrawing of its constituent notes, thereby ‘concentrating its vital energy on a single point’. The example d’Indy delivers consists in a shortening of a lengthier musical process through a simple excision of its later parts (though the surviving element is repeated in a way that seems to exemplify amplification).

Marnold uses a similar procedure for the introduction of an analytical help-construct, a reduction of Theme I and Motives A-B (see Fig. 7 below, upper system). The construct in question is not really an elimination in d’Indy’s sense, as it does not make part of the surface process, but represents an analytical abstraction from certain parts of the actual music. The motive e on the other hand is prominent in the work and is obviously identified by Marnold as the result of a procedure applied to motive A that closely corresponds to what d’Indy defines as elimination:

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9 d’Indy, Cours: Deuxième livre, première partie, 243. 10 d’Indy, Cours: Deuxième livre, première partie, 243.

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The three means of variation as described by d’Indy are about the three parameters rhythm (rhythmic modifications), melody (melodic modifications), and harmony (harmonic modifications). When these are developed, it also shows that amplification is a kind of bridge between development and variation, as it also recurs in the latter case.11

Returning to the analysis of Marnold, we can note a somewhat impure picture. Certainly, there is a strong tendency for inter-movement motivic-thematic relations to be about variational transformations, including the demi-developmental technique of amplification, all this in accordance with d’Indy’s model. (C.f. A measure 3 in Movement I and the ‘incive’ of A in Movement II as an example of variation, and B and the initial shape of Movement II as an example of inter-movement amplification.) However, at the same time there are so-called developmental techniques directly applied to motives from other movements, as the ‘superposition’ in fig. 8 illustrates. In fact, this deviation from d’Indy’s model reflects another deviation on the part of Marnold: The stipulation that Nuages is an exposition implying that Fêtes (and Sirènes) are development sections, i.e. that there is a case of development over multiple movements. But according to the Lisztian lineage this would be no real paradox, rather an intermingling of multi-movement and single sonata-movement structures.

The Lisztian model notwithstanding, there is a tendency in Marnold that correlates with d’Indy’s distinction between intra- and inter-movement transformations: For the former the author is leaning more towards metaphorical language, and through this also towards the less ‘obvious’, for the ‘common sense’ less easily suggestible relations between motivic or thematic shapes.

Ideologies of musical agencies in d’Indy and Marnold

Let us back one or two steps, leaving Theme II of Fêtes in obscurity. Fig. 3 and fig. 6, and even more fig. 8, might already stretch the imagination of the reader to a breaking point of faith. The actual wording of Marnold in the latter case is that ‘[t]he atavism of this newcomer seems to be more complex’.12 Atavism can have a biological or a cultural-historical meaning, in both cases there is a question of a trait or character that reappears in a later generation, and in the context both of these are actualized. On the one hand, the metaphor of biological development is present on several occasions, as already hinted at. On the other hand, Marnold invokes Debussy’s ‘creative fantasy’ as an agent of transfiguration of thematic material:

Il [le motif du transition] s’affirme un fois encore en fa, puis devient peu à peu, pour la fantaisie créatrice du compositeur, le sujet d’une extraordinaire transfiguration: son début persiste aux cordes, étiré chromatiquement, s’étend, s’exalte sans cesse, pendant qu’au-dessus de cette montée et parallèlement, hautbois, puis flûtes et clarinette le transmuent en une figure décidément originale qui s’élève, toujours plus résolue, plus altière (fa-la), traversée un instant par l’ébauche du thème III (ex. 8), et s’épanouit en même temps que la péroraison des cordes. Dérivée des motifs A et B de Nuages (comparer ex. 1 bis), celle-ci prend l’importance d’une nouvelle idée thématique, et, à l’instar de la cadence médiaire des classiques, elle semble assumer la tâche de clore l’exposition (fa dièze – si).13

11 C.f. d’Indy, Cours: Deuxième livre, première partie, 379-87. XXX 12 Marnold, ‘Les Nocturnes’, 70. 13 Marnold , Les Nocturnes’, 71. This section follows immediately the one cited above, footnote 52XXX.

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Debussy_Marnold_Nocturnes_1Debussy: Nocturnes, Mvt 1

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(It [the transitional motive] affirms itself once more in F, then it becomes gradually, for the creative imagination of the composer, the subject of an extraordinary transfiguration: its beginning [initial figuration] persists in the chords, chromatically stretched, it stretches itself, it exalts itself incessantly, at the same time as oboes, then flutes and clarinets transmutes it into a decidedly original figure which elevates itself, more and more resolute, higher [and higher], for a short moment transversed by a hint of [the forthcoming] Theme III [ex. 8, Fig. 7, Fig. 8], and flourishes at the same time as the chords ends. Derived from motives A and B of Nuages (see example 1 bis [fig. 9]), this takes on the weight of a new thematic idea, and seems to take on the role to close the exposition.)

The agency here is shared between the thematic material in itself and the composer’s creative imagination. The metaphoric language might seem ambiguous, spread over three different levels: 1) The self-activity of musical elements (e.g. motives); 2) The imaginative activity of the composer; and 3) the pseudo-logical activity of the composer, deriving a theme from two motives (which might be a subcase of 2). This ambiguity has, if not a strict model, at least an analogue in d’Indy.

Like Marnold, d’Indy displays ambiguity, but in the case of the latter it is not so clearly paradoxical, as the different views here match a variation over music history. The major shift is identified as Beethoven, more precisely the Beethoven of ‘the middle period’.

A very short and preliminary characterization of d’Indy’s view of pre-Beethoven music will do on this occasion. Suffice to say that this music is seen as lawbound in the same way as language, and that the actions of the composer are viewed as analogue to linguistic acts. For example, the forms and styles of canon and fugue builds on imitation, and the ‘mutation’ (d’Indy’s term in this particular case for variety of shape) displayed in the presentation of the theme in the latter case depends on the demands of tonality, i.e. a composer of these forms constructs music according to lawbound strictures. Moreover, d’Indy speculates that imitation is a kind of activity strongly related to our linguistic habits:

Dès que les mélodies ainsi juxtaposes commencent à s’individualiser, elles obéissent au besoin inné d’imitation, qui, dès notre premiere enfance, régit presque tous nos actes, surtout en ce qui concern l’élaboration mystérieuse du langage. 14

(From the moment melodies juxtaposed in this way begins to individualize themselves, they are subjected to the inborn need for imitation, which, since our early childhood, steers nearly all our acts, especially when it comes to the mysterious elaboration of language.)

d’Indy pretends that a radically different mode of musical form, only hinted at in a few instances in earlier music, is coming into being with Beethoven, and it is music displaying such form that a language heavily leaning towards the self-agency of music is reserved. The genres concerned are those of multimovement sonata-formed pieces. Significantly, d’Indy does not recognize a development section in the sonata’s first movement form prior to Beethoven: The middle section between ‘exposition’ and ‘re-exposition’ of those earlier sonatas is simply called ‘the middle part’ (‘la partie médiane’), while ’the term ‘development’ both for a collection of techniques and for a middle section in sonata form is introduced in the context of Beethoven’s sonatas. Development is, according to d’Indy, a consequence of another novelty of Beethoven, the musical idea.

Car les idées musicales, leurs développements et leurs modulations constituent autant d’éléments nouveaux ou renouvelés dont l’art symphonique tout entier est redevable à Beethoven principalement, sinon exclusivement.15

(Musical ideas, their developments, and their modulations constitute new or renovated musical elements which the whole of symphonic music principally, if not exclusively, owes Beethoven.)

d’Indy makes clear that musical ideas are not ideas in an ordinary sense, i.e. not representations of objects, but ‘expressions of sentiments or impressions’. But as such they are not means for acts of expression, but have the same

14 d’Indy, Cours: Deuxième livre, première partie, 21. XXX 15 d’Indy, Cours: Deuxième livre, première partie, 232.

functions as living organs, they are acting beings. There is no indication that this shall be understood in a metaphorical sense. On the contrary the autonomy of music seems to reside in this self-activity of music, certainly expressive but not of definite thoughts or concrete feelings of the composer as a finite being but of something ‘infinite’ that ‘exceeds human nature’.16

The view of ideas as agents of action is developed and made more precise in a rather complex manner. The ‘actions of themes and ideas’ in a development are said to be ‘the logical and orderly expression of the successive movements and states that the diverse elements constituting a musical idea passes by’. This always involves an element of struggle, in the multi-thematic works a struggle between the ideas, going through different phases and ending up in the triumph of one of them, and the submission of the rest. The word ‘expression’ used here precludes a metaphorical interpretation in a stronger sense, but in the case where ‘the living idea is unique’, as might be the case in a Lied-form, the development becomes something like ‘an image of a struggle between feelings’ in ‘the soul of this ideal being [i.e. the idea!?!]’17

Further, the development takes on two aspects: On the one hand it is organic, with regard to the modifications of thematic organs, on the other hand it is tonal, with regard to the situation (tonal situation, ‘lieu tonal’) of the themes or ideas.

To summarize, the kind of agency ascribed to musical elements by Marnold has a clear model in d’Indy. Still there are essential differences: If sonata form for d’Indy is a musical analogue to the drama, the agents of sonata form are analogous to dramatis personae, and their interrelations are mainly conflictladen. They also have an expressive function. Marnold cuts out the romantic and metaphysical expressivity, as well as the notion of struggle. The over-arching notions of drama and expression in d’Indy are substituted for by a formalist view of the musical organism and of progenity. This crucial difference also reflects their respective views on the role of the programme in music: Even d’Indy’s symphonies have prevalent programmatic contexts, while Marnold, as noted above, plays down the importance of the programme hinted at by Debussy for Nocturnes.18

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