Le 28 juin 2017
de 14h00 à 14h30
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
amphithéâtre 6
Séance - Leading Figures of Modernity (I): Messiaen, Dutilleux, and Kurtág
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Shigeru Fujita
Dutilleux’s dodecaphonism has been underestimated, mainly due to his declaration during the early postwar years that “je ne pense pas devenir dodécaphoniste.” Some recent studies have, nonetheless, sparked a revival of interest in his dodecaphonism by clarifying that Dutilleux’s thinking was more constructivist than generally believed.
My presentation aims to evaluate the significance of the dodecaphonism in Dutilleux’s music by tracing the evolution of his dodecaphonic writing from Métaboles to Tout un monde lointain.
To do this, I reciprocally examine the sketch study I performed with support from the Paul Sacher Foundation and the analytical study in which I used post-tonal theory terminology.
Using this method, I demonstrate two major findings. First, in Métaboles, Dutilleux reconciled his preferred diatonic harmonies with the dodecaphonic tone row used as ostinato in the “Obsessionnel” section; thus, in the course of the composition, he transformed an initial, more chromatic tone row into a staggered combination of ascending fourths. Second, in Tout un monde lointain, Dutilleux sought to deduce an expanded set of harmonies from the dodecaphonic tone row by installing a transpositional symmetry in it; therefore, the first nine notes of the tone row constitute the enneatonic collection, similar to Messiaen’s third mode. This tone row permitted him to deduce characteristic modal harmonies with a structural coherence as the content of the first nine notes was unchanged in its fourth and eighth transpositions. Dutilleux thus introduced a new horizon in dodecaphonism through the concept of the “tone row of limited transposition.”
