Le 28 juin 2017
de 16h30 à 17h00
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
salle 3201
Séance - French Music (II): Berlioz and Debussy
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Elena Rovenko
Debussy’s equating of musical development to natural laws has led to interpretation of his works according to the natural-science principles (J. H. Webster, R. Howat). It’s also necessary to take into consideration the laws that govern the life of the mind, due to the fact that in Debussy’s music the “ordering” of time correlates to specifics of organization of psychological time. Henri Bergson was the first person, who has paid attention to this feature. Based on psychology of perception, he characterized Debussy’s music as “music of la durée” and delivered it in compliance to « a melody of our inner life », which assumed interpenetration of mental conditions and images of consciousness, and unpredictability of every moment. Between the qualities of la durée and features of Debussy’s compositions some correlations have been detected: 1) continuous creation of novelty — tendency to non-repeatability of music material in principle; 2) indivisibility of the progressive movement — mitigation of boundaries between sounds by smoothing of attack and damping phases; 3) comprehension of space as a trace of la durée — emergence of musical architectonics in listener’s consciousness a post factum; 4) filling of psychological time is conglomerate of unpredictable states and images — filling of musical time is conglomerate of unpredictably interacting motives, themes, accords, etc. For ascertainment of properties of Debussy’s art and qualities of la durée comparative method has been used. Investigation of the composer’s thinking involves actualizing of the concepts, offered by Bergson relying on T. Ribot (dynamic scheme; intuitive and reflective forms of creative imagination).
