Document details

Volume 69, Issue 3, Fall 2016, Pages 699-791

Messiaen the borrower: Recomposing debussy through

the deforming prism(Article)

Balmer, Y.a,
Lacôte, T.a,
Murray, C.B.b

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aDepartment of Analysis, Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et

de Danse, Paris, France
bUniversité Libre de Bruxelles, France

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Abstract View references (99)

This article shows, through a new reading of Messiaen's Technique de mon

langage musical and examples of his composing with elements found in the
music of Debussy, that borrowing plays a more central role in his
compositional practices than has previously been recognized. Messiaen's
conscious reuse of Debussy's music spans his entire career, and primarily
involves passages from Pelléas et Mélisande and a handful of piano works.
Using his descriptions of Debussy's influence, his analyses of Debussy, and
his own theoretical writings, we examine examples of Messiaen's musical
borrowing in terms of compositional strategy. Four groups of case studies
show how he transforms borrowed harmonic material, creates meaning,
borrows gesture, and composes texture and form by combining different
types of borrowed material. © 2016 by the American Musicological
Society.

ISSN: 00030139
Source Type: Journal
Original language: English

DOI: 10.1525/jams.2016.69.3.699
Document Type: Article
Publisher: University of California Press