Debussy and the fragment / Linda Cummins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cummins, Linda (Linda Page)

Series:

Chiasma ; 18.

Chiasma, 1380-7811 ; 18

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Musical form.

Debussy, Claude, 1862-1918--Criticism and interpretation.

Debussy, Claude.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (193 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; New York, NY : Rodopi, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Rather than solid frames, some less than perfect aesthetic objects have permeable membranes which allow them to diffuse effortlessly into the everyday world. In the parallel universes of music and literature, Linda Cummins extols the poetry of such imperfection. She places Debussy's work within a tradition thriving on anti-Aristotelian principles: motley collections, crumbling ruins real or fake, monstrous hybrids, patchwork and palimpsest, hasty sketches, ellipses, truncated beginnings and endings, meandering arabesques, irrelevant digressions, auto-quotations. Sensitive to the intermittences of memory and experience and with a keen ear for ironic intrusion, Cummins draws the reader into the Western cultural past in search of the surprisingly ubiquitous aesthetic of the unfinished, negatively silhouetted against expectations of rational coherence. Theories popularized by Schlegel and embraced by the French Symbolists are only the first waypoint on an elaborately illustrated tour reaching back to Petrarch. Cummins meticulously applies the derived results to Debussy's scores and finds convincing correlations in this chiasmatic crossover.

Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1: Ruins of Convention; Conventions of Ruin

Chapter 2: Beginnings and Endings

Chapter 3: Arcadias and Arabesques

Chapter 4: The Sketch

Chapter 5: Auto-Quotation

Chapter 6: Preludes: A Postlude

Bibliography.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

94-012-0334-2

1-4294-5613-2

OCLC:

85847090

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789401203340 DOI