David Code - Hearing Debussy Reading Mallarmé Music Après Wagner in The Prélude À L'après-Midi

American Musicological Society
Hearing Debussy Reading Mallarmé: Music "après Wagner" in the "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un
faune"
Author(s): David J. Code
Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 493
-554
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society
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Hearing Debussy Reading Mallarme:
Music apres Wagnerin the Prelude a
l'apres-midid'un faune
DAVID J. CODE
G iventhatMallarme's
poetryandDebussy'smusic,both famouslyelu-
sive in their own right, have also by now become thoroughly en-
tangled in critical tropes, any attempt at an appropriatelyallusive
presentationwill likely only obscure my principalargument. It will thus be
best if I begin by stating bluntlythat I am not just offering one more reading
of Debussy's Preludea l'apres-midid'un faune as a piece whose musicallan-
guage is vaguely indebted to the linguisticflavorof Mallarme'sL'Apres-midi
d'un faune or to the general tendencies of literarysymbolism. In this article,
I show for the first time that Debussy reads Mallarmeclosely and in detail,
achieving a sophisticatedcompositional equivalentof the aestheticprinciples
pursuedby the poet and his lyricprotagonist,the faun.
For variousreasons, the claim is likely to seem absurd. Most problemati-
cally,perhaps,the composer himself seems (in an oft-quoted letter) to have
disclaimedany close readingof Mallarmein his piece. But while Debussy may
not have been as blatantlymendacious as Stravinsky,he was notoriously flip-
pant and sarcastic.His airy disavowalabout his Preludehas only been taken
as sincerebecauseit has been borne out by the difficultyencounteredin every
attempt to illuminatehis compositional response to Mallarme.I will, in my
discussion,revisitthe famous denial to suggest how it might read differentlyif
the primaryauthorityis located in Debussy'smusic ratherthan his words.
Still, while distrustof the composer's own statementsmust be recognized
as healthy, I imagine a more objectionable arrogance could be seen in my
claim to have discovered some truth about this music that has been over-
looked for more than a century.Perhapsit will help if I make clearthat I have
This artide originatedas a paperpresented to the Sixty-fourthAnnual Meeting of the American

MusicologicalSociety,Boston, November 1998. I1would like to thankKatherineBergeronfor her
inspired advice throughout the development of the main ideas, TamaraLevitz for her careful
readingof earlierdrafts,and my anonymous readersfor their many valuablesuggestions. The ar-
ticle was completed with the support of a Mellon PostdoctoralFellowshipat StanfordUniversity:
my thanksto the Mellon Foundation for this support, and to the membersof the Stanfordmusic
facultyfor their hospitality.
[JournaloftheAmericanMusicological
Society2001, vol. 54, no. 3]
? 2001 by theAmericanMusicologicalSociety.Allrightsreserved.0003-0139/01/5403-0002$2.00
494 Journal of the American Musicological Society
no interestin arguing,foolishly,that all previouswriters,in missing some cen-

tral facts about the piece, have contributednothing to its interpretation.But
the fact is that most critics, taking Debussy at his word, have not even at-
tempted to relateMallarme'stext closely to the detailsof the Prelude.For ex-
ample, WilliamAustin, whose Norton CriticalScore-the essentialreference
work on the piece-still richlyrewardsrereading,largelytreatsthe poem and
the Prelude separately,saving his few, general comments on their possible
relationship until the last paragraphof his analysis.' For another example,
LaurenceBerman,in an articleof considerableliteraryinsight, ultimatelycon-
cludes that Debussy's compositionalstyle in the Preludefallsshort of the true
Mallarmeancomplexity realized only years later in the ballet Jeux.2 Many
other writers,in suggesting generalaestheticaffinitiesbetween the two works,
have indicated a few musical fragments (such as the famous opening flute
solo) as responsesto the faun'swords, but have steered clearof any proposals
of close correspondenceover large spans.3
In the one significantexception to this rule, ArthurWenk has tried to show
a closer correspondence between poem and Prelude based on the congru-
ences he sees between their sectional structures.While Wenk does suggest a
few detailedlinks,he acknowledgesthe looseness of his parallel:"In assertinga
structuralsimilaritybetween poem and Preludewe are mainlyconcerned with
relationshipswithin the two works, not between them."4In my view, Wenk's
willingness to overlook the clearestsectional articulationsin Mallarme'stext
(which are markedthroughout by blank spaces after strong points of gram-
1. WilliamAustin, ed., ClaudeDebussy:Preludeto "TheAfternoonof a Faun,"Norton Critical

Score (New York:Norton, 1970). See pages 95-96 for some possiblerelationshipsbetween poem
and tone poem.
2. "Preludeto the Afternoonof a Faun and Jeux: Debussy's Summer Rites," 19th-Century
Music3 (1980): 225-38.
3. For the other majorpriordiscussionsof the piece, some with more poetic suggestionsthan
others, see Jean-PierreBarricelli,Melopoiesis:
Approachesto the Studyof Literatureand Music(New
York:New YorkUniversityPress, 1988), 235-48; LeonardBernstein, The UnansweredQuestion
(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress, 1976), 238-59; Matthew Brown, "Tonalityand Form in
Debussy's Preludea l'apres-midid'unfaune," Music TheorySpectrum15 (1993): 127-43; David
Cox, Debussy'sOrchestralMusic(London: BBC, 1974), 9-18; John Crotty,"SymbolistInfluences
in Debussy's 'Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,'" In TheoryOnly 6, no. 2 (1982): 17-30;
ChristianGoubault, Claude Debussy(Paris:Champion, 1986), 136-40; Peter Guilke,"Musikaus
dem Bannkreis einer literarischenAsthetik: Debussys 'Prelude a l'Apres-Midi d'un Faune,'"
JahrbuchPeters7 (1978): 103-46; David Michael Hertz, The Tuning of the Word:TheMusico-
LiteraryPoeticsof the SymbolistMovement(Carbondaleand Edwardsville:Southern Illinois Uni-
versityPress, 1987), 56-84; Roy Howat, Debussyin Proportion:A MusicalAnalysis(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), 149-53; Albert Jakobik, Claude Debussyoder der lautlose
Revolution in der Musik (Wuirzburg:Konrad Triltsch, 1977), 30-44; and Richard Parks, The
Music of Claude Debussy(New York: Schirmer, 1979), esp. 36-38, 224-25, 240-43, and
263-67. In "Tonalityand Form," Brown lists severalmore brief discussionsof the piece in the
context of more generalmusic-theoreticalworks.
4. Claude Debussyand the Poets(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress,
1976), 148-70, at 167.
Hearing Debussy Reading Mallarme 495
maticalclosure) undermines even the loose formal parallelshe suggests. But

even in raisingthis single objection to his interpretation,I touch on a funda-
mental problem. Poetic interpretationhas alwaysbeen highly subjective.And
any claim of greateraccuracyin any one readingwill seem hopelesslynaive in
the light of the literarytheory of recent decades,with its endless elaborations
on the radicalindeterminacyof all texts.
The naivetemay appearall the more strikingwhen the poetry in question is
by Mallarme, a central model for twentieth-century French literarytheory
from Valery,Poulet, and Blanchot through Barthes, Kristeva,de Man, and
Derrida.Indeed, Derrida,for one, standsdirectlyin the path of my own argu-
ment. I find, through formal analysis,that the faun poem enacts a focused
assaulton the dichotomy between speechand writing. Derrida'scelebratedde-
construction of this very dichotomy in La Disseminationwas, in significant
part, elaboratedthrough a reading of Mallarme.5Not only will any claim to
have discoveredsome neglected facts about the faun poem fly in the face of
all assertions(Derrideanor otherwise) about the uncontrollablediffusion of
meaning in Mallarme'swriting, but the principalterms of my analysiswill
surely seem outdated given the pressureto which they have long since been
subjectedby deconstructivetheory.
Without pretending that such literary-criticalobjections can be dismissed
out of hand, I think it is pertinent to note that Derrida,who drew his theo-
reticalgeneralitiesprimarilyfrom Mallarme'scriticalprose, can be said to ex-
emplify a tendency characterizedsuccinctly by Mallarme scholar Bertrand
Marchalsome years ago: "It is too often forgotten that Mallarmeantheory
was developed through a poetic practice."6The formal energiesof Mallarme's
pratiquepoetiquehave, in my view, gone underappreciatedunder every critical
rubric, from the common style-historicaldiscussions of symbolist poetry's
essential "mystery"to Derrida'smore extravagantriffs on the "logic of the
supplement."Of course no reading of the faun poem for form can secure it
against"dissemination."But it can raiseto view the tracesof the poetic effort
through which Mallarme sought to bring focus, "word by word," to the
inevitable promiscuity of language.7 Arguably, to expose such formal
5. See in particularthe final two sections, "La Double Seance" and "La Dissemination,"in
Derrida'sLa Dissemination(Paris:Editions du Seuil, 1972), 199407.
6. "On oublie alorstrop souvent que la theorie mallarmeennes'est faite au traversd'une pra-
tique poetique" (Lecturede Mallarme [Paris:LibrairieJose Corti, 1985], 7). (All translationsare
my own unless otherwise noted.) In "La Double Seance," Derrida startsfrom the criticalessay
"Mimique"and touches on many of the other important essaysas well as the sketches for "Le
Livre";he eventuallyrefersto some of the poems, but I think in a position of attendanceon the
criticism rather than vice versa. "La Dissemination," more concerned with Sollers than with
Mallarme,refersbrieflyto Un Coupde desn'abolirale hasard,but more often to "Le Livre."
7. Mallarmeonce describedthe practiceof reading as "chancevanquishedword by word"
("le hasardvaincu mot part mot"), which I take to reflect back onto the compositionalprocessas
well. See Le Mysteredans leslettres,in the firstPleiade edition of Mallarme,Oeuvrescompltes,ed.
Henri Mondor and G. Jean-Aubry(Paris:Gallimard,1961), 382-87, at 387. (Hereaftercited as
OC.)
efforts promisesmore precisehistoricalunderstandingthan to celebrateagain

the polysemous richnessof his art. As Barthesonce put it, "A little formalism
turns one away from History, but ... a lot brings one back to it."8 Saving a
thorough considerationof formalismand indeterminacyin Mallarme'spoetry
for another time, I can give one irrefutablereason why a deliberatelynaive
attempt to read him beforethe whole arrayof twentieth-century literary-
theoretical tropes accumulatedaround his work is necessaryfor my present
purposes.Quite simply,that is the only way Debussy could have readhim.
For Mallarme and Debussy, speech, writing, form, expression, and the
traditional "figures" of literature had not yet been dissolved into the all-
embracing,relativistsemiotics that would eventuallybe developed out of the
work of their contemporary,Saussure.9It is only by attumning ourselvesagain
to the simplerpowers once creditedto poetic expressionthat it becomes pos-
sible to rereadL'Apres-midid'unfaune for its formed enactmentof a moment
on the cusp of the dissolution of these very powers. Temporarilypostponing
the generalizingambitions of theory, such a reading might aim to discovera
clearersense of the poem's "modernity"in the "pragmatic"sense de Man
once gave to this elusiveterm: "the problematicalpossibilityof all literature's
... being considered,or read, from a point of view that claimsto sharewith it
its own sense of a temporalpresent."'0To seek Mallarme'smodernity in this
sense can lead to a more preciseunderstandingof his modernismthan is pos-
sible within any anachronisticappropriationof him as an avatarof poststruc-
turalism.Similarly,Debussy'sreadingof Mallarmeto writewhat PierreBoulez
famouslycelebratedas the "awakeningof modern music" can only be under-
stood through an attempt to recoverhis articulationof a musicalpresent that
preceded the full ascendancyof the habitsof analysisthat were to characterize
the institutionalizedstudy of music for much of the twentieth century.11
Although the traditionhas never been monolithic, it is safeto say that most
reputabletwentieth-centuryanalyticalmethods have shared a relativelyclear
set of biases, most obviously toward a quasi-scientifictreatment of pitch as
the primary-if not the sole-basis of musical coherence. Most analysesof
the Prelude, exemplifying this bias, have parsed the piece for its scales or
modes, referentialharmonicsonorities,interrelatedthemes, or some combina-
8. "MythToday,"in Barthes's (1957), ed. andtrans.AnnetteLavers(NewYork:

Mythologies
Hill andWang,1972), 112. BeyondBarthes'sratherflippantclaim,my approach is in keeping
withthe recentreevaluation
of formalism
as seen,forone obviousexample,in the March2000
specialissue of ModernLanguageQuarterly,"Readingfor Form."
9. Saussure'sCoursde linguistiquegeneralewas publishedposthumouslyin 1916; his "debut"
as a systematic linguist, the Mimoire sur le systemeprimitif des voyellesdans les langues indo-
europeennes, appearedaround the same time as the faun poem, in 1878.
10. "Lyricand Modernity,"in his Blindnessand Insight:Essaysin the Rhetoricof Contempo-
rary Criticism,2d rev.ed. (Minneapolis:Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1983), 166.
11. Boulez included this famous claim in a 1958 encyclopedia article on Debussy: "La
Musique modeme s'6veillea L'Apris-midid'un faune" (reprintedin Boulez, Relves d'apprenti,
ed. Jean-JacquesNattiez and Sophie Galaise[Paris:Editions du Seuil, 1995], 203-21, here 211;
Austin includes a translationof the last paragraphin his Norton CriticalScore, 160-61).
tion of all of these. Needless to say,such an approachhas occasionallyproven

fruitfuland will continue to offer important insights. But the possibilitythat
Debussy's response to Mallarme'stextual forms might be articulatedmost
strongly in a different musical dimension has never been carefullyexplored.
And it is only by shiftinganalyticalattentionto Debussy'sformalmanipulation
of timbrethat we can begin to discern the essentialoutlines of his reading of
L'Apres-midid'unfaune. That is, to expose the interplaybetween the timbral
outlines of the Preludeand its underlyingsyntax is to discover in Debussy's
music a finely formed equivalent to Mallarme'scomposed conflict between
vocal expressionand written artifice.Ultimately,by reading this formed ten-
sion against contemporaneous considerationsof both pitch and timbre, we
begin to restore the piece to its own moment of modernity,on the cusp of
twentieth-centurymodernism.
The close readingsthemselvesare of primaryimportancein this pursuitof
a proto-modernistpresent, so I include considerabledetail in my analyses.I
mostly discussthe poetry and music in their own linearorder, but it is worth
bearingin mind that I began from the discovery,through two initiallyinde-
pendent analyses,of the principal"nodes" of contact, and only laterread out-
ward to find furtherconnections. I think the ancillarysuggestionssupportthe
argument;even a skepticalreadermight grant that a few unconvincingdetails
need not undermine the credibilityof the whole. Finally,my conviction that
Debussy reads Mallarmeclosely does not, of course, imply a totalizing claim
about every note of the Prelude:even the most clever translationof literary
principlesinto music is imperfect by definition. I have concentratedon those
sections of the piece that demonstratethe relationshipmost clearly.Although
many more passagescan, indeed, be aligned on the basis of the same prin-
ciples, a laterinquirycould fruitfilly aim to expose, againstthe basicprofileof
the reading,the points of aporiaor mistranslation.Even in this more complex
understanding,the interactionof musicaland literaryprinciplesin this histori-
cally self-conscious orchestral response to poetry should continue to shed
valuablelight "from behind" (to borrow a metaphor from Debussy) on the
abstractions of modern music theory, before which it is apprehensively
poised.12
Setting the Scenes
Speaking and reading Mallarme

Another look at the troubled history of the faun poem can set the stage for an
analysisof its forms. Mallarmefirst conceived his faun project in 1865 as a
versedramaon the model of Theodore de Banville'sDiane au bois,performed
12. In a 1912 letter, Debussy praisedParsifalfor its orchestralcolor "qui semble eclaireepar
derriere"("which seems lit from behind") (Claude Debussy, Correspondance,1884-1918, ed.
FrancoisLesure[Paris:Hermann, 1993], 311).
at the Theatrede l'Odeon in 1863.13In adaptingsome detailsfrom Banville's

scenario,and attemptinga similarwork of his own, he seemed to have sensed
an irresolvableconflict between his dreams of spoken drama and his poetic
ideals.In a letter to his friendHenri Cazalis,he wrote:
I am rhyming an intermedeheroique,which has a faun for a hero. This poem
enclosesa veryhigh and beautifulidea, but the versesareterriblydifficultto
make,becauseI am makingit absolutelyscenic,not possiblefor thetheater,but
demanding the theater.Even so, I want to conserve all of the poetry of my lyric
works,evenmyverse,whichI amadaptingto the drama.14
The language oscillatesobsessivelybetween what seem like contradictoryde-
mands:the versesare "terriblydifficultto make"because they must "demand
the theater"-but Mallarmewants to "conserve ... even [the] verse" of his
lyricpoetry, which (back again) he is "adaptingto the drama."The initialat-
tempt to resolve this tension was unsuccessful,for the work was refused by
Banville and the actor Constant Coquelin for presentation at the Theatre
Francais.After putting it aside for much of a decade, Mallarmetook it up
again in the early 1870s and revised one of the faun's original monologues
into the Improvisationd'unfaune of 1875. When this versionwas rejectedfor
publicationby Le Parnassecontemporain,he revisedthe text againbefore pub-
lishing it independently as L'Apres-midid'un faune in 1876, in a privately
funded luxuryedition.
The changesin the faun text from 1865 to 1876 have often servedto illus-
tratea breakthroughin Mallarme'sstyle from the epigonic worksof the 1860s
to a recognizablymature symbolism.15But such retrospectiveteleology gives
13. The most important study of the history is Henri Mondor, Histoired'un faune (Paris:
Gallimard,1948). Many of the key details are included in the notes to the poem in the OC,
1448-66.
14. "Jerime un intermede heroique, dont le heros est un faune. Ce poeme renfermeune tres
haute et belle idee, mais les vers sont terriblement difficiles a faire, car je le fais absolument
scenique, non possibleau theatre,mais exigeantle theatre.Et cependantje veux conservertoute la
poesie de mes oeuvreslyriques,mon vers meme, que j'adapteau drame"(OC, 1449).
15. All three versionshave been availableto criticssince Mondor's pioneering study; all are
printedin the OC. The new edition of the Pleiade Oeuvrescompletes(ed. BertrandMarchal[Paris:
Gallimard,1998]), less expansivein the notes, includes a transcriptionof the first "Intermede"as
well as the subsequent editions of the poem. (This edition is cited hereafteras OC2.) So far, the
earlierversionshave largelyservedto clarifythe more confusinglanguageof the last.Valuablepre-
vious readingsinclude Mondor, Histoired'un faune; Lloyd J. Austin, "L'Apres-midid'unfaune
de StephaneMallarme:Lexique comparee des trois etats du poeme," in Essaissur Mallarme,by
Lloyd Austin, ed. Malcolm Bowie (Manchester:ManchesterUniversity Press, 1995), 175-81;
Robert Greer Cohn, Towardthe Poemsof Mallarme,rev. ed. (Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Univer-
sity of CaliforniaPress, 1980), 13-32; GardnerDavies, Mallarmeet la "Couchesuffisanted'intelli-
gibilite" (Paris: Librairie Jose Corti, 1988), 41-137; Wallace Fowlie, Mallarme (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1953), 148-67; Emilie Noulet, L'Oeuvrepoetique de Stiphane
Mallarme (Paris:LibrairieE. Droz, 1940), 220-47; and Roger Pearson, UnfoldingMallarme:
TheDevelopmentof a PoeticArt (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1996), 108-15. Pearson'saccount has
a slanted account of the long travail de mallarmeisationundergone by this

text.16The usual emphasison Mallarme'sprogressive"dematerialization"of
the faun's language toward a style that aims to "suggest" rather than "de-
scribe,"that is, has made it all but impossibleto recognize that his travail re-
sulted not only in an attenuationof the poem's surfaceprocesses,but also in a
tightening of its formal precision.17Through the fine-tuning of symmetries,
proportionalpatterns,and interrelateddetailsof language, Mallarmedrew his
text into focus, "word by word," around a crux between the two conflicting
propertiesof poetry-written verse and spoken drama-that he failed to re-
solve in the 1865 "intermede."In other words, the final version, more sug-
gestive in local detail, also became more precise in its articulation of the
tension between speech and writing that was to recurthroughout Mallarme's
criticismunder the interrelatedfiguresof the theaterand the book.'8
Mallarmesignals the published poem's deliberateconfrontationwith the-
atricalambitionsby designatinga dramaticspeaker,LE FAUNE, between the
subtitle (tglogue) and the firstverse.19The divided body of this "character,"
an obvious symbol of the mind-body dualityhe experiencesin his pursuit of
two elusive nymphs, can suggest more interestingpossibilitiesif it is seen as a
summons to the readerto take the role of the faun and thus to experience-to
enact-the linguistictension that motivatesthe poem. The faun'slower body,
symbol of his sexualdesire, can also be seen as a metaphorfor the motivating
concern of the entire form:the desirefor presencein and contactwith a world
of spacesand bodies through sensuous, sonorous verbaladdress.On the other
hand, the faun's human upper body, perhaps most directly symbolic of the
the most in common with my own, though his sense of the form is less preciseand his conclusions
are significantlydifferent.
16. I borrow this phrasefrom GerardGenette, Palimpsestes(Paris:Editions du Seuil, 1981),
261.
17. The emphasison "suggestion"has become a centraltrope in the literatureon symbolism;
it recursoften in Mallarme'scriticism.See, for example, the interviewwith Jules Heret of 1891,
Sur l'evolutionlitteraire:"Les Pamassiens,eux, prennentla chose entierementet la montrent:par
la ils manquent de mystere; ils retirent aux esprits cette joie delicieuse de croire qu'ils creent.
Nommer un object, c'est supprimerles trois quarts de la jouissance du poeme qui est faite de
devinerpeu a peu: le suggerer,voila le reve"(OC, 869).
18. Mallarme'scentralwritings on these themes, which recur throughout his criticism,were
gathered in Divagationsunder the headings Crayonneau Thledtreand Quant au Livre;see OC,
293-354 and 369-87. Their last confrontationcan be seen in the notebook sketches edited by
JacquesSchereras Le "Livre"de Mallarme,rev.ed. (Paris:Gallimard,1977). For a fine treatment
of Mallarme'stheoreticalobsessions,see Mary LewisShaw,Performancein the TextsofMallarme:
ThePassagefromArt to Ritual (UniversityPark:The PennsylvaniaState UniversityPress, 1993).
19. Of course, both the Monologueand the Improvisationare also written as languagespoken
by this character.While the Monologuebegins by identifying "UN FAUNE," in capitalsin the
stage directions,such an explicit "dramatic"presentationis absent from the Improvisation.This
indecision, perhaps, gives further evidence of the poet's continuing negotiations between verse
and drama.
500 Journalof the AmericanMusicologicalSociety
mental processes that intervene between desire and its complete, animal satis-
faction, can represent, in the divided experience of reading, the visual and
mental access to language as written text. To follow Mallarme's language
with-as-his dramatic character is to be led to experience, at the crux of the
text, a singular moment of irresolvable conflict between speech and writing.
The double aesthetic implication of the faun's body is literally written into
the text through an aspect of typographical presentation that is new to the
1876 version. Mallarme prints the majority of the verses in roman type, but
several passages are given in italics and quotation marks. The italicized pas-
sages, often seen as oblique, narrative "tellings" within the more direct dis-
course in roman type, are carefully deployed to highlight the internal,
symmetrical, and proportional relationships of the entire text.20 More subtly,
however, they encode in the printed text itself an acknowledgment of the
illusory promise of vocal presence in written words. For by giving every
"telling" in bothitalics and quotes, Mallarme has fixed in print a typographical
excess that puts the implied differentiation between "types of speech" beyond
the reach of the voice.21 As dramatic speakers, we can mark a typographical
distinction with a change of vocal inflection. But there is no way to register in
vocal sound the fact that in this poem the distinctions are consistently marked
by a double typographical change, and not a single one (quotation marks
alone) or even a more multiple one (imagine, in addition to quotes and italics,
red ink, a larger font, a distinctive position on the page).22 Through a surfeit of
visual information, Mallarme ensures that the encounter with the printed
poem will be shadowed with the knowledge that the speaker cannot speak the
poem's complete written message.
Pastoral pasts
With a further addition to the final version-the subtitle, Eglogue-Mallarme
places his faun poem in the lineage of Virgil's Eclogues, giving a classical pedi-
gree to his struggles with the conflict between verse and drama. The mono-
logues, dialogues, or singing contests of all ten Eclogues were assigned to
named, quasi-dramatic speakers. This "dramatic" textual presentation reflects
Virgil's own adaptation of the Idylls of the Sicilian poet Theocritus, long cele-
20. I derivethe word "telling"from the faun'simperative"CONTEZ" ("TELL")in capitals
just priorto the firsttypographychange.
21. Shaw,who offers a brief reading of the faun poem, makes the most of any critic out of
the typographicaldistinctions.Noting that the italicizedsections are not significantlydifferentin
linguisticcharacterfrom those in roman type, she suggests that the faun has an "inability... to
distinguishdearly between ... dramatic(direct) and narrative(indirect)discourse"(Performance
in the Textsof Mallarme, 149). This vaguenessof linguisticdistinctionmight be said to place the
formal role of the typographychangesin strongerrelief.
22. Mallarmedid use differentcolors in the Monologue:black ink for the faun's words, red
pencil for the stage directions.
brated as the wellspringof the Westernpastoraltradition.23Classicalpastoral

offered lyricpoems as miniatureplays;Mallarme,replacingthe classicalshep-
herds with a divided speakerwho symbolizes the reader'sdivided experience
of the text, bringsinto focus-materializes-the conflict between readingand
speakingthat the hybridpresentationof classicalpastoralimplies.
Most views of the pastoral tradition recognize a shift from prelapsarian
Theocritean utterance in the Idyllsto a more studied literarysensibility in
Virgil. As Sainte-Beuveput it in 1855: Virgil must be recognized as the first
modern, for while the beauty of his pastoralsmay show that he "loves the
countryside," their refined response to a literarymodel also shows that he
"lovesbooks."24The Mallarmeanresonancesof such a figuralhistoryareobvi-
ous, and the attempt to read the faun poem back into its own historical
context-and to recognize some detailsof Debussy's reading-benefits from
the awarenessthat it composes the loss of prelapsarianvoice through a layer-
ing of classicalreferences.But a more familiarclassicalconvention, the trope of
pastoralpiping, is of more embracinginterestas regardsMallarme'slessons for
Debussy. By portrayingthe faun as a musician,Mallarmeadds to the poem's
fundamentalconcerns another of his principalaesthetic obsessions.25Even a
superficialglance through his criticalessayssuffices to establishthat his ideas
on music (as on so many matters) are irresolvablycontradictory.26But it
23. For the tradition and conventions of Virgilianpastoral,including the deep debt of the
Ecloguesto Theocritus, see two studies by Paul Alpers, The Singer of the Eclogues:A Study of
VirgilianPastoral(Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1979) and Whatis
Pastoral?(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1996). The Virgilianbackgroundto the faun
poem has often been noted in passing;other extensive considerationsof its pastoralmode, with
different emphases than mine, can be found in the chapter "L'Heure du Berger: Mallarme's
Grand Eclogue," in Renato Poggioli, The Oaten Flute:Essayson PastoralPoetryand the Pastoral
Ideal (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), 283-311; and Stephen F. Walker,
"Mallarme'sSymbolistEclogue:The 'Faune'as Pastoral,"PMLA93 (1978): 106-17.
24. "En meme temps que Virgile aime directement la nature et les paysages ... il aime les
livres;il tient de son education premiere une admirationpassionnee des anciens auteurs et des
grandspoetes: traitdistinctifde ces poetes cultiveset studieux du second age" (Charles-Augustin
Sainte-Beuve,Etude sur Virgile[Paris:GarnierFreres, 1857], 106). Sainte-Beuve'semphasison
Virgil's "modernity"(often repeatedin the Etude) could be one of the first instancesof a com-
mon trope:Alpersquotes Reuben Browerto the effect that "only a Frenchcritic,unhamperedby
English Romantic prejudices,could have seen in 1857 that Virgil, more than any single writer,
was the inventor of modern literatureas distinct from Greek or the older Roman" (Alpers, The
Singer of the Eclogues,248; from Brower, Hero and Saint: Shakespeareand the Graeco-Latin
Tradition [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971]: 84). See also "PastoralConvention," in Alpers,
Whatis Pastoral?79-134.
25. The topic of music recursthroughout Mallarme'scriticism;for the most importantsingle
treatmentof the subject,see La Musiqueet lesLettres,OC, 635-60.
26. Shaw thoroughly demonstratesthe contradictions;see her Performancein the Textsof
Mallarme,esp. 29-49. Suzanne Bernard'sMallarme et la musique(Paris:LibrairieNizet, 1959)
is also still of some value, but largelytakes a somewhat one-sided view of Mallarme'sidealization
of music.
remainspossible to be more precise about the role assigned to music in the

singular,structuredenvironmentof any given poem.
Music could be said to play three distinctroles in L'Apres-midid'unfaune,
all of which serve the primaryconfrontationwith the conflict between voice
and writing.First,the simplestmeaning of poetic "music,"the sounds of vow-
els and consonants as composed for the mouth and ear, is, of course, impor-
tant throughout this text, as it is in the whole oeuvre. But more specifically,
sonorous music playsa centralrole in conveying this poem's focus on the lyric
voice.27While the form-definingmoments of lyricutteranceare markedmost
clearlyin the faun's speech by hallowed grammaticalsigns-the "I/You" ad-
dress;the "O" of apostrophe-this grammaticallevel of lyricvoice is served,
intensified,and even fundamentallyfacilitatedby the poem's "orchestration"
of spoken sound.
The explicitreferencesin the text to the faun's flute present a second level
of "music,"thematicratherthan substantive.As often noted, this portrayalof
the faun as a desirousmusiciandrawson Ovid's myth of Pan and Syrinx:Pan
chased the nymph Syrinxto the river'sedge, where the water nymphs helped
her to "escape"by turning her into a stand of reeds, which Pan then cut to
make the pipes on which he played to compensate for his thwarted desire.
This mythological background easily blends with the Virgilian aspects of
Mallarme'sEglogue,for Virgil's shepherdsoften take up their pipes in com-
pensationfor lost love, and they also often invoke Pan. But the faun poem dif-
fers significantlyfrom both classicalprototypes. After explicitly identifying
himself as a pastoralpiper three times in the firsthalf of the poem (all in pas-
sages that admit to his inabilityto secure sensuous contact with the nymphs),
in a fourth and final referenceto the flute-the only time that he names it as
"Syrinx"-the faun launches the second half of the poem by casting it aside.
Thus, he begins as a pastoral performer, only to reject music's supposed
compensationsfor thwarted desire, along with the Virgiliantrope by which
pastoral music-making-"tuning woodland musings on a delicate reed"-
becomes metaphoricalfor the art of poetry28As he makesclearafterrejecting
the flute-"Me, proud of my noise, I am going to speak" [line 54; my
emphasis]-he does not want to pipe on a "Syrinx"in memory of his loves, he
wants to contact them directlywith the lyricvoice.
27. The notion of "lyric"has, of course, been subject to endless debate. For some sense of
recent trends, see Mark Jeffreys,"Ideologies of Lyric:A Problem of Genre in Contemporary
Anglophone Poetics," PMLA 110 (1995): 196-205. Also, see again de Man, "Lyricand Mod-
ernity"; and W. R Johnson, The Idea of Lyric: Lyric Modes in Ancient and Modern Poetry
(Berkeleyand Los Angeles:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1982).
28. The First Ecloguebegins with the words of Meliboeus: "You,Tityrus,under the spread-
ing, shelteringbeech, / Tune woodland musings on a delicatereed;/ We flee our country's bor-
ders, our sweet fields, / Abandon home; you, lazing in the shade, / make woods resound with
lovely Amaryllis"(trans.Alpers, from The Singer of the Eclogues,11). The reading of such flute
playing as Virgilianself-representationis a commonplace (as in the title of Poggioli's book, The
OatenFlute);see the chapter"RepresentativeShepherds"in Alpers, Whatis Pastoral?137-84.
In a third "musical"dimension of his text, Mallarmesignificantlyreinforces

his exposure, at the thematic level, of the false promises of musical perfor-
mance. The faun'srecurringexpressionsof frustrationwith pastoralpiping ac-
tually unfold, formally,as an elegant literaryadaptationof a fugue. One of
Paul Valery'sfew specificcomments on L'Apres-midid'unfaune hints at this
formalconceit with surprisingaccuracy:
The poem became[throughrevision]a sort of literaryfugue, in which the
themesinterweavewith prodigiousartistry;everyresourceof poeticsis em-
ployedto sustaina tripledevelopmentof imagesandideas.An extremesensual-
ity,an extremeintellectuality, combine,intermingle,or
an extrememusicality,
oppose eachotherin this work.29
extraordinary
Given that Valerysingles out exactly the themes that are most important to
the poem's fugal construction-the two aspects of language symbolized by
the faun's divided body, intellectualiteand sensualitY,and the pastoralmusi-
calitethat he rejectsin his desirefor speech-it is quite possible that he had re-
ceived, during his many conversationswith Mallarme,some secret knowledge
about this poem's form. But his somewhat oblique descriptionis deceptivein
one importantway.The poem includes,as the formalsubstrateof its treatment
of the theme of music, a "fugue" articulatedmost clearlyby what I will call,
somewhat more simply than Valery,a recurringcontrast between seeingand
feeling. But after the faun discardshis "Syrinx,"musicalform gives way to a
more irreducibly literary form for the climactic progression through the
second half.
By contrastwith the firsthalf of the poem, which deploys the typicalfugal
proportionsof augmentationand diminution, the second proceeds as a series
of nested or interleavedpairs of passagesin precise, one-to-one symmetries,
highlighted by the poem's most extensiveuse of the contrastingtypefacesand
articulatedby a careful deployment of blank spaces. Taking the lead from
Mallarme,who once referredto such blanksas the "intellectualarmature"of
a poem, "just as beautifulto compose as the verses themselves,"I read this
structureas a cleverlycomposed virtualfoliation, as in a book or pamphlet.30
29. "Le poeme est devenu une sorte de fugue littraire, ou des themes s'entrecroisentavec un
artprodigieux;toutes les ressourcesde la poetique s'emploienta soutenirun tripledeveloppement
d'images et d'idees. Une extreme sensualite,une extreme intellectualite,une extreme musicalite,
se combinent, s'entremelentou s'opposent dans cet ouvrageextraordinaire"(Valery,Ecritsdivers
sur StephaneMallarme[Paris:Gallimard,1950], 86). I came acrossValery'sremarksafterdiscem-
ing fugal form in the poem; in consideringwhy such a construction has not been perceivedbe-
fore, we might take as exemplaryBernard'soutright rejectionof Valery'ssuggestion based on the
a priori assumption that the formal precision implied by a "fugue" would be foreign to
Mallarme'spoetic ideals(Bernard,Mallarmeet la musique,113).
30. In the draft of a letter found among the sketches for "Le Livre," Mallarme writes:
"L'armatureintellectuelledu poeme se dissimuleet tient-a lieu-dans l'espacequi isole les stro-
phes et parmile blanc du papier;significatifsilence qu'il n'est pas moins beau de composer que les
vers"(OC2, 623).
Its gatheringof virtualbifolios centerson the faun'sstrongestburstof lyricut-

terance:his most directaddressand his most sensuousverbal"music."But the
literaryform that gives focus and intensityto the illusion of lyricaddressat its
crux simultaneously undercuts any belief that such language can provide
union with its objects. In other words, the very typographicaldistinctionsthat
draw the symmetricalpassages around the climactic speech signal, through
their unreadable excess, the illusory nature of the utterance itself. Having
rejected musical (fugal) form for literary (foliated) form, the faun, and the
reader,must ultimatelyrecognize the writerlyartificethat underliesthe fleet-
ing claim to voice, and see the pages of this virtualbook closing on the unsus-
tainabledreamsof vocal presencein printedpoetry.
Enter Debussy
It should not be supposed that this poem enfolds a "point of no return"in
Mallarme's developing modernism, for the devices of Romantic lyricism
would reappear,problematically,throughout his later oeuvre. Moreover, the
faun text itselfwas to haunt him for the rest of his life, through severalfurther
stages of revision. In 1891, for example, he announced a new edition of the
poem, "revisedand corrected by the author," in terms that testify that his
dreamsof dramawere never relinquished:the edition was to be "pour la lec-
ture et pour la scene."31Such an edition "forreadingand for the stage"never
appearedin print.Around the same time, Mallarmecame acrossan ambitious
set of melodies,Debussy's Cinq Poemesde Baudelaire,which seems to have in-
spiredhim to consideryet another attempt to dramatizethe faun poem.32He
invited the composer to participatein a music-dramaticcollaboration,which
was announced as forthcoming as late as 1893 under the title Prelude,inter-
ludeset paraphrasefinale pour "L'Apres-midi d'un faune," but never took the
stage.33Debussy thus took part, nearlythirty years after the first rejection of
Mallarme's"intermede,"in a furtherfailureof the poem as theater.
If it seems surprisingthat Mallarme,aftercomposing a refinedrefutationof
music's metaphoricalpromises,should laterturn to a composer to aid his dra-
matic ambitions,it is easyto suppose that one reasonhad to do with the mete-
oric ascendancyof Wagner.Mallarmehad plenty of opportunityto encounter
Wagner'stheoriesafterBaudelaire'sTannhduseressayof 1861.34In the 1880s
31. OC, 1463.

32. For the story of Mallarme'sencounterwith Debussy,see Jean-MichelNectoux, "Debussy
et Mallarme,"CahiersDebussy12-13 (1988-89): 54-66; and FranqoisLesure, Claude Debussy:
Biographiecritique(Paris:Klincksieck,1994), 115-16.
33. The announcementappearedin the originaledition of La Damoiselleilue.
34. Wagner'sname appearsonce in Mallarme'searlyessayHeresiesartistiques:L'Artpour tous
of 1862, but hardlyat all in the correspondencebefore the early1870s, even though the poet was
close friends with several ardent wagniristes, including Catulle Mendes and Judith Gautier.
Beyond what could be gleaned from Baudelaire,a summary of the Wagnerianaestheticscould
he repeatedlyexpressedhis own ambivalenceabout the Wagnerian"wedding"

of music and poetry,in severalessaysand in the famous, refractory1885 prose
poem "RichardWagner, Reverie d'un poete francais."35In light of this oft-
expressed doubt, the attempt to collaboratewith Debussy a few years later
seems all the more bizarre.Perhapstheir sharedfailureoffered Mallarmesome
confirmation of his inconclusive objections. And perhaps his criticisms of
Wagner's dense orchestration and "arbitrary"leitmotivic system helped
Debussy clarifyhis own objections, later stated in similarterms after the pre-
miere of Pelleas.36But for Debussy, far more important than such rhetorical
posturing about Wagneriantechnique were the lessons offered by the poet's
obsession with the materialunderpinningsof his craft, and by the historical
self-consciousnesswith which he brought these materialsinto literaryform.
Debussy was well preparedto receive such lessons, for he had previously
composed-or tried to compose-works that brought two of Mallarme's
most importantprecursors,Baudelaireand Banville,together with aspectsof
Wagner'smusicalstyle.37Much like Mallarme,he was unsuccessfulin his early
attempt,in 1885, to drawdramaticinspirationfrom Banville'sDiane au bois.38
Turning to Baudelaireas a more appropriateliterarybasis for the attempt to
"makeuse" of Wagner,he seems, through the two years'work on the Cinq
have been found in the "Lettresur la musique" (laterrepublishedas "Musicof the Future")that
appearedin 1860 as the forewordto the prose translationsof TheFlyingDutchman, Tannhauser,
Lohengrin,and Tristan;later,Wagner's"L'Operaet le drame,""Surla musique allemand,""Sur
l'ouverture,"and "De la directionde l'orchestre"appearedwhole or in extensiveexcerptsin Guy
de Charnace'santi-WagneriandiatribeMusiqueet musiciens(Paris:Pottier de Laloine, 1873).
35. Significant references to Wagner occur, for example, in "Parenthese"(OC, 322-24)
and "Solennite" (OC, 330-36), both written between December 1886 and May 1887. The
"Reverie"appearedin the Revue wagnirienne 1, no. 7 (8 August 1885); see OC, 541-48. Shaw
gives a summarysense of the ambivalencein the "Reverie"(Performancein the Textsof Mallarme,
87-96); see also the more detailed treatmentin Robert GreerCohn, Mallarme'sDivagations:A
Guideand Commentary(New York:Peter Lang, 1990), 103-18.
36. For Debussy's famous sniff at Wagner's leitmotivic practice as "une methode un peu
grossiere"and his complaintthat Wagner's"developpementsymphonique"does not suit the ex-
pressionof "le conflit moralofusont engages les personnages,"see "Critiquedes critiques:Pelleas
etMelisande,"from Le Figaro, 16 May 1902, in Claude Debussy, MonsieurCrocheet autres ecrits,
ed. FrancoisLesure,rev.ed. (Paris:Gallimard,1987), 275-77, at 277.
37. In a prose Symphonielittiraire of 1865, Mallarmehad singled out these two figures,
along with Theophile Gautier,as his most daunting and inspiringprecursors(OC, 261-65). For
some suggestionsabout the possiblerelationshipbetween L'Apres-midid'unfaune and this prose
"symphony,"see my dissertation,"A Song Not Purely His Own: Modernism and the Pastoral
Mode in Mallarme,Debussy and Matisse"(Universityof California,Berkeley,1999).
38. In an 1885 letter about his troubles with Diane au bois,Debussy wrote, "Wagnerpour-
rait me servir,mais je n'ai pas besoin de vous dire combien il seraitridicule meme d'essayer,je
ne prendraisque son parti-prisdans l'enchalnementdes scenes, puis je voudraisarrivera ce que
l'accent reste lyriquesans etre absorbepar l'orchestre"(Debussy, Correspondance,38). See James
R. Briscoe, "'To Invent New Forms': Debussy's Diane au bois,"MusicalQuarterly74 (1990):
131-69; and Eileen Souffrin-LeBreton, "Debussy lecteur de Banville,"Revue de musicologie46
(1960): 200-222.
Poemes,to have achieved something like a successfulexorcism. In 1887, he

could describe Tristan,heard at the Concerts Lamoureux,as "the most beau-
tiful thing I know, from the point of view of the profundityof the emotion."39
But by 1889, after hearing Tristan in Bayreuth and completing the Cinq
Poemes,such ardor had cooled: he wrote to his composition teacher, Ernest
Guiraud,of his "chagrin"at his "growing sense of detachment from [Wag-
ner's music]."40 He was to find in the faun poem a matchless exemplar for the
next step, which was to capturethis "detachment"in artisticform.
A note Debussy wrote for the Opera-Comique in 1902, "Pourquoi j'ai
ecrit Pellas," cleverly encapsulated the challenge he had felt in the early
1890s, as he began his opera:"One could say that [Wagner]had put the final
period afterthe music of his time, ratheras Victor Hugo summed up all the
poetry that had gone before. It was thus necessaryto try and be apresWagner
[after Wagner] rather than d'apres Wagner [an emulator of Wagner].1"41
Debussy's choice of a literaryparallel,in comparingthe Wagnerian"finalpe-
riod" with the Hugolian poetic "summation,"gives a pointed reminderthat
the firstlaborson Pelleas,from 1893 to 1895, overlappedwith the last stage of
work on the faun prelude, his most challenging act of compositional "read-
ing" to that time. A readingof Mallarme'spost-Hugolian Egloguewas an es-
sential step in the development from Debussy d'apres Wagner in the
Baudelairesongs to Debussy apresWagnerin Pelleas.
Debussy and Wagner

The debate about the relationshipbetween Debussy's mature musical lan-
guage and that of Wagner'slate music dramashas continued since the begin-
ning of his career.Mallarme'smodel of a composed tension between lyric
expressionand written artificecan suggest a new evaluation,richer than any
fruitlessweighing of "derivative"and "original"elements or any tired invoca-
tion of "anxietyof influence."In fact, the Mallarmeandichotomy can already
be glimpsedwithin the debate about Debussy'sWagnerism.
On the one hand, many criticswho argue for an essentialcontinuity be-
tween Wagner and Debussy characteristicallybase their arguments on an
appealto hearing.LaurenceBerman, for example, hearsin the Prelude's"re-
markableconsistencyand flow" a "formalprinciple"that remains"genuinely
39. "Premiereacte de Tristanet Iseut [sic]: c'est decid6ment la plus belle chose que je con-
naisse,au point de vue de la profondeurde l'emotion, cela vous etreint comme une caresse,vous
fait souffrir;pour tout dire: on passe par les memes sensationsque Tristan,et cela sans violenter
son espritni son coeur" (Debussy, Correspondance, 56).
40. "C'est un chagrinpour moi de sentir que je m'en detache." Quoted in Lesure, Debussy:
Biographiecritique,106.
41. "On peut dire qu'il avaitmis le point final a la musique de son temps a peu pres comme
Victor Hugo engloba toute la poesie anterieure.I1 fallaitdonc chercher apres Wagneret non
pas d'apresWagner"("Pourquoi j'ai ecrit Pelleas,"in Debussy, MonsieurCrocheet autres ecrits,
62-64, 63).
Wagnerianin spirit."Thus, he finds the piece "closerto the nineteenth cen-

tury" than the poem, whose formal "shards and fragments" seem to him
"closerto the twentieth."42John Daverio seconds both Berman'sconclusion
and his auralemphasisin a reviewof David MichaelHertz's book TheTuning
of the Word.He characterizesthe Preludeas a "remarkabletakeoffon the con-
tinuitiesof Wagner's'Art of Transition,'" and assertsthat Hertz's attemptsto
differentiatethe work from Wagnerianstyle do not "concord very well with
what we actuallyhear."43The danger of relyingon "whatwe actuallyhear"is
perhapsmost clearlyexemplifiedby Robin Holloway, who claimsin his book
Debussyand Wagnerthat "the loss of specificWagnerianusage in a general
Wagnerian suffusion that was first noticed in La mort des amants has in
L'apres-midigone so much furtherthat there is nothing analyticalto be said
about it."44But as CarolynAbbate has noted, the extraordinarynumber of
"quotations"Holloway indicates might well testify to the "sensitivityof his
ear,"but he offersno distinctionbetween pointed referencesand the "coinci-
dental and vague affinities"inevitableto works that partiallysharea harmonic
vocabulary.45
By contrast,Abbate, in her article"Tristanin the Composition of Pelleas,"
significantlyfurthers the argument about Debussy's wagnerismeby posing
against such unreflectiveappealsto hearing a more knowing act of reading.
Pointing out that Debussy responds "with suspiciousconsistency"to words
like "triste"in the Pelleaslibretto with "punning"referencesto the "Tristan
chord,"she shows that such puns even occur in responseto aspectsof the silent
textual apparatus-in an extreme case, to a performanceindication ("triste-
ment") that fell away in the process of revision.Abbate rejectsthe argument
that these secret marks of verbal preciosity can be ignored as irrelevantto
the finished work. For it is only through attention to these verbal-musical
"games,"she maintains,that it is possible to discoverthe main subtext of the
opera,which identifiesDebussy as a "Wagneriancommentator"of distinction.
The debate about the wagnerismeof the Preludecan only find a resolution
through a reevaluationof its referencesto Tristanalong similarlines. Like the
verbal-musicalpuns in the Pelleas drafts, the words of L'Apres-midid'un
faune, which preceded and fell away from the Prelude,remain as the hidden
backgroundto the piece's "commentary"on composition afterWagner.But
to argue that a reading for such secret clues is necessaryto understandthe
historicalstanceof the Preludeis not merelyto rejectoutright the more imme-
diate, auralexperienceof the piece. On the contrary,to recognize that both
42. "Debussy'sSummerRites,"228-29,232.
43. In 19th-CenturyMusic13 (1990): 257-61, at 259.
44. Debussyand Wagner(London: Eulenberg Books, 1979), 222. For a valuablereview,see
WilliamAustin, "Viewpoint:Debussy,Wagner,and Some Others," 19th-CenturyMusic6 (1982):
82-91.
45. "Tristanin the Composition of Pelleas,"19th-CenturyMusic5 (1981): 139; the points in
the next paragraphare drawnfrom 138-41.
sides of this methodologicalsplit areequallycrucialto interpretationis to open

the deepest relationshipbetween the Preludeand L'Apres-midid'un faune.46
In Debussy's translationof Mallarme,the faun, symbol of the challenge the
poem poses to the reader, becomes a symbol of the Prelude'schallenge to
Debussy's audience conceived bothas unreflectivelisteners and as knowing
readers. The Prelude articulatesa conflict between its seductive, seemingly
immediate sonorous pleasuresand the esoteric syntaxthat, in securing those
pleasures,demands analyticalscrutinyto be fully understood. By composing
the irresolvabletension between these two dimensions of musical experience
into the Prelude, Debussy offers his poignant answer to the challenge of
writing music apresWagner.
Rereading Debussy's "denial"

The famous letter to the critic "Willy" in which Debussy denied any close mu-
sical reading of L'Apres-midi d'un faune actually contains, in its deceptively
cavalier wording, several hints about this composed division of musical
experience:
The Preludea I'apres-midi d'unfaune?Dearsir,mightit be whathasremained
of the dreamat the tip of the faun'sflute?Moreprecisely, it is the generalim-
pressionof the poem, becausein followingit more closely,musicwould run
out of breathasif a drayhorsewerecompetingforthe GrandPrixwitha thor-
oughbred.It is also the disdainfor that "scienceof eager-beavers" which
weighsdownourproudestbrains;Andthen!It is withoutrespectforthe tonal-
ity!Ratherin a mode thattriesto containeverynuance,whichis verylogically
demonstrable.
All the same,it followsthe risingmotionof the poem, andit is the decor
thatis describedso marvelously in the text,within additionthe humanitycon-
tributedby thirty-twoviolinistswho havegot up too early!The endingis the
lastlineprolonged:
Coupleadieu,je vaisvoirlombrequetu devins.47
46. In consideringDebussy'sscoring as one determinantof his pointed referencesto Wagner,

Abbategivessomeweightto hearingaswellasreading.Mysenseof a composedconflictbetween
the two in the Preludecould suggest a furtherpoint of inquiryinto Pelleas.
47. "Le Preluded l'apres-midid'un faune? cher Monsieur, c'est peut-etre ce qui est reste de
reve au fond de la flute de faune?Plus precisement,c'est l'impressiongeneraledu poeme, car a le
suivre de plus pres, la musique s'essouffleraitainsi qu'un cheval de fiacre concourant pour le
Grandprix avec un pur-sang. C'est aussi le dedain de cette 'science de castors'qui alourditnos
plus fierscervaux;puis! C'est sansrespectpour le ton! Et plut6t dans un mode qui essayede con-
tenir toutes les nuances,ce qui est tres logiquement demontrable.
"Maintenantcela suit tout de meme le mouvement ascendantdu poeme, et c'est le decor
merveilleusementdecrit au texte, avec en plus l'humanite q'apportent trente-deux violonistes
leves de trop bonne heure! La fin, c'est le dernierversprolonge:
"Coupleadieu;je vais voir l'ombreque tu devins"(Debussy, Correspondance, 113-14).
Oscar Thompson, who describesthe letter as "banterand irony" and a "characteristicbit of
mockery,"is one of the few to hold these remarksat the proper distance. See his Debussy:Man
and Artist (New York:Dodd Mead, 1937), 113.
Debussy'sclaimthat his piece gives only a "generalimpression"of the poem is

reallynothing but a truism:music cannot keep exactpace with poetry,because
the syntacticalprocessesof the two art forms are fundamentallydifferent.He
significantlyqualifieshis disavowalby giving suggestivehints about the "rising
motion" and the prolongationof the last line. But whateverwe might eventu-
allymake of these specificclues, the letter also slylysuggests how the Prelude,
at the deepest level of its musicalmeans, respondsto the motivatingtension of
L'Apres-midid'un faune. By claiming that the "mode that tries to contain
every nuance" is "logicallydemonstrable,"that is, Debussy pointedly places
explanationsin terms of pitch systemsunder the purviewof a rational,intellec-
tual mode of scrutinylike that suggested by the upper body of the faun. Two
other referencesto music framethe nod to "logical"syntax:the "dream"that
remains"at the tip of the faun'sflute";the "humanity"of "thirty-twoviolin-
ists who have got up too early."The more immediatesensualitythat conflicts
with analyticalreading, Debussy implies, can be heard by attending to the
Prelude'smanipulationof orchestralsound.
With few exceptions, the oft-celebratedorchestrationof the Prelude has
been treated as nothing more than the decoration of a musical process that
can be adequatelydescribedin terms of pitch alone.48The two referencesto
instruments in Debussy's letter suggest how the piece's instrumentation
might be heard more precisely.The "dream"of the flute stands opposed to
the "humanity"of the violins:a cerebralsolo wind instrument,let us say,con-
trastswith a more sensuous string section. The first step toward an illumina-
tion of this musicalreadingis to note the close parallelbetween the succession
of pointed timbralcontrastsbetween winds and stringsin the Preludeand the
form-defining contrasts between seeing and feeling in L'Apres-midid'un
faune. But this is, indeed, only a first step. A contrast between two timbres
occurs on one level of musicalexperience:a flute may sound dreamyand the
violin section more human (more fully embodied), but both are accessibleto
hearing. Debussy's translationof Mallarme'sdichotomy between lower- and
upper-bodyexperiencedepends not only on his articulationof the expressive
implicationsin instrumentalsound, but on the way these sounds directanalyt-
ical scrutiny into the coded esotericism of his syntax. And ultimately,after
following the sonorous signals into the chordal wordplay beneath, we must
recognize that the historical self-consciousness of Debussy's harmonic
"games" reflects back, outward, onto the timbral materials themselves-
markingtheirposteriority,too, to the acme of Romanticorchestralexpression
attainedin Wagner'smusic dramas.
Mallarme,in so many ways the best imaginablecollaboratorfor Debussy at
this moment, was a particularlyappropriateinterlocutor in a compositional
negotiation with post-Wagnerianorchestration. His own characteristically
am-
biguous pronouncements on music-and specificallyon Wagnerian music
48. The most notable exception is Austin, who suggests in the Norton Score of the Prelude
some importantwaysin which orchestralsound playsa form-definingrole. See esp. 85-91.
drama-repeatedly revolve around invocationsof orchestraltimbre.49One of

Valery'ssomewhat simplisticcomments can serve to highlight, in a prelimi-
nary fashion, the aptness of this aspect of Mallarme'smusical obsessions as a
model for Debussy's exploration of post-Romantic orchestralexpression in
the Prelude:
Whenhe conceiveda poemandexecutedit Mallarmehadbeneathhis eyesthe
image of the orchestrawith the positionsoccupiedby the differentinstru-
ments,thatof the woodwinds,thatof the brass,etc. He wishedthatan analo-
gous sonorousspacecouldpassintohispoem.50
"Reorchestrating"Mallarme'sfaun poem, so to speak, Debussy composes a
commentary on the potential of real instrumentaltimbre to recover, apres
Wagner,a quasi-dramaticsonorous space for lyricalexpressionin his own ar-
chetypicallylyricalart form. The tone and conclusion of that commentarycan
only be characterized,now, by hearing and reading the Preludeafterwe first
read and speakthe poem with the faun.
Analyses
A "literary fugue"
As printedin 1876, L'Apres-midid'unfaune begins with a section seven lines
long separatedfrom the following verses by the poem's first structuralblank
space. The poem also ends with a seven-linesection (lines 104-10) separated
from the previoussection by a blank.51These two outer sectionsenfold the in-
ternal structurewithin a symmetricalframe-or indeed, within an outermost
virtual"bifolio."In order to begin readingthe "literaryfugue" that begins at
line 8, it is helpfulto know that the opening section ends with a pained recog-
nition of the treacheryof poetic metaphor.In line 7, that is, the faun woefully
acknowledges-"helas!"-that in his claim,in the firstline of the poem, to see
an intoxicatingvision of nymphs, he was reallyonly offering himself, "alone"
in his fantasy,"la faute ideale de roses"-say, "the lack, or shortfall (as an
49. The "Reverie"contains severalreferencesto orchestration,as do many of his other writ-
ings on music, including La Musiqueet leslettres.As usual, these referencesare neither clearnor
consistent.
50. "Quand il concevait un poeme et l'executait, Mallarmeavait sous ses yeux l'image de
l'orchestre avec la place occupee par les differentsinstruments,celle des bois, celle des cuivres,
etc.... I1voulaitque passatdans son poeme un analogueespacesonore." Quoted in a note to the
Mallarme Correspondance, vol. 1, 1862-71, ed. Henri Mondor and Jean-PierreRichard (Paris:
Gallimard,1959), 309 n. 2.
51. The OC2 prints the "Edition de 1876" without the blank between lines 103 and 104,
which is a possible readingof an ambiguoussituation:given that the last seven lines occupy a folio
of theirown, it is unclearwhether a blankis intended afterthe previousfolio. A blankis given here
in the printed "edition definitive"published in 1887, but neither this one nor the one between
lines 7 and 8 is found in all other editions. PerhapsMallarmenever decided how clear-how
recoverable-the poem's "intellectualarmature"should be.
Hearing Debussy ReadingMallarme 511
ideal), of roses." Perhaps,in other words, his initialvision of rosy flesh "vault-
ing into the air"was only a deceitfulsymbol, like a bunch of flowers-a hoary
metaphor for amorous passion-whose color and scent, however captivating,
cannot offer satisfyingsubstitutesfor desired bodies. On this note of frustra-
tion, he begins the literary"fugue" that gives form to his confrontationwith
the differentmetaphoricalpossibilitiesin the sounds of his flute.52
Example 1 shows the whole "literaryfugue," lines 8-51. The typography,
the line breaks,and the blank spaces appearas in the 1876 edition.53With
pairsof boxes in solid lines, I indicatethe three occurrencesof the contrastbe-
tween seeing and feeling that most clearlymarkthe "fugal"thematic process
of the whole section. The words in three distinct fonts to the right of the
example also identify,in addition to contrast,two more recurringthemes: the
faun's music,and the disappearanceof the desired objects that follows upon
(or is causedby) the music in all three cases.(The largerbox aroundthe verses
in italicsclarifiesthe relationshipbetween the smallestinstanceof the thematic
pattern and the largerone into which it is inserted.) I have underlinedsome
importantverbalmarkers,but the "themes" are best understood as continu-
ing through severallines.
The three patterns of themes indicated by the words at right show how
preciselyMallarmehas adaptedfugal process to literaryform.54After a state-
ment of the basicpattern (contrast-music-disappearance) in fifteen lines, the
next statement of the same pattern is almost preciselydoubled in length, to
make a section of twenty-nine lines. This larger section enfolds within it
anotherinstanceof the pattern,almostpreciselyhalvedto seven lines. In other
words, after the "subject"is given in its normativelength, an augmentation
follows, within which is nested a diminution.55
52. In reading the first seven lines as a single "folio," I distinguishbetween "internal"and
"structural"spacesbasedprimarilyon my sense of a clearhierarchyin the text, which is reinforced
both by the symmetricalrelationshipsbetween sections and by a careful,highly limited use of the
line-ending full stop. The argumentcan also be made with respectto the size of the spacesin the
originaledition: internalones tend to be two lines in width, structuralones three. For a facsimile,
see Jean-MichelNectoux, ed., Nijinsky:Preludea I'apres-midid'unfaune (Paris:Editions Adam
Biro, 1989), 14-17.
53. In the interestsof space, the structuralblanksare shown as two lines in width instead of
three. The blank after "Reflechissons. .." is also three lines wide in Mallarme;the breakin line
32, by contrast,is one line.
54. I have indicated an extra thematic relationship at the beginning of two out of three
passages: the location by the shoresis clear in both the augmentation (lines 23-51) and the
diminution (lines 26-32)-the "bords"in line 23; the "ici"and "hollow reeds" in line 26-but
no element in the opening of the subject (lines 8-22) is as clear as to location. This idea, in
strengthening the relationshipof the two later sections, does not cloud the patterning of the
"fugue"as a whole.
55. Recalcitrantskepticsmight object to my "almost"precise fugal proportions of 7-15-29
insteadof 7-14-28. But in a poem in rhymingcouplets, arithmeticalrelationshipsthat are consis-
tently precise to n +/- 1 reflect the interplayof two independent formal priorities:proportion
and rhymescheme.
Example 1 Mallarme's"literaryfugue": LApres-midid'unfaune, lines 8-51 (S = subject,A =

augmentation,D = diminution)
/ 8 R6flechissons...
ou si les femmes dont tu gloses

9 Figurent un souhait de tes sens fabuleux!
10 Faune, l'illusion s'echappedes yeux bleus
11 Et froids, comme une source en pleurs, de la plus chaste:
12 Mais, l'autre tout soupirs,dis-tu qu'elle contraste CONTRAST
13 Comme brise du jour chaude dans ta toison?
14 Que non! par l'immobile et lasse pamoison
15 Suffoquant de chaleursle matin fraiss'il lutte,
16 Ne murmurepoint d'eau que ne verse ma flfute MUSIC
17 Au bosquet arrosed'accords;et le seul vent
18 Hors des deux tuyaux prompt a s'exhaleravant
19 Qu'il dispersele son dans une pluie aride, DISAPPEARANCE
20 C'est, a l'horizon pas remue d'une ride,
21 Le visible et serein souffle artificiel
22 De l'inspiration,qui regagne le ciel.
23 O bords siciliensd'un calme marecage SHORES

24 Qu'a l'envi de soleils ma vanite saccage,
25 Tacites sous les fleursd'etincelles, CONTEZ
26 "Queje coupaisici lescreuxroseauxdomptes SHORES
27 "Parle talent; quand, sur l'orglauque de lointaines
28 "Verdures dediant leur vigne a desfontaines,
29 "Ondoieune lancheurdlanimalelaurepos: CONTRAST
30 "Etqu'au preludelent ou naissentlespipeaux. MUSIC
31 "Cevol de cygnes,non! de naiadesse sauve DISAPPEARANCE
32 "Ouplonge ... ----- -- ---- ----- -- ------ --- ------------- - --- - ---- - - - -- - -- -- --- - - -- - --- --- -- -- -- - -- --- -- - - --
-- --- ---
Inerte, tout brule dans l'heure fauve
33 Sans marquerpar quel art ensemble detala
34 Trop d'hymen souhaite de qui cherche le la:
35 Alors m'eveillerai-jea la ferveurpremiere,
36 Droit et seul, sous un flot antique de lumiere, (visualstaging in light)
37 Lys! et l'un de vous tous pour ingenuite.
CONTRAST
38 Autre que ce doux rien par leur levre ebruite,
39 Le baiser,qui tout bas des perfidesassure,
40 Mon sein, vierge de preuve, atteste une morsure (oral/tactile contact)
41 Mysterieuse,due a quelque auguste dent:
42 Mais bast! arcanetel elut pour confident
43 Le jonc vaste et jumeau dont sous l'azur on joue: MUSIC
44 Qui, detournant a soi le trouble de la joue,
45 Reve, dans un solo long, que nous amusions
46 La beaute d'alentour par des confusions
47 Faussesentre elle-meme et notre chant credule;
48 Et de faireaussi haut que l'amour se module
49 Evanouirdu songe ordinairede dos DISAPPEARANCE
50 Ou de flanc pur suivis avec mes regardsclos,
51 Une sonore, vaine et monotone ligne.
Example 1 continued
Let us reflect... or if the women that you are glossing / Figure a wish of your fabulous senses!
/ Faun, the illusion escapes of the eyes, blue / and cold, like a weeping spring, of the more
chaste one: / But, the other all sighs, would you say that she contrasts/ Like a hot breeze of
the day into your fleece? / Ah no! out of the immobile and weary swoon / Suffocating with
warmth the cold morning if it struggles, / Murmursno water save what my flute pours / Into
the thicket sprinkledwith chords, and the only wind / Except for the two pipes quick to exhale
before / It dispersesthe sound into a dry rain, / It is, at the horizon not stirredby a ripple, /
The visible and serene artificialbreath / Of inspiration,which regains the sky. // 0 Sicilian
shores of a calm marsh / Which, emulating sunbeams, my vanity ransacks,/ Implied beneath
flowers of sparks,TELL / aThatI was herecutting hollowreedstamed / By talent; when, on the
glaucousgold of the distant/ Greenerydedicating its vines tofountains, / Undulates an animal
whitenessat rest:/And that at theslowpreludein whichthepipesbegin,/ Thisflight of swans,no!
of naiads escapes/ Or plunges... Inert, everything burns in the wild hour / Without marking
by which art together has fled / Too much union desired by he who searches for the A: /
Therefore I will awakento the firstfervor,/ Erect and alone, beneath an antique wave of light,
/ Lilies! and one of all of you for innocence. // Other than this sweet nothing by their lip
sounded out, / The kiss, that softly the perfidious ones assures,/ My breast,virgin of proof, at-
tests a mysterious/ bite, due to some august tooth: / But enough! such a secret chose for con-
fidant / The vast twin reed which beneath the azure one plays:/ Which, turning back on itself
the trouble of the cheek, / Dreams, in a long solo, that we amuse / The surrounding beauty
with false confusions / between itself and our credulous song; / And [dreams] to make just as
high as love modulates / To vanish from the ordinary dream of back / Or of pure flank pur-
sued by my blind looks, / A sonorous, empty, monotonous line.
Closer reading clarifiesthe formalprecisionof the "fugue."The "subject"

begins with a collectiveverb, "let us reflect,"as the faun turns from his woeful
opening soliloquy into a dialogue with himself. Identifying himself with the
second-personpronoun "tu" (line 8), he wonders if the women he is "gloss-
ing" might be just a "wishof his fabuloussenses."He proceeds to deepen the
inquirywith an attempt to describethe two nymphs that clearlycontrastssee-
ing and feeling, in four lines punctuated as two plus two. Characterizingthe
more "chaste"one as an escaping illusion of blue and cold eyes (10-11), he
leaves no doubt about the poverty of vision as a means of sensuous gratifica-
tion. Then, by askinghimself whether the other ("all sighs") might be like a
"hot breeze"into his "fleece,"he poses heat againstcoldness;an intimateap-
proach againstan escape to distance;lower-body-animal-sensation against
seen illusions.56If the cold nymph is both seer and seen-eyes and object of
the eyes-the faun's (imagined)relationshipto the hot one is sensuallyricher:
it is her mouth, of course, that might breathesighs into his fleece. In this first
conjunction of oral and tactile experience,we readersare given a brief fore-
taste (or fore-sense)of the breathypassion that might lie in store with the fill
56. The Improvisationhad the much more precious"l'autreau tiede aveu"("the other of the
warm [or soft] avowal")for "l'autretout soupirs,"and "brisedu jour vaine"insteadof "chaude."
Far from blurring his final text, Mallarme has in this instance both clarifiedthe imagery and
strengthenedthe thematiccontrast.
attainmentof spoken "music," for the faun's words actually materializethe

"warmbreeze of the day" as a crescendo of three sibilantconsonants: "brise
du jour chaude,""s-j-ch."
The faun answershis own inquirywith an abruptdenial, "Que non!" And
now, for the first time, he recognizes the metaphorical deceptions of his
own musical performance. Water, wind, sound, sensation-all are merely
"murmurs""pouredforth" by his flute. The finely chosen verb, "verser"("to
pour"), relatesthe deceitfulmusic directlyto the art of poetry-"vers"-itself.
And in the descriptionof the thicket as "arrosed'accords"("sprinkledwith
chords"),the adjectiveechoes the "roses"the faun recognized,just priorto the
"fugue,"as falsesubstitutesfor his opening vision of rosy flesh. Pastoralpiping
is identifiedas just as treacherous,in its proliferationof metaphors,as the po-
etic imaginationthat ensnaressensuous experiencein conventionalsymbols.
The disappearancethat completes the thematic shape of the fugue subject
negates or confuses the idea of breathing in particular.In the last mention
of the flute (line 18), the "deux tuyaux"("two pipes") aresaidto "exhale."As
the sound "disperses,"the faun's experience of his world becomes visual
again:an "artificialbreath of inspiration"becomes visible at the horizon and
"regainsthe sky"to drawthe "subject"to a close (lines 20-22). Some general
rhythms can be discernedthrough the syntacticalhaze: "inspiration,"which
can also mean inhalation, answers the earlier exhalation of the flute, and
bringsthis now-disembodiedbreathunder the shadow of the adjective"artifi-
cial" (line 21). "Artificialinspiration,"it seems to me, sums up the recogni-
tion, acrossthe whole passage,that poetic craft,with all of its metaphorsand
musics, offersno more than an insubstantialartificeof experience.With a final
rise of breath and "inspiration"to the sky or heaven ("ciel"), the faun's lan-
guage regainsthe upper reachesof the imaginationfrom which the searchfor
sensuous substancesbegan.
The contrapuntalelaborationbegins with an even stronger linguistic ges-
ture than the "subject."57With an apostrophicinvocation (line 23), one of
the most powerful devices of lyric utterance, the faun addresseshis pastoral
setting: "O Sicilianshores of a calm marsh."This is a typicalVirgiliannod to
the founder of pastoralpoetry, as in the fourth and sixth Eclogues:"Sicilian
muse, let's sing a nobler song"; "My playfulmuse firstchose Sicilianverse:/
She did not blush to dwell among the woods."58But ratherthan invoking a
57. The term contrapuntalmay seem problematicgiven that the thematicpatternscannot be
spokensimultaneouslyas in a musicalfugue. But the textualpresentationcan still be saidto effect a
literaryequivalentof "counterpoint,"since the thematicshapesexist simultaneouslyin the visual
experienceof the text-and it is in the "fugue" that Mallarmefirstmakes use of the poem's two
typographical special effects: the capitals of "CONTEZ" and the italics of the "telling."
(Mallarme'sfirst experimentationwith typographyin this poem has long been recognized as a
forerunnerof the later, much more elaboratevisual composition of Un Coup de dis n'abolirale
hasard,which seems more obviously deserving of the label "counterpoint"even though it, too,
cannot actuallybe realizedas such in speech.)
58. Translationsfrom Alpers,TheSingerof theEclogues,27 and 37.
Sicilian muse, the faun can only-in his "vanity"-claim to be ransacking

"Sicilian shores" "in emulation of sunbeams"-and the shores remain
"tacites"("silent,"that is, hidden or implied) beneath "flowersof sparks"(line
25). In the simplestreading,we might say that dazzling reflectionson the wa-
ter conceal the shores from his searching eyes. But we must also expect a
deeper,figuralmeaning. On this point, Sainte-Beuve,whose Etudesur Virgile
exemplified the tradition of reading Virgil as the "firstmodern," can be of
further help. In his preface, Sainte-Beuvecelebratesliterarytraditionwith a
conventionalmetaphor:a torch ("flambeau")that has passedfrom the Greeks
to the Romans, through the Renaissance,to the modern era. More precisely,
for Saint-Beuve,only a few sparksfrom this torch have survivedthe vicissi-
tudes of time and modern literaryextravagance;it is the job of the carefulclas-
sicistto make sure these "etincelles"never go out.59
Perhapsthe "etincelles"that blind LE FAUNE to the "Sicilianshores"are
the very sparksof traditionso cherishedby classicistcriticslike Sainte-Beuve.
But in Mallarme,these "etincelles"do not guide the faun'seyes into the vistas
of literaryhistory: they actuallyobscure the "Sicilianshores" from his "ran-
sacking"vision. The overwrittenpages of centuries of modem literature,we
might say, now intervene, blindingly,between this divided pastoral speaker
and the Theocriteanmuse of his art. At the end of his classicalinvocation,the
faun begs the silent shores to "TELL,"in a desperateplea for aural recovery,
at least, of the originaryvoice whose source has been lost to view.
The change in typographyfor the diminution suggests that the shores re-
spond to the faun's summons to speak. But the "telling" begins in the first
person rather than the third person of narrative;it starts in a past tense
("coupais")but soon shifts to the present ("ondoie," line 29). The faun can
only pretend to hear the originary Sicilian voice, as he himself revisits the
thematic pattern of the previous section. After markinghis location, "here"
("cutting hollow reeds" ["creux roseaux"],another echo of "roses"and "ar-
rose"), and giving a few detailsof the setting (the distant greenery,the foun-
tains), he glimpsesan undulatingvision (line 29). His description,"blancheur
animale,"encapsulatesin two words the contrastbetween seeing and feeling.
"Blancheur"("whiteness"), a seen color, relates to the earliervision of the
blue-eyed nymph; through its figurativemeaning of purity or innocence, it
59. The prefaceto the Etudesur Virgileis a "Discours"given by Sainte-Beuveon his acces-
sion to the chairof Latinpoetry at the College de Francein March 1855. See pp. 30-31: "En ce
siecle ou l'on a tant fait de systemeset de professionsde foi; ou a tout propos, dans toute matiere,
philosophique,sociale,litteraire,on a introduitet prodigue le mot de croyance,je ne veux pas dire
que l'on en ait peu; mais il est aussiune religion plus discretequi tient a l'amourdu beau, du na-
tural,du fin et du delicatdans la poesie. Les Grecs l'eurent;les Romains apreseux en recueillirent
et en rassemblerenten foyerplus d'une etincelle;ils tinrenta leur tour le flambeau.Quelques-unes
de ces etincelles, diminuees, mais vives encores, ont passe jusqu'a nous: ne les laissons jamais
s'eteindre.Vous me verrez tres-attentifet tres-zele a les reuniret a les ranimersous vos regards."
Sainte-Beuve's particular emphasis on the need to animate these "etincelles" beneath the
"regards"of his audiencemeshes well with my reading.
also recallsthe chastityof that prior illusion. The adjective"animale,"on the

other hand, adds a palpablefrisson to the vision-as if the whiteness is sud-
denly recognized as desirableflesh-and a link back to the sighing nymph in
the subject,who seemed to breathe into the fleece of the faun's own animal
half.
As in the subject,the faun'sglimpse of sensuouspromiseleads immediately
to the theme of music. Now both the type of music, a "slowprelude,"and the
instrument, the "pipes," enter the "telling," dispersingvision and sensation
(lines 30-31). Unable to decide whether he has seen swansor naiads,the faun
is equallyconfused about their mannerof escape:either a "flight"("vol") or a
"plunge"into the watersbeyond the shores.
The augmentationthat enfolds the diminution resumeswith the returnto
roman type. In a transition, the faun notes that the burning heat of noon
("l'heurefauve")erasesall traceof the desiredobjects, and identifieshimselfin
musicalterms as "the one who searchesfor the A" (line 34). The augmented
contrastthen begins with three lines (35-37) in which he assertsthat he will
awaken to his "firstfervor," "erect and alone, beneath an antique wave of
light." It is as if he has claimed the visual stage of the poem, beneath a spot-
light of tradition. Such boldness, it seems, inspires a sudden lurch to
metaphor.Exclaimingthe name of a white flower-"Lys!"-and relatingit to
his own "ingenuite" or innocence, the faun underlines its symbolic link,
through the "blancheur"in the "telling," back to the chaste nymph of the
fugue subject.
After a blank,the second half of the contrastappearsin four lines (38-41),
shown in the second large box. The faun resumes,obscurely,in mid-thought:
"other than this sweet nothing by their lip sounded out." Perhapsthe line
refersback to the "telling,"in oblique acknowledgmentthat the "lip"of the
shores actuallysaid nothing. But ratherthan seeking a clearanecdote in these
lines, it is best to read the tangled syntaxas the result of a multilayeredchias-
mus pivoting around the faun'sreferenceto his own breast("Mon sein"). On
one side, we read of the "lip"and the "kiss";on the other, of the "bite" and
the "tooth." Deepening the chiasmus,the guilty overtones of "perfides"on
one side contrastwith the purityof "vierge"on the other; even more clearly,
"bas"-low--on the side of the lip opposes "auguste"-august, or high-on
the side of the tooth. Altogether,two more "animal"types of oral contact, the
kissof a (lower?)lip and the bite of an (upper?)tooth, here intensifythe sensu-
alityof the oral/tactile conjunctioninitiallygiven in sighs.
The tactile counterpartto the oralityhas risen from the "fleece" that re-
ceived the "breeze" to the faun's "breast"or heart. Perhapsthe claims to a
spotlit visual presence and a centered oral/tactile experience show, dimly,
some progressin the attempt to open a dramaticspace and claim a sensuous
presence.Initially,the themes of seeing and feeling arosefrom a descriptionof
the nymphs;now they have congealed more closely around the faun himself.
But he is still trapped in his conventional role of musician.With an abrupt
ejaculation-"Mais bast!"-in the same formalposition as the denial-"Que

non!"-in the fugue "subject,"he turns, again,to pastoralpiping (line 43).
As in the diminution,the theme of musicin the augmentationrefersboth to
the instrument,the "vasttwin reed," and to what it plays, "a long solo" (lines
43-45). The faun attributesto the reed a "dream"-that "we amuse / the
surroundingbeauty with false confusions / between itself and our credulous
song"-which blends music and setting much in the way the flute that mur-
mured into the chord-sprinkledthicketdid. And as before, his syntaxnow be-
comes particularlybaroque. The reed, it seems, also "dreams... to make as
high as love modulates/ to vanish from the ordinarydream of back / or of
pure flank pursued by my blind looks / a sonorous, vain and monotonous
line" (lines 45-51). Reading through the verbaltangles, we can recognize in
this disappearance ("to vanish")both the "risingmotion" ("aussihaut")hinted
at in Debussy'sletterto "Willy,"and a lastreturnto vision ("regards").Perhaps
the odd ascriptionof this vision to "blind"or "closed" eyes ("regardsclos,"
line 50) adds a note of confusion similarto the "visiblebreath"in the subject
and the indistinctwhitenessin the diminution.With a negativeturn much like
the "artificialbreathof inspiration"that closed the subject,the fugue ends with
an acknowledgmentthat artistic"modulations"of sensuous desiresinto repre-
sentationalor musicallines can only be "vain"and "monotonous."
Debussy's reading of the "literary fugue"

Some of the generalimplicationsof this section of the poem have long been
recognized;its concernwith the artificeof poetic creation,for example,is hard
to miss. But to expose the "literaryfugue" is to discoverthe formalarmature
of Debussy's musicalreading.Needless to say,there is nothing remotely fugal
about the music of the Prelude,but Mallarme'scontrapuntallyarticulatedsuc-
cession of themes providesa clear template for musicalcomposition. As with
the poem, some summarycomments on the opening of the piece-with its
famous flute solo, harpsweeps, and horn calls-can help to set up the reading
of the fugue.
Debussy's opening flute solo, perhapsthe obvious timbre to representthe
faun'sinitialsolitude in his world, is answeredby harp arpeggiationsof a half-
diminished seventh chord up and down through four octaves-a clear
sonorous equivalentto the opening vision of "rosyflesh"that "vaultsinto the
air."This first chord, as many have noted, unmistakablynods to the famous
opening half-diminishedseventh of Tristanund Isolde,although neither the
harp arpeggiosof a root position (A#-C#-E-G#) nor the accompanyingfirst
inversionpreciselyecho Wagner'sdistinctivevoicing. We could well imagine
that Debussy might draw on the symbolic implicationsof Wagner'schord in
this oblique manneras an equivalentto the faun's firstvague vision of desired
flesh. By the time of the Prelude'scomposition, afterall, such symbolismhad
hardened into the convention of leitmotivic labeling: in French leitmotivic
guides the leitmotif containing the original "Tristanchord" was designated

"le Desir." Debussy's reading of the "literaryfugue" will give more precise
supportto the suspicionthat he is using the Wagnerianleitmotivicassociations
of the half-diminishedseventh to effect esotericlinksto Mallarme'spoem.
Example2 shows the beginning of Debussy's readingof the fugue, begin-
ning a few barsafter the second iterationof the opening solo at measure 11.
Priorto the example,the finalA# of the flute solo was transferredto the oboe.
In order to locate this as a moment in the "reading,"we must recognize that
Debussy does not, in the Prelude,read Mallarme'sstructure-definingblank
spaceswith silences(the only barof silence, measure6, is best understood as a
responseto a blank within the poem's opening section). The smoother elision
of the music, by contrast with the poem, makes even delicate timbral shifts
all the more significant.This transferof the leading line from flute to oboe, I
suggest, capturesin sound the grammaticalpivot, "Reflechissons"("let us re-
flect"), that startsthe "literaryfugue" with a turn from soliloquyto virtualdia-
logue (in which the faun addresseshimself as "tu"). For after the oboe rises
through an octave, we reach the Prelude'stranslationof the contrastbetween
the seenandfelt nymphs in Mallarme'sfugue "subject."
As we might now expect from his letter, Debussy paints the contrast be-
tween the two nymphs with a contrast between winds and strings (mm.
17-18). In this firstinstance,the solo oboe, joined by another oboe and two
clarinets,statesa single bar of melody that is immediatelyechoed by the high,
octave-doubled first violins. This shift from winds to violins, whose exact
melodic repetition makes it redundant to pitch-based analyses,is Debussy's
equivalentto Mallarme'sfirstcontrastbetween seeing and feeling. The firstvi-
olins have only appearedonce before in the piece, in a low pianissimochord
(m. 7). Now, they irrupt with a sensuality that is striking even at a piano
dynamic. As the dynamic level rises across the repetitions of the three-note
surges, the wind scoring graduallythins-one oboe drops out, followed by
one and then both clarinets-while the violins continue to repeat their
crescendosin unabatedforte. Like the seen, chaste nymph, the wind sounds
recede; like the warm breath into the fleece, the violin sound becomes more
intimateto the ear.60
This first timbral contrast hinges on a reference to Wagner that could
hardlybe more direct. The firstG# of every three-note gesture in measure 19
is set to the "Tristan chord" at pitch, with one enharmonic change:
60. In many recordings,the stringsare reduced to backgroundcoloration in all but the cen-
tral climax. My recognition of the form-articulatingdialogue between winds and strings sprang
from a hearingof PierreBoulez's 1968 recordingfor CBS with the New PhilharmoniaOrchestra,
rereleasedin 1989 on the CBS Masterworkscollection Debussy:OrchestralMusic(MB2K 45620).
While Boulez's recordingsof Debussy have occasionallybeen criticizedas coldly clinical,in this
case his text-faithfultimbralbalanceinvaluably(if fortuitously)makes audiblethe crucial"nodes"
of the musicalreadingof Mallarme.
Example 2 Debussy's orchestralreading of the thematic contrastin Mallarme'sfugue subject:

Preludea I'apres-midi
d'unfaune,mm. 16-20
3(1) (winds) (strings)
IL ,,1 et2
p crescendo f,f f
l'illusion s'echappe
HAUTB. A2 ~
## T hr
COR ANGL. -- fcE f

-
-i ^r-# 'r^
p crescendo
r C rt f ff. p
Que non!
p crescendo f dim. et retenu

Bons J; J J a2
_p crescendo f
1g?l,2. _ #(1)
CORS
p crescendo f fr f^ ?f? dim.
(2)A-
p crescendo dim.
brise du jour chaude

3 4# (3 Div. -
r
crescendo i<if<j ru
position nat.
p crescndo
ref= d ft
position nat.
crescendo fc fc f- di.
Unies.
.:^####j. aJ. ^ #cresc.7psition."' J~

$ S at. I
f
"T chords":
"Le Desir" voicing
E#[F]-B-D#-G#. Such a direct referenceis appropriatefor the first physical

sensation of a desired object that was initiallyonly distantlyseen. Indeed, in
this instanceDebussy has almost stayedclose enough to the Wagnerianmodel
that a shift to readingfrom hearingis unnecessaryto recognize the symbol of
desire. The repeated crescendos of string sound, which infuse the "desire"
chord with something like its originalpassion, relate mimeticallyand materi-
ally to the poem's own "music."In place of Mallarme'screscendo of sibilant
consonants -the "s-j-ch" in "brise du jour chaude"-Debussy gives re-
peated three-note ascending crescendos, G#-B-C#. He thus realizes, in the
sensuous "humanity"of the high firstviolins, the hint in the poem that the
contrastbetween a seen and a sensed nymph stands for a deeper contrastbe-
tween modes of experiencingthe text itself.
The collapse to solo clarinetis a collapse back to distance, as in the faun's
self-denial:"Que non!" As we should expect from the poetic template, the
firstviolins now disappearuntil they are called on to expressthe "animal"de-
sire in the faun's "telling."In the poem the faun now recognizes that his own
flute "pours forth" his desirous illusions. To paint this "thematic" music
Debussy bringsbackthe solo flute, which had disappearedfrom his readingof
the pivotalcontrast,garlandsit with harpfiguration(a conventional"pastoral"
scoring), and adds a second flute, to bring his readingof the fugue subjectto
a close with an equivalentof the poem's "two pipes" ("deux tuyaux," mm.
27-30).
Debussy readsthe whole of Mallarme's"augmentation"as a clearlydemar-
cated section, measures31-54. In Example3, I1show only the centralpassage
(mm. 36-48), which includes the timbralexchanges that mark the two the-
matic contrasts.The beginning of the entire section makesthe most extensive
use of the whole-tone scale in the piece (mm. 32-33 and 35-36: the last bar
of this material starts the example). At this point in the poem, the faun,
blinded by "sparks,"cannot see into the classicaltradition.In Debussy's read-
ing, the modern whole-tone scale drawsa syntacticalscrimover the traditions
of tonal practice,as gracenotes in the harpflashlike the sparksthat dazzle the
faun'seyes.
For all its delicacy,the shift from the harp-brightenedwhole-tone "shores"
to the modal oboe solo is as strikingto the ears as the poem's firstchange of
typographyis to the eyes. The musicalmode of the solo follows the "modern"
implicationsof the whole-tone fieldwith an even more specificresponseto the
poem's invocationof the "Sicilian"pastoralpoet, Theocritus.The solo begins
as if it might be pentatonic, but the three accompanyingchordsin the firstbar
state all seven notes of the Dorian mode on F#. In the second bar,two more
pitches, D# and E, are added to the melody, giving the oboe, in all, six of the
seven notes of the Dorian mode (only the A is missing). The Dorian dialectof
Theocritus's Idyllswas often celebratedfor its rustic immediacy,for example
by Sainte-Beuve:
Example 3 Debussy'sorchestralreadingof Mallarme,from just before the diminution through

the thematiccontrastin the augmentation:Prelude,mm. 36-48
O bords siciliens... CONTEZ

?
. En animant(M.M.J= 72)
Ire FL.
u .
- JA Aufrt I. - -
tt ,rL
I. , Id -
m II
t D"i -
rTr I I I -I I I I 1 " ~1
Dl
7 x a
I'd
f 1 SOLO
HAUTB.
CL. doux et expressif
Bons 0
IJ
.. .sous les fleurs d'etincelles,
Ire HARPE
En animant
Div.
arco
p p
arco
p
IJJ ~.
~
\yp # 7
p
F
Melody: [ a b
Example 3 continued
(winds) (strings)
se sauve
re
,, FL.
.. , ... Ondoie
"~ t..I~~'
HAUTB. une blancheur ----------------- ------------------s-
crescendo - - mf
COR ANGL.
crescendo m--r V
L p
ocresc. (2
gons
cresc.mf
CORS cresc. ----
It- ,Wa
"n .. . --.
animale. .--------------------------------------
cresc. mf -- P
crescendo mf~z 2-
I!.* J: . '
crescendo mf
(r r~
p
-is,i'?
r###
crescendo
r f9 r :rr Ttf
nf
Div.
Jarco
-L9:~
~'~ ' r- ~'~'
r
p
c c a' b'
Example 3 continued
qui cherchele la Droit et seul,

LI Toujours en animant 1-1 6
iL r--^ 3---. ?
tji
p
j> cresc. mf
cresc.
CORANGL. 3
I ## qt -j ^ - - cresc.
[ m
mf
I
CL. / a
# JchangezenSift
1 , J -c- r iX
|
j^, ^c^c.p
cresc. m..
>
D7>S
CORS P mf mf nf
Ouplonge.. .mf
(naiades) Toujoursen animant
Div. m m
r, m f: f
P <-<<< f
b' ]
Example 3 continued
(winds) (strings)
',-,
FL.
HAUTB. Mais bast!
f de lumiere f
CORANGL . r
f tres en dehors f d
dim.
f tres en dehors
^ ^ : dim.
dim.
f f leurlevre
CORS S-:. f (en dehors) dim.

3 (en =dehors)
^ =^ -I I F' I
f dim.
f_(Mon sein)
f pii f 3 dim.
piuf 3 dim.
f pitif 3 dim.
Hn "'^Div
dim.
-/ "?
J.
P'"f/
6r I,. .
>L
k3.~~~~~~~
t
f~ p i f^
^ J J ^ Jl~~~~~~~~~~~~~
dim.
"T chord": Db added-sixth Whole-tone
"LaSolitude"voicing chords
HearingDebussyReadingMallarme 525
One hears,evenwith a somewhatdebasedear,how well this dialectedorien,

withits opensounds,lendsitselfto the paintingof the broadperspectives of na-
ture.This dialectis grandioseand sonorous;it is replete;it reflectsthe forest
greenery,the calm,the freshness,thevastexpanse,the brillianceof the light.61
Sainte-Beuvemakesclearthe conventionallyTheocriteannatureof Mallarme's
imagery in the "telling";his idealistichearing of the dialectedorien fits well
with the naive modality of Debussy's oboe solo. Not only does Debussy set
the ostensible "telling"of the "Sicilianshores"in the modedorien,but by jux-
taposing this mode with the whole-tone scale, he finely captures in music
Mallarme'smodern figurationof the brokencontinuityof classicaltradition.
In a rareinstanceof numericalcorrespondence,Debussy readsMallarme's
"telling"with seven barsfor seven lines. As indicatedbelow the example, the
oboe solo begins with two bars of melody (ab); after the two-bar timbral
exchangethat paintsthe thematiccontrast(cc) these firsttwo barsrecurtrans-
posed, with the second bar repeated (a'b'b').62As before, the two-word con-
trast "blancheuranimale"is expressed as an alternation,with exact melodic
repetition,of wind and violin, linked to the poem both by direct mimesisand
by a nod to Wagner.Within the rhythmicallystaidoboe solo, the syncopations
in the two pivotal bars (mm. 39-40) undulate ("ondoie," line 29) like the
faun's vision of whiteness. The Wagneriansignal is more abstract:the half-
diminishedseventh G#-B-D-F# is simplyarpeggiated(with one passingnote)
above the E bass. It is appropriatethat the distantly seen carnality in the
"telling"-like the earliervision of vaultingflesh-should receivea vaguerhar-
monic expressionthan the "desire"chordsthat set the breeze into the fleece.
By continuing the exchange between high violins and winds to lead out of
the "telling,"Debussy responds to the furtherantinomiesthat follow on this
instanceof the main thematiccontrast:the faun'sconfusion between "swans"
and "naiads,"and between their "escape"or "plunge."By ending the seven-
barphrasewith a departurefrom whole-barunits (m. 44) that is farless aurally
strikingthan the modal shift at its beginning, he finds an equivalentto the el-
lipsisthat ends the "telling."In the poem, at this point, the faun refersto him-
self as "the one who searchesfor the A." Already,by leavingout this one pitch
from the oboe's statementof the Dorian mode, Debussy has secreteda clever
responseto this poetic-musicalconceit in his leadingmelody.Now, in measure
44, he marksthe moment at which the faun mentions "le la" by emphatically
compensatingfor the previousomission. Exactlywhere we would expect, just
61. "On sent, meme avec une oreille a demi profane, combien dans ce dialecte dorien l'ou-
verture des sons se prete a peindre largement les perspectives de la nature. Ce dialecte est
grandioseet sonore; il est plein; il reflechitla verdure,le calme, la fraicheur,le vaste de l'etendue,
l'eclatde la lumiere"(Charles-AugustinSainte-Beuve,"Theocrite"[1846], in Portraitslittraires,
rev.ed. [Paris:GarnierFreres,1862], 3:10.
62. The formalcongruence also exemplifiesthe proportionalflexibilityof Debussy's reading:
the pivotalcontrastoccursearlierin the seven-barphrasethan in the seven-line"telling."
beforethe thirdcontrast,the principalflute,in dialoguewithallof the winds,

movestwiceto a rhythmically strongA.63
Debussyreadsthe thirdcontrastbetweenseeingandfeelingmuchlikethe
previoustwo. Withinthe somewhatcomplicatedtextureof measures46-47,
we find againa one-bargesturein the winds (cor anglaisand dclarinet) an-
sweredby violins in octavesand linked to Mallarme'stext by a pun on
Tristan.64 The windsin this exchangeare set to a "minortriadwith major
sixth"voicingof the "Tristanchord,"at the very pitches-Bb-Dv-F-G
of the chordthatbeginsthe introductionto act 3 of Tristanund Isolde(see
Ex. 4). In Frenchleitmotivicanalysis,the motivethatincludesthisvoicingof
the chordbearsthe label"LaSolitude,"whichis preciselyappropriate forthe
faun'sidentificationof himselfat this point as a figure "erectand alone"
("droitet seul").65If the "desire"voicingof the "breezeinto the fleece"re-
taineda traceof Wagner'spassion,this laterreferenceis farmore removed
fromthe unforgettable pathosof the act 3 introduction.A leitmotivicreading
has becomeessentialto recognizethe linguisticbasisof Debussy'scomposi-
tionalchoices.
Debussyoverlaysthe violinside of this exchange(m. 47) with a one-bar
callfor twohorns,the onlybrassinstruments in his orchestra-a fineresponse
to the "sweetnothingby theirlipsoundedout." The hornsactually"sound
out," at pitch, over the Db-majoradded-sixthchord that will initiatethe
Prelude's centralsection,the fullbarof melodythatlaterreappears preciselyat
the climacticcrux(mm.67-70). Butgiventhatboththe violins,piuforte,and
the horns,tresen dehors, arecrucialto the reading,Debussy'sscoringhasbe-
come almostimpossibleto hearclearly.Thistimbrallycrowdedmomentcan
be seenasa sophisticated responseto the chiasmusin the poem,whoseformal
densityblocksclearlinearreading.And by markingthis densescoringas an
anticipationof the expressivecenterof the piece,Debussygivesemphasisto
the arcanehint of future-directed desirein Mallarme's chiasmus.Recallthat
63. In a recent article on Debussy's setting of Verlaine's"Mandoline,"Abbate comments
that "Ais ... the note shouted loudest of all by Verlaine'spoem, as the tonic of the Aeolian mode,
the traditionalpastoral mode, hence of ancient lyre-sounds that abandoned mandolins would
make could we ever reallyhear their speech. This pastoralA appearsas well in 'L'apres-midid'un
faune,' where Mallarme'sfaun tunes his pipes in a searchfor the same symbolicnote, and thus for
a prelapsarianpast when breath had not yet gone out of the world" ("Debussy's Phantom
Sounds," CambridgeOperaJournal 10 [1998]: 84). The Prelude'smusicalreadingof the faun's
"searchfor the A" actuallymakesuse of a different"traditionalpastoralmode" than the Aeolian
-one whose Theocritean associationsare more precisely appropriateto the figural history in
Mallarme'spoem.
64. I link the violins with the words "Mon sein" in the example, but only as the centralidea
of the whole passage,not as a directone-to-one correspondence;hence the parentheses.
65. On the basis of the precisionof this Wagnerianpun, we might note retrospectivelythat
the first half-diminishedseventh chord in the Prelude,which includes a "minor triadplus major
sixth" in the winds, could well be voiced to symbolize the "desiroussolitude" of the faun at the
beginning of the poem (which is markedby the poem's only other use of the adjective"seul"for
the faun himself,line 6).
Example 4 The "solitude"motive and chord, as labeled by Albert Lavignacin his Le Voyage
artistiquea Bayreuth(Paris:LibrairieCharlesDelagrave,1897)
LA SOLITUDE
Lento moderato
f
( .a
on either side of the faun's "breast,"we have read, on the one hand, of "their
lip,"in some associationwith "bas"or "low,"and on the other, of an "august
tooth." In other words, the formed language dimly prefiguredthe faun'strue
goal: the sensuous conjunctionof his own lowerlip and uppertoothin passion-
ate speech. Debussy's musical realizationmakes such prefigurationexplicit:
the sensuous violin sound is masked by horns that sound out the very frag-
ment of melody that will eventuallybe claimed by the violins in their most
compellingmusicalequivalentto lyricspeech.
Whole-tone harmonies (mm. 48-50) efface the diatonic flavors of the
sonorous chiasmus-"Mais bast!"-and a "long solo" in the clarinet(a "jonc"
or reed, in place of the "two pipes" that ended the subject) carriesus out
of Debussy's orchestrationof the "literaryfugue" (mm. 51-54). With this
upward-wanderingsolo (a "sonorous and monotonous line") Debussy paints
in sound the "risingmotion" that characterizesthe disappearanceat the end
of the whole "literaryfugue" and deliversus to the piece's centraleffloration.
Orchestral background
Some brief considerationof the details of Debussy's sonorous reading so far
can help preparea full understandingof his response to Mallarme'sclimactic
passage. Most importantly,we should account for his choice of strings, not
winds, as the sound of breathy sensualityin the reading of the fugue. We
might begin by interpretingthis configurationas no more than an activation
of Romantic cliche: to be sure, in nineteenth-centurywriting, violin sound is
often discussed(along with the rest of the stringquintet) as an abstract"foun-
dation" of the orchestra,but it is also regularlycelebratedas the most sensu-
ous timbre.66Either way, it is rarelygiven the poetic attributionsthat often
66. For the former,see for example Henri-Marie-FrancoisLavoix, L'Histoired'instrumenta-
tion depuisle seiziemesieclejusqu'a nosjours,where the violins are identified as "ces instruments
que forment le fond et comme le squelette de nos orchestres"and as "laveritablebase de l'edifice
instrumental"([Paris:LibrairieFermin-Didot, 1878], 31-32). (The associationwith sensuality,of
course, is commonplace.)
accrueto the winds. But given the evidencein Debussy'ssyntaxof his sensitiv-
ity to Mallarme'sself-consciousconfrontationwith convention, the scoring of
the Preludedemands recognition as more than a mere manipulationof cliche.
A look into the most influentialof all nineteenth-centuryworkson instrumen-
tation, Berlioz's Grand Traite, can suggest some ways in which Debussy's
timbralchoices, like his harmonicpuns and his formalprocesses,are based on
a self-consciousact of reading.
Debussy's three sonorous contrastsmake good on the hints in his letter to
Willy in generalterms, but not in specifics:the "dreamy"flute is absent from
all three contrastsbetween winds and "human"violins, which feature oboe
with clarinet,oboe solo, and clarinetwith English horn. Berlioz's comments
on the wind instrumentssuggestivelyimplyjust such a differentiationbetween
the flute and the instrumentsmore appropriatefor a contrastbetween poetic
and sensuous sounds. Regardingthe flute, Berliozwrites:
The sonorityof thisinstrumentis gentlein the middlerange,somewhatpierc-
ing in the upper,verycharacteristic
in the lower.The mediumandhigh tones
haveno specific,well-definedexpression.Theycanbe usedformelodiesof di-
versecharacter.
We might say alreadythat such lack of "well-defined"charactercould make
the flute apt to encapsulatethe faun'svague position in his world at the open-
ing of his poem, from which he will seeka more defined expressionin the lyric
voice. But in Berlioz'scontinuationa more subtle avenueof inquiryopens:
However,with closerstudy[enl'etudiantbien]one findsthat the fluteis en-
dowedwith a character peculiarlyits own andwith a specialaptitudefor ex-
pressingcertainfeelings.... Forinstance,if one desiresto giveanexpressionof
desolationto a sad melody,combinedwith a feelingof humilityand resigna-
tion, the weakmediumtonesof the flute,especiallyin C minorandD minor,
willcertainly
producethe intendedeffect.67
Berlioz can only offer his characterizationof this instrument with a shift in
attentionfrom hearingto "closerstudy."We glimpse, in this turn of phrase,a
shadow of intellectual mediation-something like an opposition between
hearingand readingwritten into the Traiteitself. And if Berlioz'swords sug-
67. "Lasonorit6de cet instrumentest douce dans le medium, assez perqantea l'aigu, tres ca-
ract6riseeau grave. Le timbre du medium et celui du haut n'ont pas d'expressionspeciale, bien
tranchee. On peut les employer pour des melodies ou des accents de caracteresdivers.... II
semble donc que la flute soit un instrument a peu pres d6pourvu d'expression,qu'on est libre
d'introduirepartout et dans tout, a cause de sa facilitea executerles groupes de notes rapides,et a
soutenirles sons eleves.... En generalcela est vrai;pourtant en l'etudiant bien, on reconnaiten
elle une expressionqui lui est propre, et une aptitude a rendre certainssentiments.... S'il s'agit
par exemple, de donner a une chant triste un accent d6sole, mais humble et resigne en meme
temps, les sons faiblesde medium de la flute, dans les tons d'Ut mineur et de Re mineur surtout,
produirontcertainementla nuance necessaire"(Hector Berlioz, Grand Traited'instrumentation
et d'orchestrationmodernes[Paris:Schonenberger,1843], 153).
gest that an effort of study might be necessaryto read "humility"into the ill-
defined characterof flute sound, his words on the other winds depend much
more overtlyon appealsto reading.
For Berlioz the oboe "has a rustic [agreste]character,full of tenderness-
I might even say of shyness."68This direct associationof oboe sound with
charactermarkedlycontrastswith the hesitationabout the flute. The adjective
"agreste,"of course, near-synonymouswith "pastoral,"identifiesthe strongest
topical implicationof oboe sound, which is cunningly enriched by Debussy's
Dorian mode in measures37-38.69 The poetic basisof such sonorous charac-
terizationsbecomes more explicitin these words on the clarinet:
The characterof the mediumrangesounds,imprinted[empreint]witha sortof
pridethattempersa nobletenderness,makesthemfavorable forthe expression
of the mostpoeticsentimentsandideas.... The characterof the clarinetis epic
ratherthanidyllic-likethatof the horns,trumpets,andtrombones.Itsvoiceis
thatof heroiclove.70
Claiming to hear a poetic imprint, and invoking the modes of poetry-epic,
idyllic-Berlioz gives his descriptionof this sound a strong literaryinflection.
He continues even more explicitly:"I have never been able to hear military
music from afarwithout being profoundlymoved by that feminine qualityof
tone present in the clarinets;it has alwaysleft me with impressionssimilarto
those receivedwhen readingancientepic poems."71
Finally,accordingto Berlioz, the cor anglaissounds "melancholy,dreamy,
noble, somewhatveiled-as if playedin the distance."Debussy's third timbral
contrast adds this distanced wind sound to the readerlyclarinet sound (m.
46), thus matching the intensified sense of mediation in this moment's
Wagnerianharmonicpun. Berliozfurthersuggests that the cor anglais"hasno
equal among the instrumentsfor revivingimages and sentimentsof the past if
the composer intends to touch the hidden chords of tender memories."72In
the musicalreading of Mallarme's"fugue," this third timbralcontrastmarks
68. "Le hautbois est avant tout un instrumentmelodique;il a un caractereagreste, plein de

tendresse,je diraimeme de timidite"(ibid., 104).
69. The oboe and the cor anglais,not the flute, are the "pastoral"instrumentsof choice for
both Berliozand Wagner.
70. "Le caracteredes sons du midium empreintd'une sorte de fierte que tempere une noble
tendresse,les rends favorablesa l'expressiondes sentiments et des idees les plus poetiques.... La
clarinetteest peu propre a l'Idyllec'est un instrumentE1pique comme les Cors, les Trompettes,et
les Trombones. Sa voix est celle de l'heroique amour" (Berlioz, Grand Traited'instrumentation,
138).
71. "Je n'ai jamaispu entendre de loin une musique militairesans etre vivement emu par ce
timbre f6minin des Clarinettes,et preoccupee d'images de cette nature, comme apresla lecture
des antiquesepopees" (ibid.).
72. "[Le cor anglais,] c'est une voix melancolique, reveuse, assez noble, dont la sonorite a
quelque chose d'efface,de Lointain,que la rend sup6rieurea toute autre,quand il s'agit d'emou-
voir en visantrenaitreles images et les sentimentsdu passe, quand le compositeurveut fairevibrer
la corde secretedes tendressouvenirs"(ibid., 122).
the faun'slonely wish to "awakento his firstfervorbeneath an antiquewave of

light." Perhaps,by adding to the clarinetan instrumentcelebratedfor its evo-
cation of "memories,"Debussy capturesthe faun's nostalgiafor a primordial
"fervor"beneath the light of ancienttradition.
The generalpoint, at any rate,is clear:Debussy has chosen the wind instru-
ment of faintest"character"to stand for the ill-definedposition of the faun in
most of his text, saving the more clearlypoetic instrumentsfor the more pre-
cise task of representingthe faun's visual experiencesof his world.73If it is
entirely understandablethat the close collaboration with Mallarme would
have attunedhim to such invocationsof literarymode,of reading,and of char-
acter or imprint, it is also easy to imagine that in reading Berlioz's treatise
d'apresMallarmehe would have been struckby this exceptionallyextravagant
instanceof the cliche about the violins:
Nothingcanequalthe stirringsweetnessof sometwentyE-stringsvibratedby
as manyskilledbows.Hereis the truefemalevoiceof the orchestra,a voiceat
once passionateand chaste, rendingand soft, which weeps and cries and
laments,or singsandpraysanddreams,or burstsforthwithjubilation-asno
otherinstrumentcan.A minutemovementof the arm,evena sentimentunno-
ticed by the player,hardlyperceptiblewith a singleinstrument,producesin a
groupthe mostwonderfulshadingsandarousesfeelingswhichpenetrateto the
depthof the heart.74
Unmediated by appeals to poetic associations, images, or memories, these
words on the violin breakforth from the context of Berlioz'streatisemuch as
this sound breaksthrough the sonorous surfaceof Debussy's tone poem. The
exceptional primacy that Debussy gives to the wind instruments in the
Prelude,often celebratedas an end in itself, more importantlyserves to free
the violin sound utterlyfrom its normative,abstract,or foundationalrole, such
that its sensualitycan appearin the soundscapeas the exceptionalsound, the
sound desiredand pursuedby the ear of the faunlikelistener.
Of course, by the 1890s further layers of instrumentaltheory had been
added to Berlioz, and we should expect that some of these might furtheren-
73. The choice may seem obvious, given the faun's explicitmention of his "flute."But this is
only a single referencein a poem that also refers,more generally,to "tuyaux"and "pipeaux,"and
to a "jonc"-and that does not featureexplicitmusicalreferencein most sections. It is thus best to
understandthe solo flute as a sign of the faun in his world ratherthan a specificequivalentof his
instrument.(This interpretationcan account for the fact that the flute returnsto lead the prelude
to a dose, even though pastoralmusic is absentfrom the latterhalfof the poem.)
74. "Les melodies tendres et lentes, confiees trop souvent aujourd'huia des instrumentsa
vent, ne sont pourtant jamais mieux rendues que par une masse de violons. Rien n'egale la
douceur penetranted'une vingtainede chanterellesmises en vibrationparvingt archetsbien exer-
ces. C'est la la vraivoix feminine de l'orchestre,voix passionneeet chaste en meme temps, dechi-
rante et douce, qui pleure et crie et se lamente, ou chante et prie et reve, ou e&lateen accents
joyeux, comme nulle autre ne le pourraitfaire. Un imperceptiblemouvement du bras,un senti-
ment inaperfude celui qui l'eprouve,qui ne produiraitrien d'apparentdans l'executiond'un seul
violon, multipliepar le nombre des unissons,donne des nuancesmagnifiques,d'irresistibleselans,
des accentsqui penetrentjusqu'aufond du coeur" (Berlioz, Grand Traited'instrumentation,33).
rich a hearing of the Prelude.For example, in varioustreatisespublished be-

tween 1860 and 1890, F.-A. Gevaertboth quotes Berlioz extensivelyand ex-
pands his sketchier descriptions. His elaboration of Berlioz's association of
harp timbre with bright light, for example, supports one strong poetic impli-
cation of the harpthroughout the Prelude.But he has more to offer our hear-
ing of the horn, the last of the "mythic trio"-Pan's flute, Apollo's lyre,
Diana'shomrn-thatbegins the piece. To the celebratedcapacityof the horn to
evoke distance, Berlioz adds only a slightly more precise idea of its "chaste"
tone, presumablybased on the associationwith Diana.75Gevaertcan signifi-
cantly enrich our hearing of the collision of sounds in Debussy's third
sonorous contrast(mm. 46-47):
In the dramaticorchestra,whichattemptsto translatenot only vagueaspira-
tions,but determinate statesof the soul,the horn,treatedas a solo instrument,
controlssentimentsandsituationsin whichthe imagination intervenesin anac-
tiveway:hopeforthe future... ; recollectionof thepast,reminiscence of mov-
ing wordsspokenin a solemnmoment...; memoryof the loved one ...;
appealto an unknownor mysteriousbeing...; anxiousanticipationof the
beloved.... In all of these ways,the horn is heardas an idealvoice, which
makesitselfheardacrosstimeandspace.76
The strong temporalpowers attributedto the horn by Gevaertfind preciseex-
emplificationin the horn call that overlaysthe Prelude'sthird wind-stringex-
change. With an exact anticipationof the "moving words" to the "beloved"
that will be claimed by the violins at the piece's climax, Debussy markshis
third timbralcontrastas an "active... hope for the future."If his carefulde-
ployment of wind instrumentsshows suggestivelinksto Berlioz'sinstrumental
poetics, his use of the horn in this particularinstancecould marka sensitivere-
sponse to a subsequentlayerof the tradition.The implicationsof such a sug-
gestion are best pursued after we read further, into the crux of Mallarme's
linguistic form, to prepare a hearing of Debussy's realization of the hope
sounded out by the horns.
The linguistic crux: reading as the faun

In the schematicrepresentationof the poem's form in Example5, I show the
whole structure,including the outermost "bifolio,"and highlight the symme-
tries of the second half. After the "fugue" and prior to the seven-line close,
75. Berliozwritesof "lavoix chaste et reserveedes cors" (ibid., 184).

76. "Dans l'orchestredramatique,qui s'attache a traduirenon-seulement de vagues aspira-
tions, mais des etats determinesde l'ame, le cor traiteen instrumentprincipala pour domaine les
sentiments et les situations ofu l'imagination intervient d'une maniere active: espoir en
l'avenir...; rappel du passe, reminiscencede paroles emouvantes prononces dans un moment
solennel...; souvenirde l'objet aime ...; appel a un etre inconnu et mysterieux...; attente in-
quiete du bien-aime... Partout ici le cor est concu comme une voix toute ideale, qui se fait en-
tendre a travers le temps et l'espace" (Francois-Auguste Gevaert, Nouveau Traite
d'instrumentation[Paris:H. Lemoine, 1885 ], 211).
Example 5 Schematicdiagramof the "foliated"form of L'Apres-midid'unfaune, emphasizing

the proportionaland typographicalsymmetriesof the second half
r: Lines 1-7: 7-line introduction

v: [blank]
Lines 8-51: "literaryfugue"
[blank]
r: Lines 52-61: 10 lines in roman type: Tache donc,...
v: [blank]
Line 62: invocation, roman type: 0 nymphes,...
r: Lines 63-74: "12 lines in italics and quotes": "Monoeil, . . .
v-r: Lines 75-81: 7 lines in roman type (Ex. 6): Je t'adore, . . .
v: Lines 82-92: '11 lines in italics and quotes": 'Mon crime,..."
\ r: [blank]
v: Lines 93-103: 11 lines in roman type: Tant pis! ...
r: [blank]
v: Lines 104-110: 7-line conclusion
Mallarmepresents a unified arrayof sections whose one-to-one proportional

relationshipsare clearlymarkedby the two differenttypefaces.As the diagram
on the left of the example shows, by reading each of the main blanksof the
poem's intricate "intellectualarmature"as a blank folio, and by taking the
changesin type that arenot separatedby blanksas immediateturnsfrom recto
to verso of a single folio, it becomes possible to interpretthe second half as
two interleavedbifolios.77
In providingthe firsttwo words of each section, I give only the briefestin-
dication of the many ways the proportionalsymmetriesbetween the paired
passagesare reinforcedby linguisticdetail.78The virtual"foliation"gives form
to a dynamicprogressionin agency of speech leading into the centralseven
lines (Ex. 6) and out into retrospection. Without the "extra"line 62, the
seven pivotallines, 75-81, would fallat the exact center of the whole symmet-
77. As for the "fugue," the "one-to-one" relationshipsare preciseto +/- 1: ten and eleven
lines in roman type, twelve and eleven in italics.It should be clearthat the representedfoliationis
virtual that is, an aspect of poetic form that is independent of the actual foliation of Mallarme's
original edition, in which the physicalpagination is all but entirely independent of the textual
form (i.e., many poetic sections cross from one printed folio to the next). Also, I have left out of
the diagramthe preciserelationshipbetween the "literaryfugue" and the rest of the foliatedform,
becauseit does not beardirectlyon Debussy'sreadingin the Prelude.For an analysisof the virtual
"book" that includes the "fugue," see the first chapterof my dissertation,"A Song Not Purely
His Own."
78. Of the four symmetricallypairedincipits("Tache donc," "Mon oeil," "Mon crime,"and
"Tantpis!"), all but the third are changed for the 1876 versionin ways that exemplifyMallarme's
formal clarificationthrough revision. "Mes yeux" becomes "Mon oeil," which is closer to "Mon
crime";the exclamation"Tantpis!" replaces"Dedaignons-lez!"in line 93, which createsthe new
section-leading consonant pair with "Tache donc, instrument.. ."; this line, too, altered from
Example 6 L'Apres-midid'unfaune, lines 75-81: the pivotalpassagein the "virtualfoliation"

of the second half of the poem
(v) 75 Je t'adore, courrouxdes vierges,6 delice

76 Farouchedu sacrefardeaunu qui se glisse
77 Pour fuir ma levreen feu buvant,comme un eclair
(v-r) 78 Tressaille!la frayeursecretede la chair:
(r) 79 Des pieds de l'inhumaineau coeur de la timide
80 Que delaissea la fois une innocence, humide
81 De larmesfolles ou de moins tristesvapeurs.
I adoreyou, wrathof virgins,0 fierce/ Delight of the sacrednakedburdenwhich slides/ To flee

my fiery drinkinglip, like a lightning bolt / Thrills!the secret terrorof the flesh:/ From the feet
of the inhuman one to the heart of the shy / Let all at once relinquishan innocence, humid /
With foolish tearsor with less mournfulvapors.
ricalstructure(10 + 12 lines before; 11 + 11 after).The interpolatedapostro-

phe to the nymphs, in fact, both underlinesthe main point of the passageand
deepens the dynamicmove towardthe centralcrux. Invocation,a summoning
of the world through speech, is preciselythe aestheticmotivationof the whole
second half of the poem.
Example 6 shows the climacticattainmentof vocality and the pivotal turn
in the foliatedform. The simple exclamationof love, "Je t'adore,"is the only
time that the faun speaksto the nymphsdirectly,with the "je-tu"addressthat
is the most potent promise of presencein lyricpoetry.79After the apostrophe,
"6 delice," the language of the firstthree lines dissolvesthe prosody in a liter-
ally "delicious"rush to the climacticdiphthong of "Tre"and the slide of the
double s into "aille."With the labiodentalfricativesin "vierges,""farouche,"
"fardeau,""fuir,""levre,""feu,"and "buvant,"the lower lip and uppertooth
of the last thematic contrast meet in the faun's own mouth. Claiming his
sensationsfor "my lip" in place of "theirlip"-the only two instancesof this
word in the poem-he celebratesthe thrillof materializedspeech in its maxi-
mal intimacy.
In the exact center of the centralpassage,markedby an exclamationmark,
the rush of lyricismhalts as the faun admitsto a "secretterror."Now the lan-
guage palpablyturns a comer. The prosody fallsinto order again as he sepa-
ratesand specifiesthe two bodies in a parallelstructurethat clearlymarksthe
hemistiches of the alexandrine:"Des pieds de l'inhumaine/ au coeur de la
timide." Unlike the tumbling elisions leading to the central "thrill,"the en-
jambmentbetween lines 80 and 81 stutterson the blandestvowel: "humide/
"Tache,noble instrument... ," comes closer to its formalcompanion in sentence structure(two

words to a point of punctuation) and tone (the hint of colloquial speech in "donc"). See the
Improvisationin OC2, 160-62.
79. Previously,the faun has only spoken the second-personpronoun to himself (lines 8-13;
see Ex. 1) and to his flute, when he discardsit in lines 52-53.
De larmes."The liquid I and the closed-lipped m accumulate,quenching the

breathyhiss, as we read out, through the musicallycrowded pairing "moins
tristes,"to the dissipationof passionand linguisticpresenceinto "vapors."
Reading for verbalmusic, we sharewith the faun a sense of vocal presence
that surges across lip and tooth to the central flowering of "Tressaille!"We
share,too, afterthis pivotal moment, the feeling of retreat:the congealing of
prosodic order, the muting of the poetic music, and the deceleration.As a
composition for mouth and ear,the passageseems, briefly,to consummatethe
desire that has motivated the entire text: language has truly materializedas
voice, and the dreams of dramahave been recoveredin a sonorous space of
poetic timbres. But while we may want to believe, with the faun, that his cli-
mactic lyric music has attainedintimate contact with the world, the text will
not, in fact, allow such unreflectivenaivete. For beyond the word that seems
like the climacticarrival,the rush of breathdeliversus to a clausewhose affec-
tive cast immediatelyperturbsany sense of lyricwholeness. The exclamation
markmay insiston the thrillingsounds in "Tressaille,"but this word, here, is a
transitive verb: at its sonorous climax, the phrase remains grammatically
incomplete. With the given grammatical completion, we find ourselves
carriedineluctablybeyond voiced presenceto a darker,more inwardrealm of
experience.
To speakof a "secretterror"right aftera "thrill"of vocal presence under-
cuts such presence with troublesome thought. Slipping ineluctably from a
readingof dramaticpresenceto a mentallymediatedreading,we are forced to
acknowledge that the surrenderto the music of these lines is only possible
through a willful blindnessto problematicshadows of meaning. Once we be-
gin to scrutinizethe text more carefully,we find that it is shot through with
thematic reminiscencesthat undermine the lyric address. Even in this mo-
ment, for example,the nymphsremain"vierges":the theme of chastity,associ-
ated throughout with the frustrationsof seeing, carriesover into the attempt
to affirmthe carnalpromisesof speech. And the very sensationof breathand
tooth on the faun's lip, we must now notice, derives its energy from the
"flight"of these virginalnymphs from vocal contact much in the way that the
illusion of blue eyes and the flight of swansor naiadsescapedthe faun's sight.
Finally,even the climactic conjunction of "je" and "tu," saved for this mo-
ment, finds only an unindividuated"courroux"of virgins and an unspecified
"fardeaunu." The very attemptto divide and specifya single "tu"for intimate
linguistic union occurs within-perhaps even causes-the withdrawalof lan-
guage back from a "sonorous space" into the ordered prosody of a printed
poem.
The crux of the Prelude: listening as the faun

Some commentators have regretted the lush lyricism at the heart of the
Preludeas a youthful lapse (Ex. 7). With the vibrationof bows againststrings
Example 7 Prelude,mm. 63-78: Debussy'sorchestralreadingof Mallarme'sclimacticpassage
4 Bars "outerrecto"
ID ,|I .
(6) En animant
7',_- ;-'I.^^ ^ \^^^ > .
~
p subito crescendo
FL. L
HAUTB. psubito i ~ 7..

- crescendo
I;
subito i --IF r
COR ANGL. > >
p P subito i i
gons p subito crescendo
A2L
CORSibtopp ^^
ORRS
PE'^// ^:::::=:^^^L
^::::::=^ s crescendo
crescendo
D
'"-3 4ILLL
:~1,1'1,^~~ 31 -3 - 3"
66
| b crescendo
et 2 '
I1re f IL
En animant Je t'adore... crescendo

tres expressifet tres soutenu
Unis. ~ ~ F
subito crescendo
i_r 1p subito
r r' r./r crescendo
r
r
' i
sIto pP subito
r -= crescendo
- \i pp subito r:~ f
pp subito Div. crescendo
~f: _~
W7^6 t
6 6~ t
pp I
crescendo
Example 7 continued
4 Bars "innerverso"
IToujoursanime
(6) , f-tif o f~ i t ? t ?e f f ? -- ?t
m crescendomolto
, p crescendomolto -
TBo
CORSANGL. >
-
CL. "A c I oI'to - -
B'ns mP crescendo molto
*L h ,. _-...
~ ~ ~
mp cresend
2
e HARPE MP crescendo m molto
20HARPE
/^^pPr crescendo molto
JS-^ J, , ~ J
66
V^} LS: E. 3
mp crescendo molto
666----.- -6J~. ~_..?_~. ,r.-

1-~ I
Appoggiatura(="T chord")
Example7 continued
( ?ff ,.. rt F- [-1
Lmf-
HA = S ,
COR ANGL. f f
-b
IE
b .
mf2
C 6 4;;z
1F
..-.. ; 1 .I.. I
Lh -...
CORSmff - 'f *.
I
3 -
t 3B.f f
MliAbf
BOHARPE ?
04 Ff
I, Fri.._,
I II -r.
' - ^
.r--TrTT ^oQ
6ajl
- ----' meu r Tri l
3
e c r'etefd
W-r,'
a I~
_,>
*-,- Jll.........?_ '
- "
JL6 - -'-'
I ff *
Appoggiatura (="T chord")
Example 7 continued
4 Bars "innerrecto"
I
I ,A , _ Cedez un peu (M.M. J = 60)
imf
FL.
mf
BOns mf
b:ebj J
~
mf p espressifet doux
CORS 40 f 3P0
Im .
i. - -
reHARPE f sfz
la chair... Cedez un peu

3 3 3 3
^
mJ '^ ----- ~Div.
mf pp
r r r r-
mifj -P j
Example 7 continued
4 Bars "outerverso"
J
HAUTB. I l
b - - 'yrrrr ----Ir-O
pp tres doux PPP -
CL . ..moinstristes vapeurs
A bbb JLf 3 3 3
r&^Y'
3 P
r-Y'
r r^
p tresdoux
-
ORS -- -P p M
IHj~. j^~pia
p
z do tpp ux ppp
66666r r r r f r f 2
p doux et expressif P ---
sourdines
. b
sourdines
R - - - -
sourdines
` - - - -
: "r
Pt
so savored by Berlioz, the massed violins lead all of the strings in a broad
Romanticmelody in Db. The tune has been linkedto variouscomposers,from
Chaikovskyto Saint-Saens,Balakirevto Massenet.With WilliamAustin, I take
the most directreferenceto be Chopin's Db Nocturne, an iconic evocation of
bel canto lyricism.80The wind instruments,shedding their distanced,poetic
role, now reinforcethe vocal effusion of the stringswith two-note slursthat
match the fricativesof the poem's onrush to "Tressaille!"(mm. 63-70).
After four bars, the scoring thickens as the harpsrise to illuminatethe re-
turn of the melodic gesture anticipatedby the call of two horns (m. 67). No
80. Austin juxtaposesthe Chopin and the Debussy in his Norton CriticalScore, 73. Debussy
himselfwrote a Nocturnein D1 in 1889, which anticipatesthe harmony of the climacticpassage
of the Preludebut avoids the Chopinesque cantilena.What would have been too close an imita-
tion in a piano nocturne could be framed,later,within the self-consciousweb of historicalvoices
in the orchestralPrelude.
longer sounded out distantlyby "theirlip," the rising-thirdmelody has been

claimedby the violinsit initiallymasked,becoming the sonorous equivalentof
the faun'sown lyricutterance.Debussy harmonizesthis climacticclaimto sen-
suous "speech"with root-position ES-minorand Gk-majorchords, as if these
most naive pre-dominant harmonies have been released from beneath
Wagner'sverbal-musicaltangles. At the peak of the two crescendos (mm. 68
and 70), a triplet flourishdeliversan appoggiaturaC-BK-a recovery,within
Debussy'sloosened harmonicvocabulary,of the single most expressivedevice
in the historyof tonal lyricism.
At measure71 the piece palpablyturnsa corner:the light of the harpsis ex-
tinguished; the winds cease their impassioned breathing; the descending
stringsmuse, in decrescendo,on the second bar of the climacticflourish.The
expected tonic arrivalis clouded by the flattenedseventh as a horn call "speaks
across time," recalling both the climactic utterance and, more distantly,its
own anticipationof the climax. The Dl tune returnsscored for solo violin, a
sonorous equivalentof the faun's attempt to separatethe tangle of flesh into
individuals, which seemed to cause the fall away from vocal presence. As
Berlioz suggests, the physicalityof the whole group of violins is "hardlyper-
ceptiblein a single instrument."Over this fragilememory, the winds risein re-
peated reminiscencesof the centralflourish,painting the "vapeurs"that end
the fleeting moment of lyricaddress.
With a hearingthat surrendersto the scoring and the sweep of lyricism,this
section capturesthe impressionof a reading of Mallarme'scentralseven lines
that ridesthe breath,savoringthe verbalmusic. Debussy's brilliantinitialscor-
ing plunges to a moment of breathy intensity, only to slip with lightning
quickness into a retrospective penumbra. But again, even these fleeting
pleasurescan only fully be claimed by deliberatelyignoring-overlooking-
troublingundercurrents.If we look back,we find that this seduction of the lis-
tener will not withstandthe upper-bodyscrutinyof the readerany more than
the fleeting sense of untroubledlyricismat the heart of Mallarme'spoem.
Debussy has casthis centralsection as something like a virtual"bifolio"(see
Ex. 8). The phrasalsymmetryof the sixteen measuresfrom 63 to 78 is excep-
tional in the Prelude:four barsoffer the D; tune, four barsstate the climactic
gesture twice, four barsecho the climax in descent, and four bars bring back
the DD tune. Imagine printing measures 63-66 on an outer folio recto (Dl
tune); 67-70 on the innerverso of that folio (climacticgesture);71-74 on the
recto of the next folio (climacticgesturevaried);and 75-78 on the outer folio
verso (Dlbtune). The changesof orchestrationeveryfour barsstronglyreinforce
-for the eye if not the ear-the sense of a hidden literaryorder.The structure
is articulatedaround a moment of slippagemarkedlysimilarto that at the for-
mal center of the poem's booklike form: like the verb "Tressaille!"the climac-
tic gesturesover pre-dominantharmonyare syntacticallyincomplete.And like
Mallarme, Debussy does complete his syntax, but only with a rhythmically
weak move to the dominant after the climax, as the timbralplenitude of the
centralbarsfallsaway.
Example 8 Schematicrepresentationof Debussy's climacticpassage, mm. 63-78 (Ex. 7) as a

"virtualfoliation":"outer"folios show the two appearancesof the DM-majortune; "inner"folios
show the four climacticbarsand the four-barretrospectivevariant
v: mm. 75-78 /
r: mm. 71-74
v: mm. 67-70
r: mm. 63-66
Reading back,we must acknowledgethat the lyricimmediacysensed in the

Dl tune was reallyno more straightforwardthan that in the faun's addressto
the nymphs.The melody itself may breathe,in its diatonicnaivete,a franklyri-
cism equal to the poem's "je-tu" address,but only if we deafen ourselvesto
the clouding whole-tone harmonythat follows the tonic, over the tritone bass
motion DV-G. This intervalhas defined the flute solo's ambiguityin its tonal
world from the very start.By extension, it has been relatedto the whole-tone
field that Debussy exposed as a syntaxof historicalocclusion. Here, the whole-
tone chord over the bass G interposesa harmonicaporiawithin what seems,
fleetingly,like a stableharmonizationof bel canto melody.
Under even more carefulscrutiny,we must also, finally,recognize that the
simple pre-dominants at the very point of climax bear perturbing shadows
of the same historical self-consciousness that has infused the piece's post-
Wagnerian puns. The appoggiatura at the heart of the piece, a seeming
revenantof Romantic lyricism,actuallypoises plangentlybetween immediacy
and esotericism. The Ct appoggiatura,in this instance, is the added major
sixth that turns the E&-minortriadinto the "Solitude"voicing of the "Tristan
chord." Given the symbolicprecisionwith which this voicing appearedearlier,
we must see its recurrence as similarlystudied. The most effusive melodic
flourishes,that is, are faintlyshadowed with the analyticalwriting that has, in
giving literarymeanings to Wagnerianharmoniesthroughout the Prelude,si-
multaneouslymarked their remove from the robust expressivecontext that
once seemed to infuse them with intimacy.
Implications
Reading in history
At the center of the piece, as in the poem, the conventions of Romantic lyri-
cism seem, briefly,to be recovered,only to be recognized as incurablybroken
into syntacticaland sensuous components. Perhapswe have alwaysknown
that the Preludehovers between nineteenth- and twentieth-centurymodes of

musicalthought. But a precise exposure of howthe equipoise is achieved,on
the model of L'Apres-midid'unfaune, can offer new refinementto the under-
standingof Debussy's poise on the thresholdof modernism. In conclusion, it
is possible to suggest some wider implicationsof Mallarme'slessons for musi-
cal modernityby glancing brieflyinto the historicalcontexts for the syntactical
and sonorous means by which Debussy achieveshis musicalequivalentto the
poetic conflict between speech and writing.
As regardsmusicalsyntax,the Wagnerianreferencesin this tone poem at-
tain greatersymbolic specificitythan the puns on Wagner'stitle that Abbate
has shown in Pelleas.Referencesto leitmotiviclabels,that is, are tracesnot just
of Wagner'sworks, but of a way of understandingthem. The distinction is
crucialfor historicalunderstanding,for leitmotivicanalysiswas a relativelylate
addition to the spectrum of French responsesto Wagner.The Revue wagne-
rienne, for example, initiallyfeatured far more reverentialtestimonials than
carefulanalyses.81During the course of the 1880s and 1890s, the leitmotivic
approachgained ascendancyboth in the Revue and in the wider context of
FrenchWagnerreception.82Debussy'sPrelude,writtenduringthe latterstages
of this analyticalascendancy,was premieredas the firstflood of full-lengthleit-
motivic analyseswas published in France.With the verbal-musicalpuns that
markhis translationof a tension between vocal immediacyand literaryartifice,
Debussy encapsulatesin music the deepest historicalimplicationsof the analyt-
ical method. The Preludemarksa moment in history in which the celebrated
intimacyof Wagner'smusic was being broken, captured,flattened by system-
atic analysis-a moment in which the Wagneriansensorium,so to speak,was
fadingineluctablyinto the scriptorium.
Abbate, who suggests that the harmonic puns in Pelkas "illustratea late
nineteenth-centuryanalysisof one aspect of Wagner'sstyle," actuallyadum-
brates,for that work, the historicalimplicationsI see in the Prelude.83But in
her strongest statements about Debussy's "games" she begs a central ques-
tion. She suggests that once we "clearaway" all "coincidental"Wagnerisms
from the interpretationof Debussy's music we are left with quotationswhose
81. Baudelaire's1861 essayon Tannhauserreappearedin the Revue,for example,along with

latter-dayemulationsby wagneristessuch as Catulle Mendes; Wagner'sown writings appearedin
translation,along with reportsfrom pilgrimsto Bayreuth.
82. See PierreBonnier, "Documents de critiqueexperimentale:Le Motif-organedes maitres-
chanteurs," Revue wagnerienne 1, no. 2 (March 1885); Charles Bonnier and Pierre Bonnier,
"Documents de critiqueexperimentale:Parsifal,"Revuewagnerienne,3, nos. 2, 3, 8-11 (March-
December 1887); Charles Cotard, "Tristanet IseultP:Essai d'analysedu drame et des leitmotifs
(Paris:Fischbacher,1895); MauriceKufferath,Guide thematiqueet analysede "Tristanet Iseult"
(Paris:Fischbacher,1894); Hans von Wolzogen, "Tristanet Iseult":Guidesur la legende,lepoeme
et la musique,trans. CharlesCotard (Paris:Fischbacher,1894); and Albert Lavignac,Le Voyage
artistiquea Bayreuth(Paris:LibrairieCharlesDelagrave,1897).
83. Abbate, "Tristanin the Composition of Pelleas,"141.
"purpose ... may indeed be completely unallied to the exigencies of musical

composition"-in other words, with referenceswhich have "no actualmusical
function or consequence."84But just as Mallarme'spoem does not enact a
conflict between the "poetic" and the "nonpoetic," but rathera historically
determined tension between possibilitiesof poetic expression, it is the very
definitionof the "musical"that is centrallyat stakefor Debussy in the Prelude.
His Wagnerianpuns exemplifya shift in the possibilityof musicalexpression,
by which such esoteric mediations come to be recognized as unavoidablein
the face of a loss of a previousera'sclaimsto immediatecommunication.
A different,relatedresponse to the lessons of Mallarmecan help in the at-
tempt to characterizeprecisely the tone of Debussy's encapsulation,in the
Prelude,of this historicalmoment. An approachingloss of musicalimmediacy
to quasi-literaryreception, had, in fact, been hailed in surprisinglypositive
terms some years earlierin the pages of the Revue wagnerienne.Teodor de
Wyzewa,a friendof Mallarme,wrote in 1886:
Alreadythe timeis approaching
in whichmusicalsoundswillno longerbe able
to produceemotion,if they aredirectlyheard;theirtrue characteras sounds
willpreventthe soul fromconsideringthem as puresignsof emotion.A new
musicwill becomenecessary,written,not played,suggestingemotionwithout
the mediationof heardsounds-suggestingit betterandmoreintimately. The
musicof words,whichis poetry,originallyneededto be spokenin orderto be
moving:todaywe readpoetry:andits sonoritiesproduceemotionin us more
completely,withoutthe mediationof thevoice.85
De Wyzewa'sinvocation of "pure signs of emotion" echoes Mallarme'sown
more succinctstatementsof his vision of modern poetry.Yet before following
de Wyzewaand deciding to hear (and see) in Debussy's Preludea similarlytri-
umphalistenactment of a modernisthistoricalteleology, we should recognize
that this passage,with its patentlyMallarmeaninflection, can be taken to ex-
emplify an all-too-common simplificationof Mallarme'sown stance before
modernity.His essay "Crisede vers," for example, completed about the time
he firstmet with Debussy,containsthis oft-quoted paragraph:
The pureworkimpliesthe elocutionarydisappearance of the poet, who cedes
the initiativeto the words,mobilizedby the shockof theirinequality;theyflare
84. Ibid., 139.

85. "Maisdeja l'heure approcheofules sons musicauxne pourront plus produireI'emotion,
s'ils sont directemententendus; leur caracterepropre de sons empecheral'ame de les considerer
come de purs signes d'emotions. Une musique nouvelle deviendranecessaire,ecrite, non jouee,
sugg6rantl'emotion sans l'intermediairede sons entendus. La suggerantmeilleureet plus intime.
La musique des mots, qui est la poesie, avaitd'abordle besoin pour 6mouvoir,d'etre dite: aujour-
d'hui nous la lisons: et ses sonorites nous procurentplus entierement l'emotion, sans l'interme-
diare de la voix" ("Notes sur la musique wagnerienne et les oeuvres musicales francaisesen
1885-1886," Revue wagnerienne2, no. 6 [July 1886]: 183-93, and 2, no. 8 [September1886]:
259-68,266).
up with reciprocalreflectionslikea virtualtrailof fireon jewels,replacingthe

respirationperceptiblein the ancientlyricbreathor the enthusiastic personal
addressof the phrase.86
Often seen as a celebratory assertion of modernist teleology, this passage
might better be read, afterformal analysisof the faun poem, as exemplaryof
the "ironic slant" that Paul de Man locates in many of Mallarme's more
grandiosecriticalclaims.87The climacticcrux of the poem recovers,brieflybut
precisely,both the "respirationperceptiblein the ancientlyricbreath"and the
"enthusiasticpersonaladdressof the phrase."Although the work might also
show the "ancient lyric breath" evaporating as illusion-or shattering into
"reciprocalreflectionsof words"-the dichotomy, in this poem, is never re-
solved. Whateverhis criticismmight assert,Mallarme'spoetry bringswriterly
"purity"into plangent tension with the promises of communicationand sen-
sualityit displaces.
Such elegiac poise might be seen as one of the deepest lessons Mallarme
took from classicalpastoral.In his important studies of this tradition,literary
critic Paul Alpers suggests that VirgilianEcloguesare not primarilyconcerned
with rustic bliss or utopian landscapes,as has often been assumed, but rather
with the fiction of poetic "singing"itself. Not only does Alpers'sshift of em-
phasis fit well with a formal analysisof Mallarme'sEgloguethat restores the
"lyricvoice" to the center of its formal struggles, but the way in which the
poem poises, unresolved,before the disappearanceof an ideal of lyricismfalls
into line with his cleareststatementabout pastoralform:
"Suspension" is the wordthatbestconveyshow the oppositionsanddisparities
of Virgilianpastoralarerelatedto eachotherandheldin the mind.As opposed
to wordslike"resolve,""reconcile," or "transcend,"
"suspend" impliesno per-
manentlyachievednewrelation.88
No "permanently achieved new relation" between voice and writing is
claimed in the faun Lglogue.And in following Mallarme'smodernist adapta-
tion of Virgilianpastoraland centeringhis musicalEglogueon a musicalequiv-
alent of "lyricvoice" that is as divided as the faun's body, Debussy composed
86. "L'oeuvrepure impliquela disparationelocutoire du poete, qui cede l'initiativeaux mots,

par le heurt de leur inegalite mobilises;ils s'allumentde reflets reciproquescomme une virtuelle
traineede feux sur des pierreries,remplacantla respirationperceptibleen l'ancien souffle lyrique
ou la directionpersonnelleenthousiastede la phrase"(OC, 366).
87. In "Lyricand Modernity,"de Man recognizes a "half-ironic"tone in Mallarm6'srefer-
ences to "Le Livre"as the telosof his literaryproject (p. 180). He suggests elsewhere that the
English literatito whom Mallarmeinitiallyread La Musiqueet les lettres"probablyhad difficulty
understandingthe rhetoricof crisisthat Mallarmewas using, with an ironic slant that would not
have been lost in Paris,but that certainlybaffledhis foreign audience"("Criticismand Crisis,"in
his Blindnessand Insight, 5). It seems to me that his Parisianfollowerswere just as likely as any
foreign audienceto miss this irony.
88. Alpers, Whatis Pastoral?68.
his own elegiac "suspension"on the brink of music's fade into an art form
"written, not played," only expressive,if at all, "without the mediation of
heardsounds."
Hearing in history
It is somewhat more difficultto demonstratethat the Prelude'sorchestration,
in itself, might standwith "suspended"pastoralpoise before a vision of music
"written,not played."On the model of its self-consciouslyintertextualsyntax,
however, it is possible to hear the piece's "sounds"themselvesas poised at a
turning point of an ineluctablehistoricaltrajectory.Characterizingsuch a tra-
jectory in Mallarmeanterms, we might well locate Debussy'spiece againstthe
backgroundof a gradualencroachmentof conventionalwrittendescriptionon
a sonorous traditionthat could once claimimmediacyof expression.
Berlioz's Traitewould stand as both source and center of such a history.89
All of Berlioz's words on sounds, inflected by literatureor not, had a testa-
mentaryimmediacy:he was describing,in the terms of his own culturalinvest-
ments, his hearing of Gluck, Beethoven, and Weber. The first stage of a
progressiveloss of immediacy to intertextualitycould be noted in Gevaert's
extensivequotation of Berlioz in his three treatises(1863, 1885, and 1890)-
a trend that was to continue through the 1892 Traitepratiqued'instrumenta-
tion of Debussy's teacherGuiraud,into the 1904 treatiseof Widor (titled as a
continuation-"suite"-of Berlioz).90The first official history of orchestral
practice, Henri Lavoix's Histoirede l'instrumentationdepuisle seiziemesitcle
jusqu'a nosjours of 1878, might be drawn into the story as another central
symptom of the fade of a testamentarypoetics of sound into the scriptorium
of convention.91The end of the story would be harderto determine. Berlioz
receivesfurtherextensivequotation in the LavignacEncyclopedie of 1913-21;
no doubt later instances abound. But Richard Strauss's 1905 reedition of
Berlioz would seem to mark an important turning point, after which later
89. Besidesthe 1837 Manuel descompositeurs of Fetis, Berlioz's Traiti had at least two signif-
icant precursors:Georges Kastner'sTraitigeneral d'instrumentation(Paris:Prilipp,1837 [suppl.
1844]) and Coursd'instrumentationconsideresousles rapportspoitiqueset philosophiques de I'art
(Paris:Prilipp, 1839 [suppl. 1844]). Kastner'sname recursas a point of referencelate into the
century, but Berlioz's Traiti quicklysupplantedKastner'sas the centralwork on the topic. For
more on the sources for Berlioz's treatise,see Joel-MarieFauquet, "The Grand Traiti d'instru-
mentation,"trans.Peter Bloom, in TheCambridgeCompanionto Berlioz,ed. Bloom (Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress,2000), 164-70.
90. Francois-AugusteGevaert, Traiti general d'instrumentation(Ghent, 1863), Nouveau
Traiti d'instrumentation,and Coursmethodiqued'orchestration (Parisand Brussels:H. Lemoine,
1890); Ernest Guiraud, Traiti pratique d'instrumentation(Paris:A. Durand et fils, 1892); and
Charles-MarieWidor, Techniquede l'orchestre modernefaisant suite au Traiti d'instrumentationet
d'orchestrationde H. Berlioz(Paris:H. Lemoine, 1904).
91. Lavoix'sHistoirede l'instrumentationwas commissioned (through a competition) by the
Academiedes Beaux-arts.
instancescould arguablybe seen as belated.92For by adding copious examples

from Wagner to his edition, Straussdraws the most grandiose and intimate
realizationof Romantic timbralpoetics into the pages of the Berlioz treatise
itself, rounding off a history of hearing and writing (and rewriting)that ex-
tends from Gluck, through Berlioz and Wagner,to Straussand his contempo-
rariesMahlerand Debussy.
The simplestreadingof the Prelude'sposition in such a historycould prob-
ablyconsiderit only in relationshipto the source, Berlioz's Traite.That is, it is
one thing to invoke "reading"in the hearingof wind sound, as Berlioz does,
but it is quite another to read such invocations as shadowedby reading, as
Debussy does in the Prelude.In other words, an immediateset of associations
for the author of the treatise, when drawn into a formed realization of
Mallarme'sconflict between hearing and reading, is exposed as thoroughly
mediatedby culturalliteracy,and thus distanced-like Virgil'spastorals-from
truly lyricalexpression.Debussy's writing for the violins, on the other hand,
might best be understood by supplementing questions of orchestraltheory
with exemplarypractice,and by comparingthe orchestralform of the Prelude
with that of one of the importantpoints of referencein its Wagnerianpuns. In
Wagner'sintroductionto act 3 of Tristan,stringslead through a meandering
horn passageto the famous cor anglaissolo identifiedby Tristanas "Die Alte
Weise":"poetic"pastoralwind writing appearsas a nostalgicislandamidstthe
fundamental string textures of the nineteenth-century orchestra. By giving
primacyto the winds in his pastoral,Debussy reversesthe relationship,such
that the violins, and their lyricism,come to be heardnostalgically,as "Die Alte
Weise."
Beyond simply marking a moment both "after Berlioz" and "after
Wagner,"however, the Preludecould also be said to distillinto music its mo-
ment in the wider history of nineteenth-century instrumental theory.
Debussy'stimbralpoetry,in other words, might marka point on this historical
continuum somewhat like that exemplifiedin words by Gevaert.Whether or
not Debussy actuallyread Gevaertas one direct source of inspiration,his col-
laboration with Mallarme would have attuned him to the wider issue: the
progressive capture of expression by writing, through the accumulation of
intertextuallayersof tradition.And Mallarmeoccasionally,in his invocations
of musicaltimbre, hinted that he was sensitiveto an encroachmentof writing
on orchestralexpressionin particular.The 1886 sonnet "Hommage a Richard
Wagner,"for example,ends with these lines:
Du souriantfracasoriginelhai
Entreellesde clartesmaitresses
a jailli
Jusqueversun parvisne pourleursimulacre
92. Hector Berlioz, Instrumentationslehre,

rev. and trans. RichardStrauss,2 vols. (Leipzig:
C. F. Peters, 1905).
Trompettes tout haut d'or pame sur les velins,

Le dieu RichardWagnerirradiantun sacre
Mal tu par l'encre meme en sanglots sibyllins.
(From the smiling originaryfracashated / Amongst themselves by masterful

claritieshas sprung / To a parvis born for their simulacrum// Trumpets on
high of gold faded on vellum / the God RichardWagner irradiatinga rite /
Badlysilenced by ink itself in sibyllinesobs.)
Mallarme's arcane imagery of a "rite badly silenced by ink itself" is dominated
by a reference to instrumentation, "trumpets faded on vellum [pages]."
Various interpretations have been proposed for these obscure lines. I read them
as an apt epigraph-or epitaph-for the Prelude, which, in punning on musical
syntax apres Wagner, similarly holds up the promises of nineteenth-century or-
chestrationasfaded into the pages of convention-"silenced by ink itself."
Rehearing Debussy's modernism

To arrive,with Mallarme,on pastoralelegy (and on "sibyllinesobs") is to stray
widely from the usual celebrationsof the Prelude'sinitiatorymodernity-and
even, perhaps,to approachthe criticalterrainof Adorno, whose own musings
in his essay "Classicism,Romanticism,New Music" push even furtherin this
melancholydirection:
If in the courseof history[music]hascometo resemblethe otherartsin many
respects,thisprocess-whichis a processof beingpermeatedwithlanguage-
has left it scarred.The unconscioussufferingresultingfromthose scarsis not
the leastof the reasonsfor the rebellionagainstthislinguisticaffinitythathas
been detectableever since the emergence of the new music.93
By locating the source of "unconscioussuffering"in the resemblancebetween

music and other arts,Adorno might suggest a reflexiveturn in my historical
argument:if the Preludeis "scarred,"that is, this may be not only because of
the games in its syntax or the faded intertextualityin its timbralpoetry, but
also-before or beneath these-because it is thoroughly "permeated"with
Mallarme'slanguage in the firstplace. Still, Adorno's morbid language seems
to raise again, even more insistently than my own faintly mournful tones,
Daverio'squestion as to "whatwe actuallyhear."Can such pathos truly be lo-
cated in a piece whose free "flight"and youthful "breath"were celebratedby
Boulez as the "awakeningto modern music"?The question encapsulatesthe
challenge of understandingthe Prelude's"modem" means of expression.For
if we could hear the accents of mourning in the music, that would imply that
Debussy had reactivatedthe rhetoricof pathos of the expressiveworld he is on
the point of relinquishing.But elegy, in the Prelude,as in Mallarme's Pglogue,
93. TheodorW.Adorno,"Classicism, NewMusic,"in hisSoundFigures,

Romanticism, trans.
Rodney Livingstone(Stanford:StanfordUniversityPress, 1999), 108-9.
does not reside primarilyin expressiverhetoric, but ratherin the forms given
to artisticmaterial.The point callsfor one last look at poetry and music.
Debussy claimedto have "prolonged"Mallarme'slastline: "Couple, adieu;
je vais voir l'ombre que tu devins." Mallarme draws all of the poem's key
terms into suspendedopposition in a line whose full messageof farewellis car-
ried by the formalweb. "Couple"is given the singularpronoun "tu," echoing
the slippagebetween pluraland singularaddressthat undercut the centralut-
terance. "Je"opposes "tu" one last time. "Vaisvoir" ("will see") doubly op-
poses "devins" ("became"): seeing opposes being; the spoken future tense
opposes the (written) past historic. The "shadow"of evening hovers amidst
the terms like the shadowy present between past and future, and the shadow
between "je"and "tu"that lyricaddressseeks,vainly,to overleap.The valedic-
tion, "adieu,"similarlysuspendedwithin the formalweb, speaksto the world
once more, only to relinquishit. In Debussy's reading (Ex. 9), the last rise of
octave-doubledviolins is answeredby the low harpsin mirrormotion center-
ing on the destabilizedtonic, E. A last variantof the leading motif brings a
faintmemory of sensuousviolin sound together with the chastehorns. Finally,
the flute's falling fourth combines with the rising tritone of the violin in a
revoicing of the "Desire"chord that collapses,without a dominant, onto the
"tonic" third E-G#. Dimly lit by harp harmonics like the star ("astre") in
Mallarme'spenultimateline, Debussy'sending relinquishesa set of poetic and
expressivepromises in melody, timbre, and harmony.In the future that both
he and Mallarme"willsee," the conventionalsyntaxof Romantic expression,
shattered by analysis,will have to be acknowledged as arbitrary;the timbral
materialsof speech and of the orchestrawill retain nothing of their previous
promiseof presence.
Of course, the important question about such modernist enactments is
never whether they are true in any absolute sense: while it is easy to think
ahead, on the one hand, to music of much more occult esotericism,and on
the other, to far more resolute manipulationsof sound as brute material,the
conventions of Romantic expressionwould remain availableto anyone who
rejectedthe inevitabilityof the loss staged by Debussy d'apresMallarme.But
perhapsto considerthe Preludeprimarilywithin a historyof composition in this
way is to misconstrue its articulationof a moment on the of
cusp modernism.
That is, we might take the fact that the sonorous poetry of Debussy'sreading
went unrecognized for so long as poignant evidence that the anticipateden-
trapmentof music by readerlyesotericismdid, in fact, come to pass. Within
the systematic,pitch-focusedmethodologies that predominatedfor much of a
century,the pastoralpoise of the Prelude'spoetic materialscould never be per-
ceived, becauseanalysishad alwaysbegunby flatteningmusic into unevocative
"writing."In this sense, a hearing and a reading of the Prelude'sreading of
L'Apres-midi d'un faune can significantly deepen our understanding of
twentieth-centurymodernistmusicalcultureas a cultureapresDebussy.
Example 9 The last line ofL'Apres-midid'unfaune, line 110, and its orchestral"prolongation"
in the Prelude,mm. 105-10
Couple,adieu;je vaisvoirl'ombrequetu devins.

FL. Tr*s retenu Tres lent et tres retenu jusqu' a la fin
HAUTB. P '
14 (sourdines) -
20
' 1
^n^2 ^
I~et 2e
lre 2r HARPES
HArESP P 4
4u 4
9
(^g - V- w]I -
DEUX1Tr retenu ' Trs lent et tres retenu jusqu' a la fin
P- -__P-
Ct
oP- ppp
1 VlleSOLO
2 2 PW,
P --== ppp
Example 9 continued
-^wK
p rV
- r r =-
pp __ qq|
FP.
I
2'3-
3:
.- _ -
I.^A_
CORS
pp p
CYMB.ANT.
k 7; i0St sr S ?
~jp:#### 0
IreHARPE pp
--_
19?h
IK### - - _
Div.
I ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
k--PM ~
If~~~~iz~~~~~~
, ###$7
,1 S9 Pizz-
* * ppp
"T chords":
"Le Desir" voicing
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Abstract
Debussy's Preludea lFapres-midi d'unfaune has so far been thought to relate

only obliquely to Mallarme'spoem L'Apr?s-midid'un faune. The actual so-
phisticationof Debussy's reading of Mallarmebecomes apparentthrough a
newly precise formal analysisof the poem, and a new analyticalemphasison
the orchestrationof the prelude. In adaptingthe conventions of classicalpas-
toral, notably the quasi-dramatictextualpresentationof both Virgil'sEclogues
and Theocritus'sIdylls,Mallarmefocuses his text on an irresolvablemoment
of conflict between sensuousspeech and literarywriting.The faun, the poem's
main "character,"comes to symbolizethe reader'sdividedexperienceof a text
composed on the cusp of a loss of Romanticlyricismto modernistimpersonal-
ity. In Debussy'sreading,a recurringcontrastbetween stringsand winds audi-
bly tracksMallarme'spoetic templateand also, more subtly,signalsan esoteric
layerof puns on Wagnerianleitmotifsin its syntax.A divisionbetween hearing
and analyticalreading is created, which encapsulatesa historicalmoment in
which the Romanticorchestralpoetics exemplifiedin Berlioz'sinfluentialtrea-
tise is losing its immediacy,and the Romantic harmony that attained an ex-
pressive limit in Wagner's music dramas is being broken up by systematic
analysis.

David Code - Hearing Debussy Reading Mallarmé Music Après Wagner in The Prélude À L'après-Midi

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David Code - Hearing Debussy Reading Mallarmé Music Après Wagner in The Prélude À L'après-Midi

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American Musicological Society

This artide originatedas a paperpresented to the Sixty-fourthAnnual Meeting of the American

no interestin arguing,foolishly,that all previouswriters,in missing some cen-

1. WilliamAustin, ed., ClaudeDebussy:Preludeto "TheAfternoonof a Faun,"Norton Critical

maticalclosure) undermines even the loose formal parallelshe suggests. But

efforts promisesmore precisehistoricalunderstandingthan to celebrateagain

8. "MythToday,"in Barthes's (1957), ed. andtrans.AnnetteLavers(NewYork:

tion of all of these. Needless to say,such an approachhas occasionallyproven

Setting the Scenes

Speaking and reading Mallarme

at the Theatrede l'Odeon in 1863.13In adaptingsome detailsfrom Banville's

a slanted account of the long travail de mallarmeisationundergone by this

brated as the wellspringof the Westernpastoraltradition.23Classicalpastoral

remainspossible to be more precise about the role assigned to music in the

In a third "musical"dimension of his text, Mallarmesignificantlyreinforces

Its gatheringof virtualbifolios centerson the faun'sstrongestburstof lyricut-

31. OC, 1463.

he repeatedlyexpressedhis own ambivalenceabout the Wagnerian"wedding"

Poemes,to have achieved something like a successfulexorcism. In 1887, he

Debussy and Wagner

Wagnerianin spirit."Thus, he finds the piece "closerto the nineteenth cen-

sides of this methodologicalsplit areequallycrucialto interpretationis to open

Rereading Debussy's "denial"

46. In consideringDebussy'sscoring as one determinantof his pointed referencesto Wagner,

Debussy'sclaimthat his piece gives only a "generalimpression"of the poem is

drama-repeatedly revolve around invocationsof orchestraltimbre.49One of

Example 1 Mallarme's"literaryfugue": LApres-midid'unfaune, lines 8-51 (S = subject,A =

ou si les femmes dont tu gloses

23 O bords siciliensd'un calme marecage SHORES

Closer reading clarifiesthe formalprecisionof the "fugue."The "subject"

attainmentof spoken "music," for the faun's words actually materializethe

Sicilian muse, the faun can only-in his "vanity"-claim to be ransacking

also recallsthe chastityof that prior illusion. The adjective"animale,"on the

ejaculation-"Mais bast!"-in the same formalposition as the denial-"Que

Debussy's reading of the "literary fugue"

guides the leitmotif containing the original "Tristanchord" was designated

Example 2 Debussy's orchestralreading of the thematic contrastin Mallarme'sfugue subject:

3(1) (winds) (strings)

COR ANGL. -- fcE f

p crescendo f dim. et retenu

brise du jour chaude

.:^####j. aJ. ^ #cresc.7psition."' J~

E#[F]-B-D#-G#. Such a direct referenceis appropriatefor the first physical

Example 3 Debussy'sorchestralreadingof Mallarme,from just before the diminution through

O bords siciliens... CONTEZ

CL. doux et expressif

.. .sous les fleurs d'etincelles,

HAUTB. une blancheur ----------------- ------------------s-

CORS cresc. ----

qui cherchele la Droit et seul,

HAUTB. Mais bast!

CORS S-:. f (en dehors) dim.

One hears,evenwith a somewhatdebasedear,how well this dialectedorien,

beforethe thirdcontrast,the principalflute,in dialoguewithallof the winds,

68. "Le hautbois est avant tout un instrumentmelodique;il a un caractereagreste, plein de

the faun'slonely wish to "awakento his firstfervorbeneath an antiquewave of

rich a hearing of the Prelude.For example, in varioustreatisespublished be-

The linguistic crux: reading as the faun

75. Berliozwritesof "lavoix chaste et reserveedes cors" (ibid., 184).

Example 5 Schematicdiagramof the "foliated"form of L'Apres-midid'unfaune, emphasizing

r: Lines 1-7: 7-line introduction

Mallarmepresents a unified arrayof sections whose one-to-one proportional

Example 6 L'Apres-midid'unfaune, lines 75-81: the pivotalpassagein the "virtualfoliation"