NIETZSCHE, DEBUSSY, AND THE SHADOW OF WAGNER A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Tekla B. Babyak May 2014 ©2014 Tekla B. Babyak ii ABSTRACT NIETZSCHE, DEBUSSY, AND THE SHADOW OF WAGNER Tekla B. Babyak, Ph.D. Cornell University 2014 Debussy was an ardent nationalist who sought to purge all German (especially Wagnerian) stylistic features from his music. He claimed that he wanted his music to express his French identity. Much of his music, however, is saturated with markers of exoticism. My dissertation explores the relationship between his interest in musical exoticism and his anti-Wagnerian nationalism. I argue that he used exotic markers as a nationalistic reaction against Wagner. He perceived these markers as symbols of French identity. By the time that he started writing exotic music, in the 1890’s, exoticism was a deeply entrenched tradition in French musical culture. Many 19th-century French composers, including Felicien David, Bizet, Massenet, and Saint-Saëns, founded this tradition of musical exoticism and established a lexicon of exotic markers, such as modality, static harmonies, descending chromatic lines and pentatonicism. Through incorporating these markers into his musical style, Debussy gives his music a French nationalistic stamp. I argue that the German philosopher Nietzsche shaped Debussy’s nationalistic attitude toward musical exoticism. In 1888, Nietzsche asserted that Bizet’s musical exoticism was an effective antidote to Wagner. Nietzsche wrote that music should be “Mediterranized,” a dictum that became extremely famous in fin-de-siècle France. Nietzsche’s influence on fin-de-siecle musical culture has not been examined in current secondary literature on French music. In my dissertation, I show that Nietzsche’s dictum was widely discussed in the French press between 1893 and 1920. In periodicals from that time period, music critics such as Louis Laloy and Lionel de la Lawrencie contend that many French composers are following Nietzsche’s dictum by writing exotic music. I aim to show that Debussy was one of the composers who followed this dictum. Influenced by Nietzsche’s anti-Wagnerian view of exoticism, Debussy employed exotic markers as a nationalistic strategy of resistance against Wagner. In making this argument, my dissertation brings together three strands of Debussy’s musical thought: nationalism, exoticism and anti-Wagnerism. Each of these strands has received previous scholarly attention, but scholars have not examined the links between them. My project demonstrates that Nietzsche gave Debussy the tools to combine these three strands in his compositions. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Tekla Babyak was born in Arcata, CA in 1981. She received generous funding for her undergraduate studies at UC Davis (BA, Music, 2003) from the National Merit Scholarship Program and a UC Regents scholarship, and was awarded the UCD Mayhew award at her commencement in 2003. Her graduate work at Cornell was funded by the Mellon Foundation fellowship, the Jacob K. Javits fellowship and the Cornell Sage fellowship. Her research interests include nationalism and exoticism in fin-de-siècle French musical culture and the French reception of Wagner. She is also interested in representations of music in literature and philosophy, particularly the works of Adorno, Nietzsche, and Kundera. In addition to her scholarly work on music, she is an accomplished pianist who has performed many of Debussy’s works in concert. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am extremely grateful to my committee. My three committee members have shaped my intellectual life throughout the course of this project. Judith Peraino, the chair of my committee, has helped me enormously with the craft of writing. She has shown me how to unify and structure a large-scale argument. She has taught me techniques for developing my main points and building toward a convincing conclusion. She expertly guided me through the process of unfolding my argument, advising me to introduce my main points through a series of questions. Influenced by her useful suggestions, I structured my introduction around one of Debussy’s works, Soirée dans Grenade, which I use as a vehicle for presenting my main points. Annette Richards has given me an invaluable gift as well: she has taught me how to bring the past to life in all its glorious complexity. She has urged me to avoid sweeping generalizations about historical trends, such as Nietzsche’s influence on French culture and the anti-Wagnerian movement in France. She has shown me the importance of engaging with all the nuances and contradictory strands inherent in each historical moment. Under her guidance, I have learned to listen to what the archives are telling me. Following her advice, I did extensive archival research, focusing on fin-de-siècle French periodicals. By opening my ears to the voices that iv speak through these periodicals, I discovered Nietzsche’s profound influence upon French musical culture. While Annette was teaching me how to listen meaningfully to the “archival voices,” David Rosen was teaching me how to listen meaningfully to the music itself. He has generously shared with me his expertise as a music theorist and analyst. Thanks to his help, I developed the necessary skills to analyze and codify the French musical vocabulary of exoticism. He has invested a great deal of time and energy in working through my analyses with me. For instance, he helped me to distinguish between structurally significant harmonies and decorative passing chords. He has taken the time to study all the musical works that I discuss and to develop his own insights into these works. I have benefited immeasurably from his insights, because he has modeled for me the process of analyzing a work and observing its significant features. In addition to helping me with my academic work, my committee members have also offered me something equally important: friendship and support. I would like to thank them for giving me the opportunity to get to know each of them so well. I am grateful that they have let me into their lives in this way. I have many happy memories of meeting with Judith at local cafes and restaurants, discussing an array of topics, including the job market, pedagogical strategies for teaching undergraduate classes, and important issues in critical theory (we share an interest in interdisciplinary work). I will always treasure my memories of having dinner with Annette and her husband David Yearsley. The convivial atmosphere and stimulating conversation v helped energize me for my dissertation work. Our conversations were wide- ranging; Annette and David shared witty anecdotes from their own graduate school days, we discussed our interests and collections, and we had intense discussions about philosophy. I was extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to TA for Annette in two music history courses. She was an incredibly helpful and supportive mentor. She gave me a thorough foundation in many important components of undergraduate teaching: writing lesson plans, leading class discussion, grading papers, designing assignments, and delivering clear, focused lectures. She shared with me her expert techniques for performing these duties, and she walked me through the steps for carrying out these duties myself. Her generous feedback helped me grasp the key points, as well as many subtle details, of undergraduate pedagogy. I am also extremely grateful for my wonderful friendship with David Rosen. He and I took many walks around Ithaca, when the temperamental weather conditions allowed us to do so. Exploring the majestic Ithaca gorges, he and I debated about topics in music theory and musicology. It was like a scene from a 19th-century nature poem: we soaked in the beautiful countryside scenery as we pondered intellectual matters. David and I also met frequently for coffee on days when the snow and ice prevented us from hiking. We even traveled to conferences together on two occasions (chapter meetings of the AMS), during which we both presented papers. His friendship, kindness and humor strongly enhanced the conference experience for me. vi While at Cornell, I took graduate seminars on a wide variety of topics, in many different departments. Many of these seminars informed my dissertation, with respect to my metholodogy and ideas. I greatly benefited from Geoffrey Waite’s seminar on Nietzsche. His insights into Nietzsche’s thought allowed me to grasp more fully Nietzsche’s anti-Wagnerian musical aesthetics. Michael Steinberg’s opera seminar was another formative influence; in that course, we studied Wagner’s opera Parsifal, Debussy’s opera Pelleas et Melisande, and Nietzsche’s Case of Wagner, as well as many other operas and texts. I had the opportunity to give a seminar presentation on some of my ideas about Nietzsche and this helped me think through the relationships between Debussy, Nietzsche, and Wagner. With regard to my music analysis skills, I am grateful for my work with Kristin Taavola, James Webster, and David Rosen. I took a seminar with Kristin Taavola on French music, in which we examined some of the distinctive features of early 20th-century French works. Our work in this seminar helped me to develop a toolkit of French musical features, which ultimately led to my understanding of the French exotic lexicon. I did an independent study project with James Webster, focusing on Bach’s harmonization of modal chorale melodies. Although Debussy and Bach have a very different approach to modality, the project nonetheless informed my work on Debussy, sharpening my understanding of how composers incorporate modality into a tonal framework. I am extremely grateful to David Rosen for his seminars on the operas of Puccini and Britten. In those seminars, I acquired tools for analyzing the relationship between music and text in opera. Those tools have proven very useful in my analyses of French exotic opera.