Taking place

Abstract

Music ‘after Debussy’ does not present musical arguments or narratives, but rather ‘takes place’ and is thus experienced more like landscape, or the painting of landscape, than literature. It is concerned neither with representation nor communication. A central concern with the sea, from Debussy’s La mer (1905) through to Murail’s Le partage des eaux (1996) and Saariaho’s L’amour de loin (2001) denotes a concern with allowing music to be endlessly mobile in its play of forms and colours, but non-discursive. This requires a different kind of listening which relates to a different kind of consciousness of the sonic environment. The closed space of the garden is explored in Fauré’s song cycle Le jardin clos (1914). Debussy’s La mer forms a principal focus for exploring an immersive play of forms that work outside the linearity of tonal practice.