Debussy’s Old Hindu Chant (La Boîte à joujoux): Exotic Humorous Fakery and Rejuvenation of Music

Abstract

Debussy’s ballet for children La Boîte à joujoux (1913) contains a fake “Old Hindu chant”. But the comic fakery seems to provide the key to understanding the deep meaning of the ballet, in which Debussy strives to rejuvenate and revitalize Western music by referring to the so-called spontaneity of both childhood and foreign traditions, for the sake of recovered authenticity.