Abstract
Did Debussy employ an esoteric musical language, as his 3 September 1893 letter to Chausson (published in Claude Debussy Lettres, edited by Francois Lesure, Paris: Hermann, 1980, p. 51) suggests? A set of intervallic transformations that may be said to reflect such a language can be shown to exist in several works spanning the composer's mature career. An analysis of an early song, Le Balcon (1888), and the second prelude of Book I, Voiles (1910), one of the most discussed of Debussy's works, reveals a system of intervallic transformations that functions as a substitute for traditional voiceleading. Although the same system of transformations is found in works written at the beginning and end of Debussy's career, respectively, I make no claim to have uncovered Debussy's compositional system; there is no basis to suggest he employed one single system in any case. However, the results presented here may shed new light on the compositions discussed and contribute to the line of investigation opened by Roy Howat. 1
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