Temporal Disruptions in Debussy's and Ravel's Programmatic Sonatas

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article develops analytical tools which illustrate temporal disruptions in the programmatic works for Debussy and Ravel and reshape traditional modes of sonata analysis. In Debussy, a new analytical paradigm, one that invokes his affinity for filmic techniques, is the aborted rondo‐sonata, which employs a post‐expositional breakthrough following an expositional disruption: a rondo form retrospectively morphs into a sonata following the breakthrough. For Ravel, the key analytical tool is what I call resetting of the formal compass (RFC): virtuosic passages, analogous to a formal Etch‐A‐Sketch as a reaction to the music having become ‘lost’ or ‘confused’, that restore formal consciousness. Previous scholarship on Ravel suggests the presence of arch form; the current theory permits an interpretation consistent with a linear, forward‐vectored thematic trajectory. Each of these concepts is based on sonata form's rotational structure, in which temporal fissures disrupt the order of thematic modules either by binding two non‐continuous thematic events or by neutralising formal function to resume thematic progress. When the analyses in are considered in tandem, they can help to build a unifying theory of fin‐de‐siècle French sonata forms.