Listening to Performers’ Writings and Recordings: An Analysis of Debussy’s “Colloque sentimental”

[1] This essay is based on a simple premise: performers' written commentaries on music, in conjunction with their recorded interpretations, have much to contribute to an analysis of significant elements of musical structure. My analysis focuses on the song "Colloque sentimental" by Claude Debussy, published in 1904 as the third and final song of his second series of Fetes galantes, set to the poetry of Paul Verlaine. The choice of "Colloque sentimental" and the interpretations selected for analysis are motivated largely by the existence of a corpus of French art songs for which performers have written about interpretation as well as documented through recordings. I contend that it is the rich potential of cross-comparison between written commentary and recorded interpretation that speaks to the analysis of musical structure.[2] Within the field of performance studies, there has been little investigation of what performers of art song say and do. This is somewhat surprising given the vast and continually expanding body of scholarship analyzing recorded performance, including historic interpretations of Debussy's melodies.[3] Nonetheless, a small but important body of research has dealt with performers' verbal and/or written discourse in relation to their recordings with some degree of music analysis.(1) For example, Mine Dogantan-Dack 2008 and Nicholas Cook 2013 have argued that performers' discourse is a crucial feature of their process of interpretation, with the potential to express their own conceptual understanding of a particular work, or to inform a prospective (non-performing) analyst. Dogantan-Dack's stated goal is to expand the whole notion of analysis to include how performers think, what they say, and how they say it, i.e., to validate a performer's analysis as analysis:To challenge the disciplinary status quo, which is deeply rooted in this tradition giving priority to discursive knowledge [produced by theorists and musicologists], and to reclaim for performance studies the long-neglected epistemological primacy of the act of music making[,] require using the tools of that very tradition, namely arguing and convincing. . . . Performers can take it as an opportunity to set aside their notorious image as inarticulate musicians, and fill in the epistemological gap in performance studies by articulating their perspective on matters of performance through a performer's discourse [author's emphasis]. (Dogantan-Dack 2008, 302)Her work effectively advocates for the intellectual and scholarly validity of performers' discourse, especially given their under-representation in academic journals and research venues. At the same time, her comments to some degree undervalue the potential contribution of ongoing work in performance and analysis that productively negotiates the performance/analysis divide.(2) For instance, emphasizing the potential for shared disciplinary space rather than difference, pianist and theorist Benjamin Binder writes that "despite their divergent languages [especially the off-putting scientific aura often emanating from academic analysis], performers and analysts are both engaged in the act of interpretation, which means they are standing on more epistemological common ground than they might realize as they go about their business" (Binder 2016, [8]). By reaching across discursive norms within their respective fields, academics and performers will more likely discover such common ground.[4] Nicholas Cook has been one of the central figures in performance studies for several decades. In his recent book Beyond the Score, he takes up the topic of performers' discourse (2013, 43-49). Citing a broad range of work including performer memoirs, psychological/practice-based research on musical memory, philosophy, and performance and analysis, he provides compelling evidence of the crucial role that performers' discourse plays in the formulation of analytical contexts. …