Towards an Intermedial Poetics of Song: Studies in Twentieth-Century French Mélodie

Abstract

In this dissertation, I propose an analytical approach to art song grounded in the broad concept of intermediality. The term of intermediality denotes relationships between different expressive artistic media, encompassing both intermedial relationships between works in different media and intermedial objects (which fuse multiple component media parts into a new, inseparable whole with particular properties of its own). My intermedial outlook onto song is inspired by three French composers of mélodies working in Paris around the turn of the twentieth century––Francis Poulenc (1899–1963), Erik Satie (1866–1925), and Mel Bonis (1858–1937)––whose works, I argue, reveal various possible forms of intermediality that song can embody. In addition to the most obvious combination in these songs––that of poetry and music––I also examine how the different composers and works musically incorporate the influences of media and expressive genres including visual art, typography, performance, personal philosophy, and religious practice in order to subtly critique and experiment with song’s possibilities. Likewise, I consider how effects that emerge from the situation of song’s word-music fusion should not be taken for granted. All the while, I propose novel contributions to music theory’s toolkit for the analysis of song, responding to existing methodological debates while expanding beyond traditional Germanic repertories for the study of art song. Drawing on analytical, historical, archival, and theoretical perspectives, my dissertation’s chapters engage with how the three composers Poulenc, Satie, and Bonis each wrote mélodies embodying distinct intermedial situations. Chapter 1 focuses on Poulenc and what I term his “inter-art mélodies,” songs based on poetry with clear visual-art inspiration; examining the song cycles Le travail du peintre (with poetry by Paul Éluard) and Calligrammes (with poetry by Guillaume Apollinaire) alongside Poulenc’s own comments on mélodie writing, poetry, and visual art leads to a novel conception of Poulenc as an intermedial musical reader, with broader consequence for our understanding of both Poulenc and musical inter-art relations. In Chapter 2, I turn to a theoretical and methodological intervention, drawing on issues raised by Poulenc’s example, defining relevant terms and contexts, and responding to existing issues in the academic study of song. Chapter 3 then turns to Satie and his 1914 song cycle Trois poèmes d’amour, arguing that Satie’s humorous techniques in this work emphasize song’s status as an intermedial object, and considering the unusual visual notations in his sketches and drafts as part of the cycle’s intermedial network; these lines of inquiry likewise inspire a theorization of how the intermedial situation of song makes Satie’s humor in the Trois poèmes possible. Chapter 4, finally, analyzes compositional techniques in Bonis’ songs alongside her philosophical writings on aesthetics, morality, and faith. Focusing on religious-themed mélodies by Bonis in relation to both her writings and her life story leads to an expansive vision of songs’ intermedial network, in her case including relations among music, poetry, personal philosophy, and religious experience; this analysis also inspires further reflections on the issue of musical persona and personhood.