Over the last two years of the lecture, I've spent a great deal of time on the problem of theme and thematics, on the relationship of theme to style, form and the needs of development. In the course of history, and following the evolution of language, the notion of theme has gradually crystallized into, on the one hand, the cliché commonly used in the world of theater or cinema, and, on the other, an abstract notion that has invaded all stages of language, down to the most elementary - so much so that at one point we often spoke of athematism when we meant practically the opposite, everything having become theme.
If we go further into the relationship between the thematic entity and that which serves as a support for its birth, development and irrigation of the compositional field, we are inevitably led to consider the complex relationship between every musical idea and its system of origin. All musical language is based on the interweaving of different systems: systems of pitch (scales/modes/scales), duration (values, meters), timbre (orchestra, synthesized sounds), etc.; systems that are more or less strict (pitch, duration), more or less loose (timbre), inherited or invented; systems that condition - even unconsciously - any emergence of ideas, even when these may take on the appearance of the most direct spontaneity.
In fact, an essential problem for composers - whether they realize this or deny it by advocating the immediacy of inspiration - lies precisely in the mechanism that links idea and system. If the system is totally absorbed, considered as natural and inescapable - which implies conditioning and passivity - the idea will appear spontaneous; in reality, it will be subject to all the constraints it has learned, and will run the risk of not only lacking originality, but also being circumscribed by limits too precise not to lead to sterility. Whether the system is in the process of searching for itself, of defining itself, the idea will run the risk of being no more than a demonstration without consistency and reality, without incorporation, without incarnation; logic prevails: it is not only spontaneity that risks suffering, but the very vital force of invention, subjected to excessively conscious constraints.
The process of elaboration lies between the system and the idea , so we need to reflect on what it represents, assess the distance between the system and the elaborated idea, and ask ourselves the highly ambiguous question: should we, can we, recognize the system through the idea? Can and should the idea conceal the system?Twentieth-century developments in music have strongly emphasized - to the breaking point - this interplay between system and idea, an uncertain relationship whose poles are dogmatism and laissez-faire. This is a debate that recurs regularly, and more conspicuously, since the tonal system disappeared as a unifying principle for diverse techniques and aesthetics. Even crumbling under the weight of additions and exceptions, this system - with its modal variants - led to a certain consensus on the vocabulary elements available to the composer. As this system has been either rejected, restored, butchered or even cannibalized, there has been a tendency for each composer to become autonomous, inventing or believing in inventing his or her own system; each invents it for his or her own personal needs, while at the same time, in a paradoxical contradiction, claiming it to be universal. We have seen a number of such systems set out in theoretical articles, which are little more than individual working methods, sometimes quite temporary. Seen from a distance and a little quickly, it's almost always a matter of recovering something: integrating tonality into the purely chromatic universe; creating privileged harmonic fields, i.e. returning to functions of the kind that organized the tonal universe, etc. Systems have endeavored to define, above all, the universe of pitches; sometimes acoustic considerations have been added to give, as Rameau did, both physical and natural justification to his discourse - inharmonic sounds have been added to keep in step with more recent usage, as has the analysis of spectra. All this results in works of art, to be sure; but the systems remain quite precarious. And we notice that, beyond a limited encounter in time, the system in question fails to nurture invention, which exhausts itself in a circle of over-restricted possibilities.
As a result, there is a high level of consumption of systems which, I repeat, are above all working methods where the general functions are limited, because they are designed for specific purposes. Isn't this already the case with the whole-tone scale, which Debussy used as an increasingly exceptional variant, and which remains very attached to its own vocabulary?
In considering the relationship between the system and the idea, we are entering an extremely difficult terrain, marked by every possible ambiguity, where the composer's intentions, his personality and the changing relationship between his invention and his language are inextricably intertwined. Everything has become relative in this universe: in the endless debate that pits dogmatists against spontaneists, partisans of reflection that organizes everything or inspiration that upsets everything, I can only see a poorly posed problem, leading to lame and inadequate answers. My aim this year is therefore to examine the uncertainties that link the system and the idea.
P. B.