Thinking in sound

Debussy’s music is discussed in terms of its logic of sensation (Deleuze) and the ways of being it affords, rather than for any discursive logic of propositions. Composers think in and through sounds; they do not transpose other things into sound. Saariaho’s ‘grammar of dreams’ signals a concern with a different kind of musical logic – what Adorno called a ‘musique informelle’. ‘Jeux de vagues’, the central movement of Debussy’s La mer, provides a key focus, though music by Dutilleux and Saariaho is also explored to demonstrate the allusive logic of this musical repertoire. The chapter examines how this music constitutes ‘a new epistemology’ (Dufourt), an embodied knowing of the world inscribed in the details of musical works.