A network of meaning(s)

The reference to the Debussyan premise ‘chercher autour de soi’ is of course entirely commensurate to the homage character of Paul Dukas’s piece. A rich network of intertextual correspondences can be taken as a basic semantic background against which an interpretation of Dukas’s tribute to his fellow composer may begin to emerge. As Emile Vuillermoz noted, one feels that the vanishing arabesque at the end of Dukas’s La Plainte adds a whole new layer of meaning—and an infinitely sad one—to Stephane Mallarme’s concluding line: ‘Adieu; je vais voir l’ombre que tu devins’. Vuillermoz, for his part, claimed that Dukas had shown ‘the most tenderly respectful intention of the collection’. Obviously, mockery has no place in La Plainte, although, Dukas’s evocation of Tombeau de Claude Debussy suggests an ambiguous element of catharsis in excess of its function as an admiring reference.