ABSTRACT
While the vast array of expressive means in Le Grand Macabre might infer a collage-like strategy for the composition of the music for the opera, a closer look at the musical sketches reveals a different approach, one that provides the foundation for the contours of the narrative structure and the correlations between contrasting musical expressions. Far from resembling any superficial heterogeneous juxta position of closed episodes, this chapter argues that the diversified form amounts to far more than the sum of its constituent episodes. Moreover, this is reflected in the manner by which the sketches were drafted.
