In 1879, French amateur composer Edmond de Polignac (1834-1901) painstakingly devised a new way to create melodies and harmonies using a scale that alternated half and whole steps. This scale-known today as octatonic-was an important element in the music of Liszt and Rimsky-Korsakov, and would later figure prominently in the works of Ravel, Stravinsky, and many others. Sylvia Kahan, author of Music's Modern Muse: A Life of Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac, here publishes the Prince's octatonic treatise for the first time-in both the original French and in English translation-and comments extensively on what the treatise, and the Prince's little-known compositions, reveal about musical thought in late nineteenth-century Paris.
Given his aristocratic lineage, Polignac might seem an unlikely precursor of musical modernism, yet he was known as an advocate of "advanced ideas." Late in life, he married wealthy heiress Winnaretta Singer, who sponsored prestigious public concerts of her husband's bold works, interpreted by the greatest musical artists in Paris. Debussy and Fauré were admirers of Polignac's music, especially the 1879 octatonic oratorio Pilate livre le Christ (Pontius Pilate Hands Christ Over). Marcel Proust lauded his compositions and the "essence of genius of their author."
In Search of New Scales is based on bibliographic material in private archives, as well as letters and other documents in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Sylvia Kahan's new book will become a permanent point of reference for all future studies of post-Romantic and twentieth-century composition.
Sylvia Kahan is professor of music at the Graduate Center and College of Staten Island, City University of New York. Her previous book, Music's Modern Muse, is published by the University of Rochester Press in hardcover and paperback.
Reviews
[Polignac's] life and octa-tonic explorations might serve as exemplars for an examination of music in Second-Empire France and the place that interest in new and "alternative" scales occupied in that particular cultural moment. . . . Kahan's book will become a permanent point of reference for future studies of post-Romantic and twentieth-century composition. --SIR READALOT.ORG [See the complete review at http://sirreadalot.org/#kahan]Kahan has discovered a remarkable missing link between the intervallic and scalar experiments of late-nineteenth-century composers and the full-blown octatonicism of twentieth-century modernists, including Ravel and Stravinsky. In a work that is a compelling amalgam of biography, history, music theory, and cultural studies, Kahan introduces us to the fascinating world of Edmond de Polignac, and provides a valuable translation of his eccentric and subtly influential treatise on the octatonic scale. --Joseph N. Straus, author of Stravinsky's Late Music and Remaking the Past: Musical Modernism and the Influence of the Tonal Tradition
A charming tale of a gentleman composer and his invention of the "chromatico-diatonic" scale. Kahan's elegant transcription and translation of Polignac's octatonic treatise brings to light a new document that will prove important not only for the history of music theory but also for a richer understanding of the story of musical modernism in fin-de-siècle Paris. --Jonathan Cross, professor of musicology, University of Oxford
In Search of New Scales_ . . . tells a history-altering story. . . . The biographical, historical, and musico-theoretical information presented here combine to paint a vivid portrait of Polignac as well as of the final quarter of nineteenth-century France. . . . A clear and readable edition. Kahan's presentation and commentary are superior to those of Polignac's own. . . . The [musico-]theoretical equivalent of a page-turner. . . . Will force scholars to rethink the current understanding of the octatonic and its dissemination in France.-MUSIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NOTES [Mark McFarland]
