Musical Symbolism in the Operas of Debussy and Bartok

Musical Symbolism in the Operas of Debussy and Bart k explores the means by which two early 20th century operas - Debussy's Pell as et M lisande (1902) and Bart k's Duke Bluebeard's Castle (1911) - transformed the harmonic structures of the traditional major/minor scale system into a new musical language. It also looks at how this language reflects the psychodramatic symbolism of the Franco-Belgian poet, Maurice Maeterlinck, and his Hungarian disciple, B la Bal zs. These …