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[now Indonesia], this in devout care to "orient" (this is for once the correct word) his memory or fantasy. 48
Significantly, the same time frame, 1903-05, also saw the composition of La Mer for orchestra, Debussy's one
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other work that alludes specifically to the gamelan. Beyond that time characteristics inspired by the gamelan—
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timbre, exotic scales, layering, rhythmic design—appear in virtually all of Debussy's mature works. His
revolutionary treatment of the piano, stemming from its percussive rather than its singing nature, has led to
some of the most important music in today's piano repertory.

Conclusion
In the century-plus since its composition, Pagodes has provided enjoyment to countless listeners and
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performers, and material for study to myriad analysts. The influence of Javanese gamelan extends far beyond
Debussy as well. Works by composers after him as diverse as Ravel, Bartók, Poulenc, Britten, McPhee, Eichheim,
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Cowell, Cage, Harrison, and Reich all owe inspiration to the gamelan. Today we can readily access recordings,
pictures, and scholarly writings about gamelan music provided by more than a century's roster of
ethnomusicologists. Debussy's sole source of exposure was the Javanese music at the Paris Expositions
Universelles. For him there were no research documents to read, no instruction in how to play the instruments,
and no travel to Java. Yet he clearly absorbed the elements of gamelan music that ethnomusicologists have
documented. Without endeavoring to explain these elements, he instead incorporated them into a gamelan of
his own making, one created for Western listeners and performers.
A year before its composition he wrote that music "is not limited to a more or less exact representation of
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nature, but rather to the mysterious affinity between Nature and Imagination." Pagodes is not a transcription,
not an exact representation of nature. It is an imaginative creation. Arguably his first Impressionistic
composition for piano, Pagodes presents not some vague impression but, instead, a remarkably accurate and
evocative rendition of the Eastern gamelan on the Western piano.

Bibliography

Abravanel, Claude. "Symbolism and Performance." In Debussy in Performance, edited by James R. Briscoe, 28‒
44. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

Becker, Judith. Traditional Music in Modern Java. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1980.

Bellman, Jonathan, ed. The Exotic in Western Music. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998.
Benedictus, Louis. Les Musiques Bizarres à l'Exposition. Paris: G. Hartmann, 1889.

Born, Georgina, and David Hesmondhalgh, eds. Western Music and Its Others. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2000.
Brandon, James R. On Thrones of Gold. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.

Brinner, Benjamin. Knowing Music, Making Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Briscoe, James R., ed. Debussy in Performance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

Casella, Alfredo. "Claude Debussy." The Monthly Musical Record 63, no. 2 (1933).

Cooke, Mervyn. "The East in the West: Evocations of the Gamelan in Western Music." In The Exotic in Western
Music, edited by Jonathan Bellman, 258‒80. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998.

Cortot, Alfred. "La Musique pour Piano de Claude Debussy." La Revue Musicale 1, no. 2 (December 1920): 127‒50.

Dawes, Frank. Debussy Piano Music. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969.
Day-O'Connell, Jeremy. Pentatonicism from the Eighteenth Century to Debussy. Rochester: Rochester University
Press, 2007.

______. "Debussy, Pentatonicism, and the Tonal Tradition." Music Theory Spectrum 31, no. 2 (Fall 2009): 225‒61.
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