The anthology under review is a late outcome of a symposium held at the Institut finlandais in Paris in 1999. That event, in its turn, was a follow-up to a research project sponsored by the Nordic Council of Ministers carried out between 1994 and 1998. Both of these had as their main title ‘France in Nordic Music’, with a limitation to the period 1900–39. The relation between the present anthology and the symposium papers is not entirely clear. That both authors and subjects have been added is hinted at in Tyrväinen’s introduction (14), and in a few cases it is indicated that a contribution has been revised and updated since 1999. The widening of subject matter, from a unilateral to a bilateral relationship, is reflected in the change of title between the initial symposium and the book. There are three thematically distinct sections, the first of which covers both conceptions of the North—or the Nordic—in France, and what the editor chooses to call transnational networks in Paris (neither ‘transnational’, nor ‘network’ appear in the chapters themselves). The transnational networks can be broken down to contacts of a professional or semi-professional character between prominent figures in French and Nordic musical or cultural life, either directly or mediated by art works. Conceptions of the North consist of projections of an ideological nature, which involve both peoples and geography.

In this paper I will argue for an interpretation of a shift in Debussy’s œuvre, from transcendental individualism to individualistic distanciation. The notion of a shift in style or manner, either manifested in La Mer 1905 or afterwards, was common in the contemporary reception. In one version, it is about the substitution of a classical manner for an impressionist one, though perhaps unified by a symbolist attitude common to both. In another version it is about a shift from profundity of a sort to superficiality. There are other interpretations as well. Subscribing to the thesis of a shift in attitude in Debussy’s œuvre, this paper questions the ways in which this shift has been understood. On the basis of analytical study of main works like Nocturnes, La Mer, Images for Orchestra and Préludes for piano book I, put in context and comparison with their critical reception as well as the broader musical landscape of France, this paper identifies two dominant strategies of Debussy. Before La Mer it is a question of transcendental individualism, i.e. a highly individualistic use of given genres for serious expression. After La Mer, it is a question of a more distanciated use of genre conventions and style markers. On the basis of “hidden program-me”-interpretations of these in the cases of Images and Préludes, it is suggested that Debussy’s reaction to the politicized and polemical musical life of France evoked by historians like Fulcher is not so much one of taking actual stand as one of irony and distance, perhaps even alienation. In that he is true to the feature of individualism normally imputed to his works, but sometimes with a qualification for a lack of inspiration in the later work (e.g. Images), a thesis in different ways exposed by biographers like Dietschy and Lesure.

The French musical life around 1900 was dominated by collectivist conceptions of the (ideal) role of music , with rather well explicated aims and poetics, and heated debates. One of the main parties was the Academic, a form of extremely centralized education of citizens, according to which ar tistic technique was treated as a discipline , and a dogmatic rule poetics based on authority was the central tenet. In the late 19th and the early 20th century, it was on the defensive, though perhaps less than in other arts is this to be ascribed to an offensive of ar tistic individualism. In music , the main opponent of the Academy was a current (“the Franck School”) exposing historical idealism, invoking Catholicism and Nationalism, often combined with paradigms of terroir. Historically based studies (and Hegelian dialectics) supplanted rule poetics, but the conform adaption to a collective identity was left unchanged. Somewhat later, a musical modernism seemingly exposing a more marked individualism developed, whose main representative was Debussy.The main characteristics of the transcendental individualism of Debussy were a lack of obvious systematic regularity in the work, as also the lack of an explicit systematic poetics. Thereby his œuvre early became the target for quite different interpretations.