conclusions: debussy and the
historiography of tonality
I began this essay with a historiographic question, applying
Debussy’s critical heuristics of “sunset” versus “sunrise”
to Debussy himself. In this regard it is worth noting
another of Debussy’s comments on Wagner, whom he considered
to be “more tonal” than Berlioz: “Wagner develops
in the classical manner. Wagner merely abandoned the perpetual
perfect cadence” (quoted in Lockspeiser 1962,
204–05). “Merely?” Although we may never know the degree
to which this comment was intended to be ironic or