In Search of the Ineffable: Ravel’s Musical Transposition of Mallarmé’s Linguistic Preciosity

ABSTRACT Ravel once claimed that he had a ‘predilection’ for his Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé (1913), ‘which obviously will never be a popular work, since in it I transposed the literary procedures of Mallarmé, whom I personally consider France’s greatest poet’. The term ‘transposition’ is linked to a central element of Mallarmé’s poetics, which involves linguistic operations that guide the reader’s spiritual journey. In this article I argue that all three poems chosen by Ravel—‘Soupir’, ‘Placet futile’, and ‘Surgi de la croupe et du bond’—share a common feature: a distinctive syntax that shapes the perception of imagery. I explore the poems from syntactic, pragmatic, and semantic perspectives based on modern linguistics, revealing how Mallarmé’s language aligns with his poetic ideals. Consequently, I examine how Ravel’s musical settings respond to these linguistic properties and create similar perceptual processes. This enhances our understanding of how Ravel sought to unlock the potential of musical language during the Symbolist movement.