It is not by accident that virtually every important study of Debussy's life or works (including the recent and definitive biography by Edward Lockspeiser) has been made from a psychological viewpoint. The peculiar nature of the composer's art, resulting from his intimate ties with the French symbolist poets and his contacts with many other extra-musical influences, makes such an approach not only advantageous, but necessary. In this brief study of Pelleas et Melisande, the composer's only completed music drama, an attempt will be made to trace these many and varied influences, correlate them with the composer's musical style, and thus arrive at a deeper understanding of the nature of this remarkable work, along with its place in the history of the music drama. The actual study of the structure of the opera will give equal consideration to both the literary and the musical elements. As the unique quality of this work is grasped, the justification of such an approach will perhaps be verified.

La présente étude se propose d'établir une connaissance plus approfondie de la musique de chambre d'Ernest Chausson. Celle-ci tient compte à la fois de l'environnement musical, culturel et esthétique de l'auteur. Cette production permet de réactualiser la sensibilité d'un musicien,. qui apparaît comme une personnalité incontournable du renouveau mwical français en cette fin de XDr' siècle. La première partie est consacrée à des analyses purement formelles ducorpus, explicitant une réalité objective du phénomène sonore. La seconde partie, s'attache à la mise en valeur d'une plus grande exigence unitaire, à travers l'utilisation de la fonne cyclique. Une troisième partie, étudie les modalités de fonctionnement dialogique des différentes oeuvres, dans le but de sonder plus profondément, la pensée musicale de Chausson. Enfin. une denùère partie, inscrit cette recherche dans un courant esthétique de l'époque :le symbolisme, quia pu influencer certains gestes musicaux du compositeur. Ces différents points, ont été jalonnés par des écrits de l'époque, tout en s'appuyant également sur des travaux musicologiques contemporains. / The objective of this dissertation is to present an in-depth study of the chamber music works of Ernest Chausson., against the background of the composer's musical, cultural and esthetic environment. Chausson's chamber music output throws a new light sensitivity of a musician whose influence on the revitalization of late century French music cannot be denied. The first part of the dissertation is devoted to purely formal corpus analysis in order to explicit an objective sense of the composer's sound world. Part II emphasizes how the urge toward the greatest possible unity leads to the use of the cyclic form. Part III studies the dialogic modalities of various compositions, with a view to gaining more insight into Chausson 's musical thought. The last part focuses on the major esthetic trend of this time that may have influenced sorne of Chausson's musical gestures: Symbolism. Relevant historical writings and a range of current musicological approaches support and document each development.