In Search of Sonorities

Léon Vallas explained the significance of the debussyste revolution to his Lyonnais audience thus:

Vallas claimed that Debussy had inaugurated a new way of thinking about music as an end in itself, which was distinct from a higher spiritual or moral purpose and devoted instead to the quest for the sensation sonore. At the same time he, like many other critics, warned against the dangers of imitation: such innovative and shocking attitudes towards music were acceptable in the hands of such an original composer as Debussy but should not form the basis of a school or movement. Ravel and his intimates, including Koechlin and Delage, defiantly ignored such warnings, creating, as the Introduction has explored, the Société Musicale Indépendante (SMI) as a new and independent institution for the promotion of artistic research into sonority.