French Literature Reviews - 2026
V. Jankélévitch, L'enchantement musical. Écrits 1929-1983
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas
L'enchantement musical. Écrits 1929-1983
Publication date: 04/10/2017
Publisher: Albin Michel
ISBN: 978-2-226-39921-2
EAN: 9782226399212
No. of pages: 304 p.
The work of Vladimir Jankélévitch intimately intertwines philosophy and music, a correspondence to which the philosopher-musician always loved to remain faithful. "Music," he reminds us, "is a temporal art not secondarily, like poetry, the novel, or the theatre, but essentially." Its domain is "enchanted temporality," the mystery of the instant, the charm of nostalgia, of the nocturne and the fragrances of the night, of distance, and above all of silence, since music, born from silence, returns to it.
This book brings together little-known, previously unpublished, or long out-of-print texts. Reviews of concerts and festivals, poetic evocations of the musicians dear to his heart: French composers, particularly Debussy, Ravel, and Fauré; Central European musicians, Chopin and Liszt—the rhapsodist and minstrel of the European world, the very image of our modernity; and the geniuses of Russian music, notably Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.
For Vladimir Jankélévitch, "music cannot be thought about," but one can think in music, or musically. Readers will rediscover in these texts the joy of a mysterious complicity with a thought on music that makes it heard musically.
*
An article on this work can be read on nonfiction.fr:
Vladimir Jankélévitch occupies a distinctive place in twentieth-century French thought, where his philosophical inquiries frequently converged with a profound engagement with musical aesthetics. Throughout his career, he examined how temporal arts capture dimensions of experience that elude conventional conceptual discourse. This collection gathers diverse writings spanning several decades, reflecting an ongoing intellectual commitment to the interplay between philosophical reflection and the auditory arts. His approach consistently emphasized the elusive qualities of musical expression, treating sonic creation as a privileged domain for exploring themes of time, mystery, and inwardness.
The volume assembles reviews of concerts and festivals alongside poetic appreciations dedicated to figures such as Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Chopin, Liszt, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. These texts bring together little-known, previously unpublished, or long out-of-print writings that highlight the distinct sensibilities of composers dear to his heart. Readers interested in the intersections of philosophy, aesthetics, and music criticism may find this collection relevant to their exploration of modern European thought.