Debussy's Pagodes (1903), the first of several pieces composed during the first decade of the 20th century that illustrate for their pervasive use of the colors of the pentatonic scale an immediate affiliation with music of the Far East, is a striking example of exoticism in Western music. Its strange appeal—one that unites a prominent display of exotic beauty with the sensibilities of a profoundly skillful Western composer—has raised questions about its aesthetic values and meaning. Kant's notion of an “aesthetic idea” as a concept that takes on an indeterminate dimension in a critically esteemed artwork and that induces “much thinking” without ever reaching a definable essence is certainly borne out by the voluminous commentary on Pagodes. And if the many-channeled, and not necessarily contradictory, chorus of voices opining in various ways on the nature of this piece has anything to do with its value as a work of art, Pagodes stands as a beautiful masterpiece of exoticism.

It has been shown convincingly that Pagodes's chinoiserie has evolved from Debussy's experience hearing the music of the Javanese dancers at Paris's International Expositions during the summers of 1889 and 1900. The authors to whom I refer—Arndt (1993), Howat (1994 and 2009), Roberts (1996), Kopp (1997), Revol (2000), Day-O'Connell (2007), and Locke (2009)—contribute to an understanding of the genesis and aesthetic of Pagodes. In particular, Paul Roberts relates the opening piano sonorities of the piece to the shimmering overtones of the sonorities of a full gamelan, as a specific instance of a significant influence of Javanese music on Debussy's style. After playing in a gamelan for several years, Roy Howat discovered the resonance of specific gamelan idioms in telling passages. Ralph Locke found relationships between melodic lines of Pagodes and specific Western compositions, as he also noticed the prevalence of seconds and fourths in the organization of pentatonic melodies. It is curious, but understandable given the supreme finesse and subtlety of Debussy's expressive palette that little, if anything, has been said about the blatant, and puzzling, musical relationships between Pagodes and the transcriptions of the 1889 Javanese performances made by Louis Benedictus.