Abstract

In the plateau November 20, 1923: Postulates of linguistics, Deleuze and Guattari subvert the traditional confrontation between language and music, refusing to look at the latter for the constants that are usually thought to define the first and recognizing in both systems a regime of continuous variation. An example of this regime is Luciano Berio’s Visage, in which «despite what Berio himself says, it is less a matter of using pseudo constants to produce a simulacrum of language or a metaphor for the voice than of attaining that secret neuter language without constants […].» This use of Berio against Berio himself is probably due to the declaration contained in Visage : «When I was composing Visage what attracted me […] was research intended as a way to expand the chances of bringing nearer musical and acoustic processes, and as a means to find musical equivalents of linguistic articulations.» Despite the apparent contradiction, D&G and Berio agree that music is not a form of sui generis language, nor, on the contrary, an expressive form without any relation to language, but rather a deterritorialization of the voice that produces a form of varied repetition of language, now devoid of meaning.