The critique which Boulez addressed to Schoenberg had its origins in the musical-aesthetic debates which took place in France after the capitulation of 1870: Wagner, of course, but also Brahms. The opposition between Parisian and Viennese perspectives: Debussyan dualism (Wagner/Mussorgsky) versus Schoenbergian dualism (Wagner/Brahms). Half a century later, Boulez in turn, following Debussy’s model, proposed a renewed perspective (Schoenberg/Stravinsky) – substituting for the influence of the Brahmsian agogic, to which Schoenberg’s art still remained deeply attached, a rhythmic serialism deduced from the Stravinskyan model, following Messiaen’s attempts at formalisation. Hence the need to re-establish cultural origins according to cross-border perspectives.