French Musical Modernisms: aesthetics and criticism

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The interwar period in French music is often seen as problematic. Debussy's war-time death in 1918 signalled for many the loss of a significant musical leader and the decline of a glorious period of French music. The younger generation claimed that they were offering something new and distinct from their immediate predecessors. Their apparent rejection of established traditions and of aspects of the avant-garde has resulted in their relative isolation from mainstream modernism. Moreover, post World War 1 France is associated with the neoclassicism that marginalized Stravinsky from narratives of musical modernism until relatively recently.The Fellowship project reassesses French music and aesthetics from 1913 until World War 2. It traces continuities as well as discontinuities between two apparently incompatible generations, looking in particular at how a Symbolist aesthetic transformed into the modernism associated with the post-World War 1 period. In so doing, it makes links with literary and artist figures who underwent comparable transformations. The project selects moments when France was closely engaged with ultra-modern music elsewhere. 1913 is the starting point, not so much for Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_, which made such a momentous impact on new music, but because of a number of works that were inspired by Schoenberg's _Pierrot lunaire_: Stravinsky's _Japanese Lyrics_ and Ravel's _Trois mélodies_. Their distinctive responses reveal the separate but overlapping musical preoccupations, in particular, with sonority, instrumental combinations, the voice and tonality. This convergence was played out again in 1922 with the first performance of Schoenberg's _Pierrot lunaire_ in Paris and Stravinsky's _Mavra_. The project traces other significant modernist strands in the areas of chamber music and ballet, which have their roots in the war period, but came to fruition in the 1920s.The project examines how Debussy was remembered after WW1 and the impact this had on debates about new music. It considers the significant role of the press in setting the agenda, shaping musical debates and influencing public opinion. The interaction of critics with composers of this period is striking and suggests a complicity that is familiar in our current media-led world. Central to these debates was the future orientation of French music and who should lead it. Satie and Ravel emerge as two figures who divided French musical circles and, more crucially, the young composers who formed Les Six; the project examines the musical polemics in which composers and critics were engaged. The research uncovers the emerging musical priorities and qualities of this period, focusing on an uneasy consensus that can be traced to the war and became established in the 1920s, including, the 'style dépouillé', counterpoint and melody. It looks at the pressure to conform and examines composers' attempts to work with or against the apparent consensus, for example, Milhaud in the 1920s and Poulenc and Sauguet in the 1930s. In striving to reassess the prevailing view of music in interwar France as one of frivolity, superficiality, secularism and classicism, the research project provides a more nuanced understanding of the period and its interaction with other European modernist developments. Finally, it reflects on how an understanding of this period has been shaped by the archives themselves, by early biographers and by influential figures, such as Boulez.