French Musical Life: Local Dynamics in the Century to World War II

The historical musicology of post-Revolutionary France has focused on Paris as a proxy for the rest of the country, leading to a distorted lens of the French Revolution. This book explores French musical centralization and its discontents during the period leading up to and beyond the provincial awakening of the Belle Époque, revealing how tensions of State and locality played out differently depending on the structures and funding mechanisms in place, the musical priorities of different communities, and the presence or absence of galvanizing musicians. It also explores the pressure point of folk music and its translation into local color for officials who feared national division, resulting in a surprising new historiography of French neoclassicism.

Format: Hardback
Length: 440 pages
Publication date: 02 February 2022
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc

The historical musicology of post-Revolutionary France has centered on Paris, serving as a proxy for the rest of the country. This lens, shaped by political and cultural struggles throughout the long nineteenth century, reflects an unresolved French Revolution, both then and now. Given Paris' status as the seat of a centralizing French state and a cosmopolitan musical crossroads of nineteenth-century Europe, the challenges of establishing sustainable musical cultures outside of Paris and composing local and regionalist music warrant analysis. The replacement of France with Paris has fostered normative history-writing articulated by the capital's opera and concert life, sidelining regional practices and treating them as fragmented or inferior. This book delves into French musical centralization and its discontents during the period leading up to and beyond the provincial awakening of the Belle Époque. It explores how various forms of artistic decentralization and regionalism were achieved or resisted across a politically turbulent century, from the 1830s to World War II. By examining chapters on conservatoires, concert life, stage music, folk music, and composition, the book reimagines the historical map of musical power relations in mainland France. Through a study of the tensions between the State and locality, the musical priorities of different communities, and the presence or absence of galvanizing musicians, the book sheds light on how these factors influenced the dynamics of folk music and its translation into local color for officials who feared national decline.

Weight: 718g
Dimension: 165 x 243 x 39 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780197600160