Music and Ultra-Modernism in France: A Fragile Consensus, 1913-1939

"Music and Ultra-Modernism in France" examines the priorities of three generational groupings: the pre-war Société Musicale Indépendente of Ravel and his circle, Les Six in the 1920s and Jeune France in 1936. Exploring the ideas of connce and rupture, the book contributes an important and nuanced reflection to the current debate on modernism in music. It considers the roles composers, critics and biographers played in shaping debates about contemporary music, showing how composers including Ravel, Poulenc, Milhaud, Jolivet and Messiaen and critics such as Paul Landormy, André Coeuroy and Roland-Manuel often worked in partnership to bring their ideas to a public forum. It also expands the notion of "interwar" through the essential sion of World War I and the years before, reconfiguring the narrative for that period.

"Music and Ultra-Modernism in France" argues for the vitality of French music in the period 1913-39 and challenges the received view that the period and its musical culture lacked dynamism, innovation or serious musical debate. This book will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century French music and in music and modernism.

CONTENIDO:

1 Introduction: Consensus, Resistance and New Music in France
2 Remembering Debussy: Nostalgia and Modernism in interwar France
3 Musical allegiances and factions: Ravel, Satie and the Question of Leadership
4 Polemics and Publicity: Composer-Critic Partnerships
5 Musical continuities: Sonority, Exoticism and Abstraction
6 In Search of the Musical esprit du temps
7 Surface Division, Deep Consensus: Classicism and Secularism and its Challenges
8 Conclusions, Music for the Patrimoine: Remembering