french music 1920s

French Music of the 1920s

Contexts and PerspectivesScott Scholz

Just before the 1920s

Claude Debussy

Erik Satie

Maurice Ravel

Jean Cocteau: Les Six

Jean Cocteau chose the composers of Les Six

Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre

Through the 20s, the group held court at the Le Boeuf sur le Toit--this is the club of legend alluded to in “Midnight in Paris,” where many European and American expatriate artists gathered (writers, painters, musicians, fashion designers)

Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit

Parade

Music by Erik Satie, sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso, choreography by Leonide Massine, scenario by Jean Cocteau

Program notes by Guillaume Apollinaire coin the phrase “surrealism” in 1917

Darius Milhaud

La Creation du monde (1923): jazz influence

La boeuf sur le toit (1920): “surrealist ballet” with Brazilian tango/pop influences and quotations

Arthur Honegger

Concertino for Piano and Orchestra (1924)

In “neoclassical” style, also being explored by Igor Stravinsky in the 1920s

impressionistic and surrealistic with unusual approaches/communication quirks between the piano and the rest of the ensemble

Edgard Varese

Arcana (1925-27)

influenced by Surrealism and dream states

“symphonic poem”

Varese moved back to Paris in 1928

Maurice Ravel

Bolero (1928)

based on Spanish dance of the same name

jazz influences

repetition; exposition through orchestration

A change in public focus

transition from dominance of orchestral, large-format musical works to music from smaller ensembles

“songs” versus “compositions”

the influence of jazz and American expatriates in France (Paris as cultural center; Europe as escape from Prohibition)

changes in technology available to the public: the radio and the phonograph, changing both method and motivation for consuming music (a process still evolving today)

Josephine Baker

Born in St. Louis

dropped out of school at 12; destitute

began vaudeville dancing/singing at 15, eventually relocating to NYC

went to Paris in 1925 as part of La Revue Negre and became wildly successful, eventually becoming a French citizen

Sidney Bechet

also arrived in Paris as part of the Revue Negre, staying through the late 1920s

his playing (mostly soprano sax and clarinet) and compositional style were very influential on the next decade of French jazz musicians

Cole Porter

Moved to Paris in 1917 and stayed into the 1920s

short ballet “Within the Quota” debuted on the same 1923 program as Millhaud’s “La Creation du monde”

studied orchestration and counterpoint in Paris, but was relatively less musically active (and much more socially active) in his Paris years

Paris and Jazz

Most of the 1920s jazz artists in France are Americans

By the 1930s, France is producing jazz artists of its own, such as Django Reinhardt and the Quintette du Hot Club de France

France continued its love affair with American jazz artists over subsequent decades: Dexter Gordon in the early 1960s, and the BYG/Actuel record label documenting avant-garde and free jazz artists in the late 60s/early 70s

Jazz influences chanson

Jazz influences seep into the French popular song (chanson) tradition, while retaining other regional/folk/classical influences

French singer/songwriters like Edith Piaf and Serge Gainsbourg carry the tradition through subsequent decades

Questions? Comments?

My email is ScottScholz@gmail.com

You can also reach me at: http://wordsonsounds.blogspot.com

Thanks for letting me crash your class!