Download - 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?
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