The Stolen Microphones: A Progression

The hot question lingers: What is French music in the early 20th century, and who specifically decides this?

In exploring the literature written about this “artistic epoch”³ (yay, new vocabulary word for me (!), and yes I cited a source for one single word), it seemed as though the more music was made available and publicized, the less people could agree. The more people explored and “deviated”, the less “right” anyone could be. This seems to be one of the most relatable parts of this time period in terms of how it relates to the society we live in today. It seemed as though every composer, artist, or important figure had something to say and said it loud and proud. From Debussy making the argument that Javanese music makes Palestrina’s counterpoint seem like child’s play¹ to Milhaud making the case that Satie and Les Six were the ones that literally “sought to “restore the national and essential tradition of their country.”² Laisser déborder les avis (Let the opinions overfloweth)!

(I would just like to quickly acknowledge the google caption for this photo above: “A man in a red beret presenting with French attitude.” Okay, I’m done.)

The big question is whether or not this myriad of opinions has always existed, it’s just more recently we have clearly documented letters as proof. Milhaud thought Wagner’s enormous work was “exactly appropriate”; Debussy thought the same man’s music could never “never be in tune with the French spirit.”¹ When does it end?!  Was Ravel the genius? Was Satie the genius? Was Debussy the genius? Do we just have to live with the fact that these composers could each, in fact, be a genius in their own right?

This answer is quite unsatisfying, but this also resonates almost too closely with what the music scene in the American culture is like today. It all can be summed up in one moment in our modern era where opinions literally clashed on the stage: (trigger warning for all the Swifty’s out there):

All jokes aside, we all can agree that opinions will never cease from existing and permeating in almost every fold of music history. The “microphone” has seemed to always be taken, dropped, or even passed around- giving way for composers and artists to interrupt or take the stage at their leisure.