A central theme throughout my writings for this course has been nationalism, and the sense of national identity composers, critics, performers, and organizations were trying to build. The strongest central link being a rejection of German music. However each person had their own version of Frenchness, like the SNM and SMI which couldn’t come together even during the war. How much foreign music should be performed by these societies, they couldn’t agree. And what of Stravinsky, could his music be French? Or could his music fit more with Cocteau’s ideals if done by one of les Six? And then there’s Cocteau and les Six themselves, grouped together by Collet despite them each having their own aesthetics. Although I’ve mostly mentioned composers so far, another common theme has been different ways people can exert their musical influence. Such as the Princess de Polignac, who instead shaped music by choosing which artists to support and was an early supporter of Neoclassicism. Or Nadia Boulanger, who although not successful as a composer is famous as one of the greatest music teachers ever. Not to mention her perhaps even more profound impact on American music. Boulanger is even more notable for her unique national identity, being so closely linked to both old and new France. Closely related to nationalism was the search for outside influences as inspiration for French music. This included anything from French popular music to jazz, as long as it wasn’t German. The anxiety around musical identity was a driving force behind the musical innovations of 1920s French.
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