Since I’m publishing all of these posts in a rather quick succession, it is nice to have some shape or form to my narrative here – and considering that this prompt is asking which of all the sources has best helped be understand my thoughts toward French music, it is only slightly amusing that I fall back on a classic: Jean Cocteau’s heavily opinionated The Cock and the Harlequin!
This work is frankly (haha – get it?) very amusing! I find that it’s a very unique perspective into the actual perception of what the French thought of French music at the time. Jean Cocteau is not just some guy who decided to take up a stance against the “German blackboard musicians” (which is a killer insult, by the way!) – he was a prominent artist in Paris during the 1920s! At least in the context of our class, he is most well known for his collaboration with Erik Satie on the ballet Parade – which holds a great significance!
Not only is this work from the perspective of a rather important Parisian artist, it is heavily opinionated! Cocteau goes into an anti-German spiral for several pages, using the previously mentioned “Blackboard musician” insult with German composers, that the content of German art is “not digested” by the German public, and claiming Wagner’s compositions are “long-drawn-out!”. All of these quips make for quite the strongly-worded insult for 1926. When we consider the societal repression that France has felt prior to this time, it makes all the more sense that Cocteau absolutely lets loose every ounce of pent-up Germanic hate.
What makes this piece even more entertaining, though, is that shortly following the total burns on German society and art, Cocteau proceeds to immediately praise Erik Satie! In the opening line of this discussion on Satie, Cocteau discusses how part of Satie’s charm is that he does not “encourage his own deification.” Deification! The act of becoming an all-powerful deity! This is the first of many compliments to our godly French composer, as Cocteau goes on to say that Satie has “great taste for good lines” and teaches “the greatest audacity, simplicity” all while ensuring that we don’t forget about our, or should I say Satie’s “[acquired] distaste for Wagner in Wagnerian circles.”
When considering the fact that a prominent French artist is taking the time to attack Germanic art and culture while lifting up French art and culture in the same breath, it’s hard to think of another instance that truly captures this significant sentiment from the French nationalist trend. It just makes me wish I had someone who loved me as much as Jean Cocteau loved to praise Erik Satie…
Works Cited;
Jean Cocteau, The Cock and the Harlequin, 2nd ed., trans. Rollo Myers (London: Verso, 1926), 14-21.