Some of the questions that provoke the deepest discussions are the questions that seem the simplest on the surface. One of these questions is as follows: What is French music? What does it mean for music to be French?
Here is where I will invoke a personal analogy. I am an Irish citizen, since my great-grandmother, Mary McDonagh, was born in Galway in 1904.1 She came to Chicago in 1924,2 married Owen McGowan (my great-grandfather) in 1931,3 and my grandmother was born in 1935.4 As many of you know, I create music of my own. Since I am Irish, does that mean that the music I make is also Irish, even though I have never been to Ireland, and my music is not influenced by the music of Ireland in any way? I would say not. For music to be truly national music, the music needs to be inspired by the nation, and aim to convey something about that nation’s history and culture.
Being rooted in French tradition, culture, and society is what makes music French, there is a lot of music by French composers that isn’t French in any meaningful way, and there is a lot of French music that was written by non-French composers. Some of a nation’s most iconic composers came from elsewhere. For example, the great American composer Irving Berlin was born in the Russian Empire.5 Also worth noting is that of the five “New Russian School” composers, only two, Balakirev and Mussorgsky, were ethnically Russian. Borodin was Georgian, Cui was French, and Rimsky-Korsakov was Polish-Lithuanian.6 Yet the music they wrote was steeped in Russian culture, history, and society and thus is Russian music. On the flip side, music made by people of Russian descent that has no connection to Russian culture isn’t Russian music simply because its creator was. Walter Afanasieff, who wrote “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, and many other famous songs, was born to Russian parents,7 but his music isn’t Russian in any meaningful way, just like my music isn’t Irish in any meaningful way.
WORKS CITED
1 Census of Ireland 1901/1911. The National Archives of Ireland. http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/search/: accessed 21 April 2020.
2 National Archives at Chicago; Chicago, Illinois; ARC Title: Petitions for Naturalization, 1906 – 1991; NAI Number: 6756404; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21
3 National Archives at Chicago; Chicago, Illinois; ARC Title: Illinois, Petitions for Naturalization, 1906-1991; NAI Number: 593882; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: RG 21