Throughout the course of this class the theme of identity has emerged as a common denominator. It is rather broad, but it encompasses all the different topics and lenses we have discovered from race to gender and sexuality, and to me most prominently, national identity.
For a whole century France had close ties with Germany (and the smaller units that would finally become Germany) when it came to the fine arts. Germany would time and again foster new composers and innovations in music, and France was regarded as a signifier of artistic and economic success. If you could make it in Paris, you could make it as a composer. This symbiotic relationship soured as a result of several disputes, the war of 1870/1871 comes to mind, and finally crowned with the devastating losses of the first world war. If there had been separatist undercurrents in French artistic circles in the late 19th century with the works and institutions affiliated with César Franck and Francis Poulenc, the divorce was finalized by the capitulation of November 1918.
It spurred a need for and prompted the development of a pure, clear, simple French aesthetic, at least in theory. The need to find an identity free from German identity resembles that of a teenager rebelling against its parents and in many ways resembles similar results. The “teenager “of French national identity in music tries its hardest to be the opposite of its Germanic parentage with composers like Darius Milhaud and in some ways Erik Satie, deconstructing the concepts of what role music should play. Impresarios and patron-fundraisers such as Jean Cocteau and Comte Etienne de Beaumont tried with elaborate schemes to blur lines between high and low art (effectively trying to create high art again), but also to challenge the power of the institutions. The immediate success came for those looking both forwards and backwards, in my papers on Arthur Honegger, a story of conflicted identities emerged. Surrounded by people strongly tide to the French agenda he was drawn towards new influences but stayed true to traditional techniques that had very German connotations. He must have had a sense of “selling his soul” because it sold well, and he lived well. However, we are left with the question: are we ever completely free from the influence of our upbringing? And as the years progress, one lives and experience the brutal test of time, do we not understand what we might had regarded as outdated notions? The historical canon is a crude mistress. What gets taught and performed and perhaps even more importantly, what is left out seems at times, completely random or left down to pure luck. The canon seems however to be partial to pieces that are “well informed” and draws upon multiple influences, yet is ground-breaking in its own right.