France in the early 1920s struggled to reconcile its own national identity with growing globalization and the absorption of other cultures on its own soil. The influences of globalization and nationalism made their imprint on the music of the time. French composers took inspiration from the music of other cultures, to create a “new” French music, establishing a musical national identity. Today, the United States has also developed ideals for American national identity, suggesting what American culture should be. Like France in the early twentieth century, U. S. leaders have felt insecure about the threat of foreign influence, and turn to many different forms of media to affirm national identity.
Prior to the French explosion of nationalism in the early 1900s, the nation was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, which humbled French nationalists and likely reduced faith in French political affairs.
During the first World War, France employed colonial troops to help re-enforce domestic troops and prevent another defeat like 1870. The dependence on these non-white troops, and their respective cultures, may have caused the French to feel insecure about their political and cultural community and their racial superiority, resulting in a profound wave a nationalist sentiment after WWI.
Over the past decade or so, the United States has seen a similar resurgence of nationalist and racist movements, especially directed at increasing corporate globalization and immigration. Exacerbated by President Trump, protests, rallies, and demonstrations promoting anti-immigrant sentiment have swept across the nation.
This right-wing movement uses media designed to evoke ideas of the “old” America, one in which racial homogeny reigned. Despite the contrast between the “Old America” and the “New France,” anti-immigration sentiment, racism, and nationalist ideals clearly connect the modern political climate of the United States with the political themes of nineteenth century France.
The music of 1920s France also sought to establish French nationalism, both in the musical elements of the pieces themselves and in public discourse that shaped ideals surrounding musical French culture. Writer, poet, and all-around Bohemian, Jacques Cocteau, contributed to this theme and remarked that the composer Erik Satie had a strong grasp of what French music should be (Cock and Harlequin, pp. 18-21). By Cocteau’s standards, Satie’s music was simple, melodic, and original: music for everyday France.
However, this concept seems almost counterintuitive to this young scholar. At a time when France was attempting to establish its national strength through its cultural media, why wouldn’t it go bigger and grander to put its nationalist art on a pedestal? I suppose that would be too German a thing to do.
Similarly, the use of other cultural material in music and art of the time seems almost contradictory to the nationalism that French art was fostering. Composers like Debussy, Milhaud, and others used musical themes and drew inspiration from the art of other nations. Debussy’s Pagodes used elements of Javanese Gamelan, including rhythmic texturing and pentatonic scales evocative of the musical “other.”
French people of the time likely felt that the material of marginalized cultures was ripe for the taking, and appropriating these musical styles was equivalent to using the natural resources of colonies. Yet, this rationale seems maligned with the feelings of dependence and insecurity that France felt from relying on colonial troops for World War I. One would think that the French may also feel insecure about using the musical elements of other cultures, and there may be some evidence for this case. Jacques Cocteau criticizes Debussy for embracing ad propagating foreign musical influences, particularly Russian and Germanic. Cocteau writes, “Russian-French music or German-French music is necessarily bastard, even if it be inspired by a Moussorgsky, a Stravinsky, a Wagner, or a Schoenberg. The music I want must be French, of France” (pp. 19, Cock and Harlequin). Cocteau, and possibly others, may have felt that using foreign musical elements, like foreign troops, undermined the security of French nationalism and independence, in music and in the political world.