This class has proven to me time and again that no music, at the very least no music composed in Paris in the 20s, is devoid of extramusical meaning. The necessity of patronage in allowing music to happen at all, especially classical music, assures us that the composers who see success do so only because […]
The danger with arguments like the ones Dorf and Moore make is the potential to reduce composers’ output to one facet of their personalities. When the composers in question are musicologically significant, it is all the more tempting to hold up parts of their character which are often criteria for marginalization as a way to […]
Parisians were captivated by the performances of La Revue Nègre. In the presentation of the writings of critics given by Matthew Jordan, they are made to almost stumble over their words trying to describe this phenomenon, and everyone seemed to have an opinion. It drew crowds, and thus held a quality greater than that of […]
A strong supporter of modern music, Paul Collaer, musicologist and musician, spent a considerable span of his professional life giving lecture-recitals on the works of his contemporaries. He created the Pro Arte concerts in Brussels to further promote the music he dedicated so much to, was a director of Belgian Radio, and was acquainted with […]
Composers and writers were obsessed with establishing national identities through music in the early 20th century, in France and many Western countries. The disdain Cocteau’s writing1 shows for German music and the “mudiness” of Russian influence in Debussy’s music is at once familiar and bizarre. Certainly many people experience national pride; one need look no […]