A central theme throughout my writings for this course has been nationalism, and the sense of national identity composers, critics, performers, and organizations were trying to build. The strongest central link being a rejection of German music. However each person had their own version of Frenchness, like the SNM and SMI which couldn’t come together […]
We all know the feeling, you’ve found a reference to a newspaper article from 1920s Paris, you’ve tracked it down in Gallica, and finally you’re ready to learn about the Parisian musical landscape. As the scan slowly loads in you let out a sigh of despair, “ah beans, you can’t actually read French. As preposterous […]
Overall, Dorf does a good job of establishing Polignac’s influence on the work as a whole but doesn’t adequately convince me how the piece was impacted by their sexuality. Dorf does show that Barney’s treatment of Greece is obvious lesbian, but Polignac’s not so much. Dorf also notes that Satie’s social network included many queer […]
Parisians were unable to love African American artists because what they actually loved was their own views reflected in African American artists. As an example, Josephine Baker, Parisians didn’t love her as an African American artist. According to Grendon the Revue was redesigned to fit expectations, making it match French views of Africa. The entire […]
Rosenstiel’s Nadia Boulanger, a life in music, gives a thorough account of Boulanger’s entire life. She paints a picture of a musician who, despite early success in competitions, would have her composition and performance career ruined by unfortunate circumstances and mistakes. One example of this is a Russian tour where Nadia was to assist Raoul Pugno, […]