One topic that seemed to come through in all of the topic’s I researched was the issue of defining and securing French’s sound at the time. The topics I researched all differed greatly in their approach to it. Some worked to help define it, being the work of a member of Les Six and for […]
One thing I have found interesting in researching Auric’s music for the Ballet Les Facheux, is Diaghilev’s fascination with choreography and composer’s who stirred up controversy. The Ballet Russes had a history of performances causing hiccups and then going on to be financially and culturally popular. In more extremes, Parades and Les Sacre du Princeps caused […]
I find the articles made by Dorf in his article on Princess de Polignac and Moore’s article on Poulenc’s early ballets to both be compelling in how both artists represented their sexuality. In both situations, the composers were mindful of the artistic choices they were making and what they chose to include in their respective […]
Negrophilia in Paris in the 1920’s did not reflect a deep admiration that the French public had for Africans and African-Americans, but rather reflected the long running practice of exoticisim and appropiation, long established in France. Specifically, writer’s use of Jazz at the time was highly problematic. When primitivism was a style popular in the […]
Louis Durey was the eldest composer of Les Six. Despite initially collaborating in the group’s first collaborative album, within a year Durey would remove himself from the group. Durey, like several others, did not buy into the premise that the ideals of the group described by Cocteau realistically matched the work he was creating. For […]
One of the discussions that struck me was how many writers were concerned with the places that composers drew their inspiration. Debussy was adamant that in order to produce true French music, one could only draw from original french ideals, which included the appropriation of “exotic sounds” from french held colonies, and a return to […]