The most relateable aspect of French debates of national identity is the issue of foreign influences and whether or not they are acceptable in music. This is a conversation we are still having today, manifested in today’s American society as the appropriation conversation. It is rightfully looked down upon to take musical influences from other […]
When creating any kind of social group, the members must decide who or what is included and excluded. If everyone was included in a group, there would be no sense of cohesiveness or social connection, the act of defining a community is the same as defining what the community is not. Creating distinctions between groups […]
Understanding musical identity is a fraught conversation between idealized perceptions about shared values, and constructed sonic markers interpreted by the whims of composers, musicians, writers, and the public. For French musical figures and writes between 1870 and 1920, some major forces at play in these conversations were lingering tensions with the German empire, and eventually […]
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 […]
By the time of the Industrial Revolution, the bourgeoisie had become the economic ruling class in France. They owned the means of production (land and capital) and the means of coercion (armed forces and legal system, police forces and prison system). By owning the means of production, the bourgeoisie was able “to employ and exploit […]
Surprisingly, the French debates over national musical identity are not that unfamiliar. In a world that often feels politically and culturally insecure today, it seems that America is seeking to redefine itself and its culture just as composers and musicians sought to establish a musical identity that was uniquely French. Efforts made to define national […]
My initial thoughts on these questions are as eclectic as the plurality of opinions and musics I’ve attempted to digest over the first two weeks of class. Firstly, the horse. I can’t stop thinking about the way the horse moves. However, in all seriousness, I think the horse is a very fitting representation of […]
In class on Tuesday, February 18th, Professor Epstein told us that a group of completely homogenous people cannot truly exist; it’s literally impossible. I wrote this down in my notes because I think it allows us to comprehend the differing arguments made by composers and authors we have studied thus far. As of right now, […]
Much of the discourse about French music between 1870 and 1920 feels somewhat distant from my experiences as an American in 2020. But under the surface, many of the anxieties that French composers and music critics were expressing at the time are strikingly similar to the political conversations happening currently, and many of the ideas […]