{"id":980,"date":"2022-02-23T23:16:01","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T05:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/?p=980"},"modified":"2022-02-23T23:16:01","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T05:16:01","slug":"building-self-esteem-through-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/2022\/02\/23\/building-self-esteem-through-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Self-Esteem Through Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

After doing all the readings assigned for this class, I understand how French nationalism arose after the Franco-Prussian War. At first I thought, \u201cThey lost a war. So what?\u201d And then I realized that the French had suffered a huge blow to their self-esteem. They were reeling. They had to find something they were good at and prove they were better at it than everyone else, namely, the Germans.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the French musicians waged a culture war on German music, which is also understandable given the circumstances. What I don\u2019t understand is why the French continuously accuse Wagner and his contemporaries of attempting to suppress French music and\/or infiltrate the music scene in Paris. Milhaud claims that French music has \u201chad to suffer assaults and influences which have often blotted out its characteristics\u201d (4). Cocteau goes so far as to claim that German composers stole ideas from the French through an analogy about seeds, thoroughly insulting Germany in the process (16). This defensiveness seems like an overreach to me. It\u2019s reasonable for the French to promote their own music, but these accusations are quite far-fetched. The German composers certainly had better things to do than to actively steal French ideas and suppress their music.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ravel\u2019s and Milhaud\u2019s points about heritage and music make sense. (They refer to it as \u201crace,\u201d but I\u2019ll use the terms \u201cheritage\u201d or \u201cnationality.\u201d) Of course people\u2019s family and culture will influence their music. And with the ongoing research on generational trauma, it\u2019s even more apparent how that could influence compositions. However, I disagree with Milhaud and Ravel when they imply that heritage cannot be overcome. Milhaud claims that Honegger, a composer of German ancestry,\u00a0 never overcame his German-ness in spite of his \u201cpurely French education\u201d (7), acting as if Honegger had tried and failed to stop being German. I think that doesn\u2019t necessarily have to be true. Honegger may have simply been composing in a style he liked. As cool as it would be, musical styles are not contained in DNA.<\/span><\/p>\n

In another vein, it is very clear how the French were distancing themselves from German styles. Their use of old forms, new simplicity, and easy-listening style is very different from German pieces at the time. Through the same characteristics, it is also obvious how the French felt they were achieving musical order. Milhaud\u2019s chamber symphonies are astonishingly short. The textures are never too thick, the movements are brief, and the music is relatively simple. The same ideas appear in Stravinsky\u2019s Symphony of Psalms, which is characterized by simplicity and thin textures. The textures are even too thin at times, which is my main criticism of the piece. These are the complete opposite of Wagner\u2019s operas, which are dense in texture, very complicated, and hours in length.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Through these new styles, the French were able to gain back some confidence. Admittedly, the French did pull some <\/span>Mean Girls<\/span><\/i>-esque moves by tearing down German music to build their own self-esteem. But, hey! We got some pretty cool music out of it. At this point, it\u2019s probably safe to say that all has been forgiven. Well, maybe not Franck, but at least he and Regina George can bond over their shared traffic accidents<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After doing all the readings assigned for this class, I understand how French nationalism arose after the Franco-Prussian War. At first I thought, \u201cThey lost a war. So what?\u201d And then I realized that the French had suffered a huge blow to their self-esteem. They were reeling. They had to find something they were good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4408,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4408"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1045,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions\/1045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}