The musical legacy of wartime France / Leslie A. Sprout.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sprout, Leslie A.

Series:

California Studies in 20th-Century Music

California studies in 20th-century music ; 16

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Music--France--20th century--History and criticism.

Music.

World War, 1939-1945--Music and the war.

World War, 1939-1945.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (305 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

For the three forces competing for political authority in France during World War II, music became the site of a cultural battle that reflected the war itself. German occupying authorities promoted German music at the expense of French, while the Vichy administration pursued projects of national renewal through culture. Meanwhile, Resistance networks gradually formed to combat German propaganda while eyeing Vichy's efforts with suspicion. In The Musical Legacy of Wartime France, Leslie A. Sprout explores how each of these forces influenced the composition, performance, and reception of five well-known works: the secret Resistance songs of Francis Poulenc and those of Arthur Honegger; Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, composed in a German prisoner of war camp; Maurice Duruflé's Requiem, one of sixty-five pieces commissioned by Vichy between 1940 and 1944; and Igor Stravinsky's Danses concertantes, which was met at its 1945 Paris premiere with protests that prefigured the aesthetic debates of the early Cold War. Sprout examines not only how these pieces were created and disseminated during and just after the war, but also how and why we still associate these pieces with the stories we tell-in textbooks, program notes, liner notes, historical monographs, and biographies-about music, France, and World War II.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Preface and Acknowledgments

1. Poulenc's Wartime Secrets

2. Honegger's Postwar Rehabilitation

3. Ignoring Jolivet's Testimony, Embracing Messiaen's Memories

4. The Timeliness of Duruflé's Requiem

5. From the Postwar to the Cold War: Protesting Stravinsky in Postwar France

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780520955271

0520955277

OCLC:

849787144