Voice Lessons: French Mélodie in the Belle Epoque
Katherine Bergeron
Abstract
This book examines the modern musical art known as la mélodie française, and its emergence in France the last decades of the 19th century. It was a time when the state had begun pouring resources into national literacy and scholars were starting to grasp the nuances of the spoken tongue. The book explores the relationship between the free, secular, and compulsory school system of the Third Republic, and the experimental sciences of language that grew alongside it, to observe the ways in which both science and school redefined the verbal arts in France circa 1900. The music of Fauré, Debussy, a ... More
This book examines the modern musical art known as la mélodie française, and its emergence in France the last decades of the 19th century. It was a time when the state had begun pouring resources into national literacy and scholars were starting to grasp the nuances of the spoken tongue. The book explores the relationship between the free, secular, and compulsory school system of the Third Republic, and the experimental sciences of language that grew alongside it, to observe the ways in which both science and school redefined the verbal arts in France circa 1900. The music of Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel; the writings of Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine; the performances of Maggie Teyte, Reynaldo Hahn, and Sarah Bernhardt; the linguistic studies of Paul Passy and Abbé Rousselot: all these sources offer evidence of the new ideas of expression that proliferated during one of the most idealistic moments in French musical history, when poets, composers, actors, singers, and scientists all learned to imagine — and to speak — their language in new ways. Through close readings of songs, poems, sound recordings, and other historical records, this book narrates the development of a rare musical art, seeking to explain why this art emerged, why it mattered, and why it eventually disappeared.
Keywords:
French song,
mélodie,
French poetry,
French theater,
French education,
phonology,
phonetics,
the Belle Epoque
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2009 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780195337051 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: February 2010 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195337051.001.0001 |
