A ground-breaking study of the musical and literary priorities,
professional practices and creative interactions that shaped one of the
most adventurous artforms of the Belle Époque.
French art song, or mélodie, was one of the most radical and exploratory
artforms of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was
also among the most intimate, a genre of experimentation, hesitation and
unfiltered artistic conversation. In this landmark history, Emily
Kilpatrick charts the compositional preoccupations and literary stimuli,
the friendships and rivalries, critical narratives and performance
practices that shaped French art song between 1870 and the First World
War. She traces the expanding horizons of an essentially new musical
idiom, moving from the lively debates of the avant-garde to the social
and artistic contradictions of the salons, the pedagogy of the Paris
Conservatoire, and the eventual accession of song to the concert
platform and a central place in the world's musical imagination.
The mélodie of the Belle Époque flourished amidst a culture of creative
collaboration, and through the musicianship and advocacy of performers
as well as composers. Setting key works by Fauré, Duparc, Chausson,
Debussy, and Ravel alongside historical curiosities and hidden gems,
French Art Song: History of a New Music probes composer-performer
relationships and the shaping of performance traditions and addresses
the challenges faced by the twenty-first century interpreter. Kilpatrick
twines cultural history with musical insight and a wealth of previously
unpublished source material in a wide-ranging and richly detailed
account of the public and private faces of musical invention.
