French Music, 1870 - 1945

Mélodie composée avant 1916 qui présente un accompagnement au choix (ab libitum) de violon, ou violoncelle, ou flûte. Tonalité  Sol Majeur, ambitus ré 3 - la 4. La mélodie est dédiée à la cantatrice Mathilde SAIMAN qui l'a probablement interprétée lors de sa création.

Il seguente lavoro ha lo scopo di analizzare Fêtes, secondo dei Trois Nocturnes, non solo dal punto di vista musicale. L’analisi delle fonti extramusicali (lettere, saggi, articoli di giornale) redatte dallo stesso Debussy, o da personaggi vicini sia ideologicamente che fisicamente, ha permesso di ottenere informazioni più interessanti del capire una tonalità o del riconoscere i temi.

À la veille de la Première Guerre mondiale, le milieu musical français – depuis les sociétés de concerts jusqu’au très convoité concours du prix de Rome – semble entrouvrir sa porte aux compositrices. Si cette parenthèse enchantée se referme avec les premiers coups de canon, la période aura néanmoins permis de faire émerger des figures de créatrices, telles que Mélanie Domange, née Bonis (1858-1937). Pianiste autodidacte, elle fait partie des rares femmes à avoir fréquenté, au cours des années 1880, les classes d’écriture du Conservatoire, dont celle de César Franck. Dès cette période, elle associe le diminutif de son prénom et son nom de jeune fille pour signer ses partitions, laissant ainsi planer un doute sur le genre de leur auteure. Un mariage bourgeois et la maternité l’écartent pendant quinze ans des scènes publiques : l’éclosion de la musicienne n’advient qu’à l’extrême fin du XIXe siècle. Défendant alors elle-même ses œuvres au salon ou au concert, Mel Bonis livre une production riche et variée, touchant à tous les domaines (à l’exception du théâtre lyrique). Elle s’y montre proche de la sensibilité de Gabriel Fauré et en dialogue avec les figures de proue de l’avant-garde musicale (notamment Debussy, Ravel et d’Indy). Marquée par l’esprit de la Belle Époque, elle trouvera difficilement sa place dans le nouveau paysage esthétique des Années folles. Ce livre collectif, qui participe au débat sur la place des femmes dans l’histoire de la musique, s’adresse à ceux qui souhaitent découvrir cette figure singulière, approfondir leur connaissance de sa production ou encore comprendre le cheminement de ses œuvres vers la lumière.

Resumo. Este trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar o inventário e um breve relato do tratamento, no Laboratório de Conservação, Arquivologia e Edição Musical do Instituto de Artes da UNESP, de uma coleção de documentos relacionados ao compositor e regente Fernand Jouteux (Chinon, 1866 – Belo Horizonte, 1956), entregue, em Rochecorbon (França), por familiares desse autor ao musicólogo francês Jean-Michel Vaccaro (1938-1998), por ele oferecido à pesquisadora brasileira Carolina Magalhães (residente na França), e por ela doado à Fundação Centro de Referência Musicológica José Maria Neves (F-CEREM), da Universidade Federal de São João del-Rei (MG). O trabalho inclui um breve histórico e o quadro de arranjo da coleção, com algumas considerações sobre suas particularidades e seu conteúdo.

Palavras-chave. Fernand Jouteux; Música; Coleção Documental; Tratamento arquivístico; Disponibilização.

When conceived as the presence of the past, memory can be said to pervade the music of Maurice Ravel. At first glance, the number and range of these acts of musical memory—including pieces modeled on the Medieval ballade, the Renaissance chanson, the Baroque tombeau, the Classical sonatina, and the Romantic poem, among others—would seem to testify to a smooth relation between past and present. Upon closer review, however, this relation is more problematic than it first appeared. One of the most complex and captivating artistic testaments to what Andreas Huyssen has called ‘twilit memory’—not only in Ravel's music, but in Western modernism as a whole—is the eighth and final waltz of his piano suite Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911). In this waltz, which Ravel entitled ‘Epilogue’, the hope to make the past present is reborn with each of its numerous thematic recollections, only to be dashed repeatedly by the melancholy knowledge of its impossibility. In the course of analysing the Epilogue, we explore affinities between its musical behaviors and philosophical accounts of memory by Bergson, Jankélévitch, and Nora, while also relating it to other memory pieces by Beethoven, Robert Schumann, and Debussy.

Tesi di dottorato (cotutela Università Ca' Foscari, Venezia - Université Paris 8)

L’elaborato si propone di sondare la presenza del saxofono all’interno delle partiture orchestrali francesi e italiane della prima metà del secolo XX, con lo scopo di confermare la legittimità della sua inclusione in pianta stabile fra le fila dell’orchestra. La prima parte della tesi (Teoria. I trattati di strumentazione e di orchestrazione) ha come obiettivo quello di fornire una ricognizione mai effettuata prima d’ora della presenza del saxofono all’interno dei trattati di strumentazione e di orchestrazione sia francesi sia italiani, ma anche di altre nazioni. La seconda (Composizioni francesi) e la terza parte (Composizioni italiane) contemplano la presenza di alcune indagini su compositori che hanno incluso il saxofono all’interno delle loro partiture per orchestra. La scelta dei musicisti e delle composizioni da analizzare è stata fatta sulla base della portata della parte dedicata al saxofono, nonché del peso della singola partitura e del compositore presi in esame.


The aim of this thesis is to investigate the presence of the saxophone in French and Italian orchestral scores, written in the first half of the 20th century, with the purpose of demonstrating the possibility of permanently introducing it in the rows in the orchestra. The first part of the thesis (Teoria. I trattati di strumentazione e di orchestrazione) seeks to produce a reconnaisance (never done so far) of the presence of the saxophone in instrumentation and orchestration treatises, both in Italy and France, but also in other countries. The second section (Composizioni francesi) and the third part (Composizioni italiane) take into consideration some composers who included the saxophone in their orchestral scores. The choice of musicians and composers to be analyzed was made considering the importance of the saxophone’s part, as well as the relevance of the single score and of the composer examined.


La thèse se propose de souligner la présence du saxophone dans les partitions d’orchestre françaises et italiennes de la première moitié du XXe siècle, dans le but de confirmer la possibilité d’intégrer le saxophone à l’orchestre de façon permanente. La première partie de la thèse (Teoria. I trattati di strumentazione e di orchestrazione) a l’objectif de fournir une reconnaissance (jamais effectuée jusqu’à présent) de la présence du saxophone dans les traités d’instrumentation et d’orchestration français comme italiens, mais aussi d’autres pays. La deuxième (Composizioni francesi) et la troisième partie (Composizioni italiane) offrent des recherches sur des compositeurs qui ont placé le saxophone dans leurs partitions d’orchestre. Le choix des musiciens et des compositions à analyser a été fait sur la base de l’importance de la partie du saxophone, ainsi que la portée de la partition et du compositeur pris en examen.

The musical theme of Gabriel Fauré’s “Pavane”—delicate string harmonies woven together through modal sequences—can be easily recognized by most people today. Both connoisseurs of Classical music (and complete strangers to it) can recognize the allure of Fauré’s simple yet compelling orchestrations by ear alone. But its humble, hummable melody and its plucked, sparkling textures are more than merely “enjoyable to the ear.”
With this single piece, Fauré unites the European Classical tradition of Greek fables with the sonic texture of the 1887 Belle-Époque (trans. “Beautiful Era”). And in doing so, the composer Fauré and the poet Montesquieu weave together a cheeky French tone poem that criticizes the social vices of 1887 French excess and incontinence (through stories about Greek mythology).

Le nom du compositeur nancéien Jules-Marie Laure Maugüé demeure absent de la littérature musicologique en langue française, bien que son œuvre – abondante – ait été applaudie aux concerts Lamoureux, Colonne et Straram, ainsi qu’à la Société Nationale de Musique et à la Société Musicale Indépendante. La découverte récente des manuscrits et papiers personnels du musicien à la bibliothèque du Conservatoire Régional du Grand Nancy permet de lever pour la première fois le voile sur cet « homme de goût » dont la musique – aux couleurs chatoyantes – fut favorablement saluée par la critique et estimée par Florent Schmitt et Maurice Ravel.

Le quintette pour cordes et piano est disponible à https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJcPoFxlYEY

Gabriel Fauré fue uno de los compositores más destacados de su tiempo. Así lo describieron sus más allegados. Pero el hecho de componer aislado de la vanguardia y no dotando a su música de una intención revolucionaria, y con una técnica musical, que no era del gusto de todos, hizo que su figura pasara de largo en otras partes de Europa. Sin embargo, en París, llegó a ser uno de los compositores más importantes de finales del siglo XIX, dejando tras su muerte, grandes aportaciones a la música francesa. Una música francesa, que había renacido para imponerse frente a las otras dos corrientes imperantes: Italia y Alemania. Este trabajo pretende situar a Gabriel Fauré en el contexto histórico y así definir su importancia en la historia de la música occidental.
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Gabriel Fauré was one of the most well- known composers of his time. He was described this way by his friends. The fact of composing out the vanguard and not giving his music a revolutionary intention, made his figure passed over in other Europe countries. However, in Paris, he became one of the most important composers at the end of the 19th century, leaving after his death, great contributions to French music. A French music had been reborn to prevail, leading the other two important trends: Italy and Germany. This work pretends to place Gabriel Fauré in the history context and define his value in the Western Music History.

Timbre is doubtlessly one of the main paradigms of Debussy’s music. It is thus obvious to consider timbre research as a promising tool for the analysis of Debussy’s works. Within the scope of this text, this process is exemplified by an analysis of Nuages, the first movement of Debussy’s Nocturnes for orchestra (1897–99). Timbre constellations are investigated by close listening and by implementation of the MIRtoolbox software (developed by Olivier Lartillot and Petri Toi-viainen in 2007). By comparing four different recordings, a close relationship between bars 5–8 and 80–82 of Nuages is revealed. In respect to their properties of sound and harmony, these passages are ambiguous. This might tempt us to call Debussy’s treatment of sound ‘mysterious’ or ‘inscrutable’. It should always be kept in mind, however, that these ambiguities are composed out with the utmost precision. This insight leads to a reflection on questions of form. If we locate and describe specific constellations of timbre and their precisely defined properties, we are able to compare different areas of form that feature similar properties of sound. As a result, we realise that musical elements are not merely juxtaposed in Debussy’s music, but interwoven in a complex fashion. By re-evaluating formal aspects in their relation to timbre, we approach a new perspective of form that is informed by current timbre research.

Long considered to lie ‘light years’ apart, Ravel and Wagner actually have multiple
points of contact. Several appear in the comments Ravel made about the German composer in his articles, interviews and correspondence. Another is a previously unrecognised allusion to Parsifal in the Passacaille of Ravel’s Trio (1914), which he composed shortly after writing a review of the opera’s premiere in Paris. Additional Wagnerisms can be located in Daphnis et Chloe´ (1909–12) and L’Enfant et les sortile`ges (1920–5). More broadly, Wagner plays a central role in the ‘decadent dialectics’ of Ravel’s style.

(Paper in Dutch!) Al in de titels van enkele bekende werken uit Maurice Ravels oeuvre zijn verwijzingen naar Spanje overduidelijk. Onder andere Rapsodie Espagnole, L’Heure Espagnole en Habanera  dragen een zuiders verlangen. Hoewel Ravel heel zijn leven in of nabij Parijs verbleef, werd zijn familiale achtergrond - zijn moeder was Baskisch - een vertrekpunt voor zijn interesse in Spanje. Ondanks de ingewikkelde relatie tussen het Baskenland en Spanje koesterde hij een liefde voor beiden en dat kwam tot uiting in zijn muziek. Tijdens de oriëntalistische belle epoque en in het multiculturele Parijs flirt Ravel met Spaanse ritmes, harmonieën, melodische figuren en verwijzingen naar gitaarstijlen of folklore dansvormen. Deze thesis neemt deze muzikale elementen onder de loep, contextualiseert ze en stelt ze in vraag.

Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Erik Satie each contributed to a page of Picabia’s Dadaist magazine 391, of 1924. Picabia contributed a drawing, Satie a polemical writing, and Man Ray a seemingly abstract poem. Metamorphosis and interpretative simultaneity are both subjects and devices of this three-part collaborative effort. The page involves multiple levels of deliberate codification involving interrelated references to the Arensberg Circle, Satie’s ballet Mercure, Renaissance art of Raphael and Albrecht Dürer, the Morse code, as well as Dadaist and Futurist poetics. The mutative quality of possible interpretations suggests that the page is meant to be understood through multiple, even divergent and simultaneous readings. The resulting interpretative flux recalls Picabia’s own multi-layered approach to painting, which may serve as a model for understanding the operations of this 391 page.

Whether understood as the elevation of material to a higher state of aesthetic being or the redirection of the libido toward socially seemly ends, the concept of sublimation has played a central but underappreciated role in accounts of Ravel and his music over the past century. Similarly, Ravel’s identity as a dandy—who, according to Baudelaire, aspires to be “sublime without interruption”—has been mentioned consistently in biographical appraisals, but never deeply investigated. Incorporating a representation of the dandy’s genesis from the sublimation of desire, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé (1909–1912) offers the analyst an excellent opportunity to examine both entities in depth while also broaching
a variety of related topics: repression, queer sexuality, camp aesthetics, contemporary musical politics (dandyism versus d’Indyism), and theories of autobiography.

Compte-rendu. Après une présentation générale de l'ouvrage "Chanter, rire et résister à Ravensbrück. Autour de Germaine Tillion et du Verfügbar aux Enfers" (dont la direction scientifique est assurée par Philippe Despoix, Marie-Hélène Benoit-Otis, Djemaa Maazouzi et Cécile Quesney), on en propose une critique centrée sur la question de l'usage de la partition dans l'étude des musiques non notées (dont le Verfügbar aux Enfers est un exemple). On propose deux analyses de chansons tirées de l'oeuvre de Tillion et de ses compagnes de déportation. Ces analyses sont basées sur une transcription des airs. Elles illustrent les phénomènes affectifs, poétiques et éthiques que l'approche notée de cette musique permet de mettre en lumière.

Claude Debussy and Vincent d’Indy are usually considered as leaders of two opposite camps in French music after 1900. However, both composers participated in the same cultural movement that tried to gain new artistic inspiration by referring to medieval models, e.g. Gregorian
chant, modal scales and the metaphor of the gothic cathedral. Admittedly, the intentions and results of their references to these models differ strongly: Whereas Debussy used them continuously with the aim to develop a new musical language, d’Indy drew upon them only episodically in order to communicate ethic convictions. These differences are shown by means of a comparative analysis of the prelude to Debussy’s opera Pelléas et Mélisande with the third movement of d’Indys Symphony No. 2. Aesthetic statements by the two composers and the main arguments from the controversy between »d’Indystes« and »Debussystes« are also discussed. Finally, the relationship between d’Indy’s idea of the »cyclic principle«
and Debussy’s prelude La Cathédrale engloutie is investigated.

Il vecchio castello is the movement that is most modal amongst all of the pieces gathered in the Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition orchestrated by Maurice Ravel in 1922. In fact, it is known that Musorgsky’s musical painting was intended to depict the scene of a troubadour in the act of singing a song in front of a Medieval castle. As far as the orchestration by Ravel is concerned, the composer assigned the main melody to the alto saxophone. The result is a troubadour with a modern and cutting edge voice. This could be defined an ingenious timbral anachronism: his decision to set an instrument born from the nineteenth-century technological revolution in the mists of Medieval times. Moreover, Ravel’s choice can be seen in the light of musical neo-classicism. First Musorgsky’s and then Ravel’s gaze is turned to the past. Amongst the various cases in which neo-classical precepts are applied, Vinay pulls out that of the ‘evocation of a ‘classical’ season, understood to be a mythical age of purity and linguistic transparency’ . Nevertheless, ‘despite the fact that the motive of inspiration and the stylistic and linguistic peculiarities […] can be seen as typically neoclassical qualities, Ravel’s style absorbs and entirely transfigures the past into the present (for example, in the Tombeau de Couperin), and therefore that sense of fracture which […] is the soul itself of neoclassical music’ cannot be found.  Ravel’s act of ‘absorption and transfiguration’ works perfectly in the case of the ‘traditionalism’ of Il vecchio castello, where the saxophone reinterprets an old idiom with a contemporary voice, rather than creating an element of fracture. In this way, that which could have caused a historical short circuit within the text, becomes instead its showpiece, the choice that makes the difference.

Gustave Doret is the best-known French-speaking Swiss composer. He is nowadays usually associated with the Fêtes des vignerons and regional music. The publication of his correspondence with five French composers (Théodore Dubois, Gustave Charpentier, Henry Février, Florent Schmitt, Jacques Ibert) shows that he was much more than a local musician. This correspondence covers his entire working life from his arrival in Paris at the end of 1887 to his death in Lausanne in 1943. It reveals Doret’s place in Parisian musical life and his relations and friendships with French composers. This correspondence also provides the researcher with information about Dubois, Charpentier, Février, Schmitt, Ibert and musical life in Paris (especially the Concerts d’Harcourt) and in French-speaking Switzerland. By showing a different aspect of Doret’s life and production and underlining the connections between France and French-speaking Switzerland regarding musical life, this article draws attention to the difficulties emanating from a national perspective of musical history.

H.-I. Marrou's "Traité de la musique selon l'esprit de Saint Augustin" (1942) is a useful document about the relationship between 1930s French music and non-conformist culture. His stress on the moral aim of music recalls the claim for a spiritual revolution that informs the spirit of 1930 and Jeune France's manifesto: the reading of Marrou's "Traité" helps us defining the humanistic poetics of music of the '30s, and the historical context mutually explains and justify most of Marrou's thought (otherwise apparently weak).

His thought is in fact developed in the wake of Christian Platonism revised by Augustine, subject to a series of small changes in sight of a better and more relevant moral theology. The philosophical outcome isn't very convincing, both for many appeals to the authority principle, and for frequent contradictions clearly emerging in his arguments. The tension between the fidelity to the doctrine, the attempts to re-read the music from an apologetic viewpoint and the aim to suggest a practical philosophy produces a methodological setback so striking that it represents one of the greater limits of the Treaty.

Marrou's remarks about the relationship between Christianity and ancient philosophy are certainly as interesting as questionable from the point of view of the history of philosophy. He goes so far to correct Augustine himself, especially as regards the Pythagorean influence on his thought, to stress instead a religious component of the music that doesn't seem so evident in the Augustinian analysis.

André Jolivet (1905-1974) has been often described as a 'humanist musician'. What did his humanism consist of and which were its relationships with the historical and social background and with the intellectual and artistic milieu? How did it influence his activity and his musical language? Moreover, was it an isolated phenomenon or a part of a broader movement in thought?
Starting from these questions, this book (the first on Jolivet in Italian) focuses both on the composer and on the contemporary French expressions of humanism, in music and in different cultural fields. Based on a wide number of sources – including the documents and the manuscripts kept in the family archives and in Parisian libraries – and on the analysis of some significant compositions, this book shows that humanism was a deep inner need that directed all of Jolivet's way of composing and his teaching (he was also the founder of a “Centre Français d’Humanisme Musical”). At the same time, musical humanism emerges from this study as a widespread orientation with specific features, shared by most French composers at that time.
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André Jolivet (1905-1974), compositore tra i più significativi del Novecento francese, è stato spesso definito un ‘musicista umanista’. In che cosa consisteva il suo umanesimo, che connessioni aveva con la situazione sociale e storica e con gli ambienti intellettuali e artistici, in che modo ne influenzò l’attività e il linguaggio? Inoltre, si trattava di un fenomeno isolato o era parte di un più ampio movimento di pensiero? A partire da questi interrogativi, il volume intende offrire un contributo originale su Jolivet, il primo in lingua italiana, basandosi su un gran numero di fonti, tra cui i documenti conservati nell’archivio familiare e nelle biblioteche parigine. L’indagine sulla figura e sull’opera di Jolivet, sostanziata dall’esame di alcune partiture di particolare interesse, si coniuga quindi con quella generale sulle manifestazioni umaniste espresse nei diversi ambiti culturali. Il sentire umanista si rivela, in definitiva, un’esigenza interiore che guida l’intero percorso creativo di Jolivet e la sua attività didattica, concretizzatasi, quest’ultima, nell’istituzione di un Centre Français d’Humanisme Musical. Allo stesso tempo, l’umanesimo musicale emerge da questo studio come un orientamento diffuso, con caratteristiche definite, condiviso da larga parte dei compositori francesi.

[EN] "800 mètres" is a “sports drama” born out of the stadium for the stadium, staged at Roland-Garros in 1941 together with Aeschylus’s "The Suppliants". The music for both plays, now lost, was by Arthur Honegger. Inspired by Greek tragedies in both its formal and dramaturgical conception, "800 mètres" is the translation into words, gestures and sounds of the thoughts that André Obey expressed at the time of the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924. Obey has been one of the main actors in the reflection on the relationship between music and sport. In promoting sports among French intellectuals, Obey advocates the birth of an Olympic art and elaborates a rich metaphorical portrait of sport as music. Based on textual, iconographic and sound archival documents,
this article reconstitutes the genesis of "800 mètres", shows how this
drama stages Obey’s philhellenic ideas, and analyzes the complex
musical-dramatic conception of the work.

[FR] "800 mètres" est un « drame sportif » né du stade pour le stade, représenté au Roland-Garros en 1941 en tandem avec "Les Suppliantes" d’Eschyle, avec des musiques d’Arthur Honegger, toutes deux perdues. Inspiré des tragédies grecques par sa conception formelle ainsi que dramaturgique, "800 mètres" est la traduction en mots, gestes et sons des idées formulées par André Obey autour des Jeux olympiques de Paris en 1924. L’un des principaux acteurs de la réflexion sur les rapports
entre la musique et le sport et de la promotion du sport auprès des intellectuels français, Obey préconise la naissance d’un art olympique et élabore un riche portrait métaphorique du sport comme musique. Cet article reconstruit la genèse de "800 mètres", montre comment ce drame met en scène les idées philhelléniques d’Obey, et analyse la conception musico-dramatique complexe de l’oeuvre en se basant sur de documents d’archives textuels, iconographiques et sonores.

Il vecchio castello is the most modal movement in Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, orchestrated by Maurice Ravel in 1922. Musorgsky’s musical painting was intended to depict a troubadour singing in front of a Medieval castle. In his orchestration, Ravel assigned the main melody to the alto saxophone. The result could be termed an ingenious timbral anachronism: an instrument engendered by the nineteenth-century technological revolution set in the mists of Medieval times, which offers up in turn a troubadour with a modern, cutting edge voice. Instead of representing an element of fracture, Ravel’s choice of the saxophone in Il vecchio castello provides a contemporary reinterpretation of an old idiom. Thus, what could have proven a historical short circuit within the text instead becomes its showpiece, the choice that makes the difference.

In Francia, come in altri paesi europei, nel corso del secolo XIX si registra un interesse tangibile per il repertorio musicale folklorico, che inizia a essere raccolto, studiato scientificamente e talvolta inserito all’interno della musica colta. Finora questo procedimento compositivo non è stato considerato un elemento caratterizzante della musica francese, quanto piuttosto delle nazioni limitrofe. Questa “spinta ottocentesca” si protrae lungo il corso di tutta la movimentata Terza Repubblica francese. All’interno di questo quadro nazionale appare curioso che un paese così centralizzato come la Francia non forgi tramite i canti folklorici un repertorio che rappresenti l’intera nazione: nella maggior parte dei casi i musicisti fanno uso all’interno delle loro composizioni di melodie popolari regionali, che ben rappresentano il colore della specifica zona presa in esame, ma le cui caratteristiche non rispecchiano l’intero paese. Il contributo si propone di porre in luce le figure di due compositori che si sono maggiormente dedicate alla riscoperta del patrimonio musicale locale (Déodat de Séverac e Paul Ladmirault), nonché l’influenza di tale repertorio e il suo utilizzo all’interno della musica colta nel corso del vibrante periodo della Terza Repubblica. Verranno pertanto analizzati alcuni dei brani più rappresentativi di tale procedimento compositivo al fine di raggiungere una migliore comprensione del complesso contesto politico-storico-culturale caratterizzato dall’acuirsi dei movimenti nazionalisti e regionalisti.

The expression "École de Paris" (School of Paris) was born in the visual arts community of the 1920s to designate foreign artists living in the French capital. Then applied to music, it was used to indicate realities as different as a group of immigrant composers in Paris in the inter-war period (C. Beck, T. Harsányi, B. Martinů, M. Mihalovici, A. Tansman and A. Cherepnine) and all composers of all periods who have lived at least part of their lives in the City of Light.
An investigation through the press, correspondence, radio broadcasts, scores and scholarly works reconstructs the origins, history and challenges of this versatile label (hence the plural of the title). A new look at the cosmopolitan reality of interwar Paris music is thus offered to the reader: xenophobia, internationalism, the defence of the "genius of race" and fascination for exoticism coexist in discourse and in practice. This book sheds light on the issues surrounding the place occupied by the works of foreign composers in Paris within "French" music, thus offering a new perspective on the history of immigration in France.

In 1907 Maurice Ravel decided to convert into mélodies (typical French genre of songs) five prose works taken from the collection Les Histoires Naturelles written by Jules Renard; the musician’s aim was to say with music what the writer said with words, but from the work emerges a personal interpretation of the texts. This paper studies the musical adaptation of the stories through the analysis of the score and of the cultural context.

The little songs are a distillation of irony and refinement and, because of their apparently banal and prosaic content, they arose scandal at their first performance. Ravel’s animals do not display shallowness in order to outrage the audience, they aim to introduce a new idea of music indifferent to rhetoric and to inauthentic aspirations.

Louis Varney fut un auteur à succès d’opérettes, qui est tombé de nos jours dans l’oubli. Cet article étudie les procédés de comique musical employés par Varney dans son chef-d’œuvre, les Mousquetaires au couvent (1880). En s’appuyant sur les écrits théoriques de Baudelaire et de Bergson, cet essai souligne la variété du comique dans cette opérette : verbal, gestuel, mécanique, hypertrophie musicale, détournement musical, jeu avec des situations topiques du comique musical, superposition de niveaux de lecture. La richesse des réponses musicales proposées par Varney est remarquable et rappelle la valeur d’un artiste qui souffre de la mauvaise réputation de l’opérette française – dépolitisée et passant pour un pur divertissement – des années 1880.