Chapter 30 - Early Music

Summary

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in France a multiplatformed staging ground took shape for a wide variety of undertakings in music composed prior to 1750. Churches, schools, universities, private salons, select societies, major concert halls, and even opera houses became sites for performances of music dating from the Middle Ages to the Baroque. Sometimes, the repertoire of centuries past served as a point of focus for discussions about religion; at other times, it provided a vehicle for unabashedly secular, virtuosic performances. Choral performances in particular could as easily allow talented socialites to exert cultural influence as facilitate bonding among male workers. Through it all, the revival of early music provided the nation with a sense of artistic ancestry that could be summoned to shape notions of a collective musical identity, or even difference. This chapter shows how Debussy intersected with these powerful currents in his music, including his relationship to the music of the Ancien Régime in the form of Rameau.