Through the Spectrum: The New Intimacy in French Music (I)

Extract

The image of French music from the late 18th century to the present day in its European context is less clear in most people's minds, even most French people's minds, than one could reasonably expect. Yet it has a decisive bearing on what one makes of contemporary developments. There are too few names involved, for one thing, and the lines of influence drawn do not always point in the right direction. In particular, historical ascendancy is blurred, not least because too many musicologists who ought to know better base their work on that shakiest of grounds, ‘accepted repertoire’. Manuals repeat uncritically the opinions of Grimm and Rousseau on the shortcomings of le style français without bothering to uncover the influence of Rameau and Armand-Louis Couperin on Schobert – and through him on the young Mozart. Beethoven's ‘heroic’ manner is most often thought to be the outcome of an instinctively ‘romantic temperament’ exploding Viennese classicism from inside, when in fact it was largely prompted by French composers of the revolutionary period such as Méhul and Gossec (something altogether natural in a composer born in the Rhine–Palatinate). The beginning of a new contrapuntal spirit in French music is often credited to Gounod and his discovery of Bach, to detriment of Böely both as composer and performer.