The Musical Legacy of Wartime France [Hardcover]

For the three forces competing for political authority in France during World War II, music became the site of a cultural battle that reflected the war itself. German occupying authorities promoted German music at the expense of French, while the Vichy administration pursued projects of national renewal through culture. Meanwhile, Resistance networks gradually formed to combat German propaganda while eyeing Vichys efforts with suspicion. InThe Musical Legacy of Wartime France, Leslie A. Sprout explores how each of these forces influenced the composition, performance, and reception of five well-known works: the secret Resistance songs of Francis Poulenc and those of Arthur Honegger; Olivier MessiaensQuartet for the End of Time, composed in a German prisoner of war camp; Maurice Durufl?sRequiem,one of sixty-five pieces commissioned by Vichy between 1940 and 1944; and Igor StravinskysDanses concertantes, which was met at its 1945 Paris premiere with protests that prefigured the aesthetic debates of the early Cold War. Sprout examines not only how these pieces were created and disseminated during and just after the war, but also how and why we still associate these pieces with the stories we tellin textbooks, program notes, liner notes, historical monographs, and biographiesabout music, France, and World War II.

Leslie A. Sproutis Associate Professor of Music at Drew University.

Sprouts book addresses a singular  and singularly compelling  period in modern French history, and does so with a remarkable degree of insight and nuance. It is bound to make an important contribution to twentieth-century music history. Eric Drott, author ofMusic and Elusive Revolution



Leslie A. Sprout has written a sophisticated and nuanced book about the complex realities of French culture under Nazi rule, and the relationships between music and politics. It is also an original and successful lS4