Thanks for the review! I did know Fauré's music the commercial classical music station that I listed to as a teenager liked to play his beautiful Sicilienne as part of their regular repertoire. Oh, and they also played the Dolly suite, which I've also heard live at an Arts First recital. And I'm pretty sure I've heard the Requieum but can't recall it specifically. But I knew almost nothing about his life as a composer despite being a bit of a classical music history nerd (with a focus on the Mendelssohn family and women composers).
The whole German/French musical dichotomy seems to be something that is very much present as a concept throughout the 19th century but also seems to be culturally important in the musical world later on, just because of the way that traditions gets passed on from teacher to student. I've heard that one reason that women composers didn't make it into the standard musical canon was because the German musical tradition ultimately dominated in shaping the canon, and it had fewer active women composers. I suspect one reason why German music had more influence in the US was because of refugees from Nazi Germany, who rejected German nationalism for a broader message about the universality of classical music, but still brought the German musical tradition with them.
But going back to the 19th century, German nationalism was very much a thing that predated Germany as a country. In her book Magnificent Rebels about German Romanticism, Andrea Wulf mentions Madame de Staël's 1813 book De L'Allemagne as being influential -- of course this is also an indication of German influence on French culture, but it's also part of forming a distinct national identity ("look, the German-speaking world has all this culture, we should have a Francophone culture too!" Really a lot of the early 19th century nationalism makes me think of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and its emphasis on English magic.) And post-Napoleon (in 1815), the German confederation became a political entity, though ultimately not a successful one. And German nationalism only becomes more of a thing through the first half of the 19th century, e.g. the original text for the Mendelssohn tune that we now know as "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" is
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Thanks for the review! I did know Fauré's music the commercial classical music station that I listed to as a teenager liked to play his beautiful Sicilienne as part of their regular repertoire. Oh, and they also played the Dolly suite, which I've also heard live at an Arts First recital. And I'm pretty sure I've heard the Requieum but can't recall it specifically. But I knew almost nothing about his life as a composer despite being a bit of a classical music history nerd (with a focus on the Mendelssohn family and women composers).
The whole German/French musical dichotomy seems to be something that is very much present as a concept throughout the 19th century but also seems to be culturally important in the musical world later on, just because of the way that traditions gets passed on from teacher to student. I've heard that one reason that women composers didn't make it into the standard musical canon was because the German musical tradition ultimately dominated in shaping the canon, and it had fewer active women composers. I suspect one reason why German music had more influence in the US was because of refugees from Nazi Germany, who rejected German nationalism for a broader message about the universality of classical music, but still brought the German musical tradition with them.
But going back to the 19th century, German nationalism was very much a thing that predated Germany as a country. In her book <i>Magnificent Rebels</i> about German Romanticism, Andrea Wulf mentions Madame de Staël's 1813 book <i>De L'Allemagne</i> as being influential -- of course this is also an indication of German influence on French culture, but it's also part of forming a distinct national identity ("look, the German-speaking world has all this culture, we should have a Francophone culture too!" Really a lot of the early 19th century nationalism makes me think of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and its emphasis on English magic.) And post-Napoleon (in 1815), the German confederation became a political entity, though ultimately not a successful one. And German nationalism only becomes more of a thing through the first half of the 19th century, e.g. the original text for the Mendelssohn tune that we now know as "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" is <a href = "about how great it is to be living in the land where Gutenberg was born</a>; and likewise "Deutschland über alles" was written in 1841 as a call for the German states to unify. And then 1848 happened and everyone in Europe got to be nationalist and have a revolution.
Back in the spring I read and reviewed <a href= "https://landofnowhere.dreamwidth.org/110839.html">the memoirs of Louise Héritte-Viardot</a>, a contemporary of Fauré and a member of the fascinating Viardot-Garcia family who no doubt was mentioned in your book -- I see that Fauré was briefly engaged to Louise's younger sister Marianne, who doesn't really appear in Louise's memoirs because she was still a child when Louise married. I just checked and Fauré doesn't get any individual mention in there, so probably he and Louise didn't get along. Anyway, Héritte-Viardot reflects both on the contingencies that affected her career, as you mention, and on the structural barriers. She took a different path from Fauré, being entirely self-taught; also having the privilege of coming from a large musical family, but not the entire support of the family. As a teenager she wrote a cantata which she submitted to an anonymous prize competition; she heard later that her work was a contender until someone who recognized her style said that they couldn't give the prize to a woman. At the same time, she wrote another cantata that was performed privately to a group of musical elites who (according to her) received it positively, but then couldn't get funding to produce it (her family being unwilling to put up the money). And then in frustration she married a diplomat and moved to South Africa, and only restarted composing after first her marriage and then her voice failed... but she muses on how she could have had a great career if she'd only caught an early break, and complains about the musical world being too cliquish. (It's frustrating that the main source we have on Louise is her own memoirs; it seems like she was largely dismissed as a woman/nepo baby, but on the other hand she did get some pieces published/performed.)
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Date: 2025-09-23 03:03 am (UTC)The whole German/French musical dichotomy seems to be something that is very much present as a concept throughout the 19th century but also seems to be culturally important in the musical world later on, just because of the way that traditions gets passed on from teacher to student. I've heard that one reason that women composers didn't make it into the standard musical canon was because the German musical tradition ultimately dominated in shaping the canon, and it had fewer active women composers. I suspect one reason why German music had more influence in the US was because of refugees from Nazi Germany, who rejected German nationalism for a broader message about the universality of classical music, but still brought the German musical tradition with them.
But going back to the 19th century, German nationalism was very much a thing that predated Germany as a country. In her book Magnificent Rebels about German Romanticism, Andrea Wulf mentions Madame de Staël's 1813 book De L'Allemagne as being influential -- of course this is also an indication of German influence on French culture, but it's also part of forming a distinct national identity ("look, the German-speaking world has all this culture, we should have a Francophone culture too!" Really a lot of the early 19th century nationalism makes me think of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and its emphasis on English magic.) And post-Napoleon (in 1815), the German confederation became a political entity, though ultimately not a successful one. And German nationalism only becomes more of a thing through the first half of the 19th century, e.g. the original text for the Mendelssohn tune that we now know as "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" is
The whole German/French musical dichotomy seems to be something that is very much present as a concept throughout the 19th century but also seems to be culturally important in the musical world later on, just because of the way that traditions gets passed on from teacher to student. I've heard that one reason that women composers didn't make it into the standard musical canon was because the German musical tradition ultimately dominated in shaping the canon, and it had fewer active women composers. I suspect one reason why German music had more influence in the US was because of refugees from Nazi Germany, who rejected German nationalism for a broader message about the universality of classical music, but still brought the German musical tradition with them.
But going back to the 19th century, German nationalism was very much a thing that predated Germany as a country. In her book <i>Magnificent Rebels</i> about German Romanticism, Andrea Wulf mentions Madame de Staël's 1813 book <i>De L'Allemagne</i> as being influential -- of course this is also an indication of German influence on French culture, but it's also part of forming a distinct national identity ("look, the German-speaking world has all this culture, we should have a Francophone culture too!" Really a lot of the early 19th century nationalism makes me think of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and its emphasis on English magic.) And post-Napoleon (in 1815), the German confederation became a political entity, though ultimately not a successful one. And German nationalism only becomes more of a thing through the first half of the 19th century, e.g. the original text for the Mendelssohn tune that we now know as "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" is <a href = "about how great it is to be living in the land where Gutenberg was born</a>; and likewise "Deutschland über alles" was written in 1841 as a call for the German states to unify. And then 1848 happened and everyone in Europe got to be nationalist and have a revolution.
Back in the spring I read and reviewed <a href= "https://landofnowhere.dreamwidth.org/110839.html">the memoirs of Louise Héritte-Viardot</a>, a contemporary of Fauré and a member of the fascinating Viardot-Garcia family who no doubt was mentioned in your book -- I see that Fauré was briefly engaged to Louise's younger sister Marianne, who doesn't really appear in Louise's memoirs because she was still a child when Louise married. I just checked and Fauré doesn't get any individual mention in there, so probably he and Louise didn't get along. Anyway, Héritte-Viardot reflects both on the contingencies that affected her career, as you mention, and on the structural barriers. She took a different path from Fauré, being entirely self-taught; also having the privilege of coming from a large musical family, but not the entire support of the family. As a teenager she wrote a cantata which she submitted to an anonymous prize competition; she heard later that her work was a contender until someone who recognized her style said that they couldn't give the prize to a woman. At the same time, she wrote another cantata that was performed privately to a group of musical elites who (according to her) received it positively, but then couldn't get funding to produce it (her family being unwilling to put up the money). And then in frustration she married a diplomat and moved to South Africa, and only restarted composing after first her marriage and then her voice failed... but she muses on how she could have had a great career if she'd only caught an early break, and complains about the musical world being too cliquish. (It's frustrating that the main source we have on Louise is her own memoirs; it seems like she was largely dismissed as a woman/nepo baby, but on the other hand she did get some pieces published/performed.)