Reflecting the Public Appetite in Text and Music
Reflecting the Public Appetite in Text and Music
Debussy’s Act of Wartime Propaganda
Claude Debussy’s final works were written under the twin shadows of terminal illness and World War I. In response to the latter, he emphasized his stature as a “musicien français” and used quotation and paratexts to challenge the boundaries of abstract music. Noël des enfants qui n’ont plus de maison, a work often dismissed as blatant propaganda, stands out for its lack of discretion in text and music. The reception of the performance of Noël at charity concerts and at a concert organized by Jane Bathori confirms both its contemporaneous importance and its ambiguous place in Debussy’s music and thought. Reframing that work in the context of the Great War facilitates a reconsideration of the whole of Debussy’s wartime compositions.
Keywords: World War I, France, musical response, Claude Debussy, Noël des enfants, propaganda, quotation, Paratexts, performance, Jane Bathori
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