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Publication

Brussels, crossroads of French, Germanic and Russian musical modernism in the interwar period (1919-1940)

Book Contribution - Chapter

In the end of 1920s and the 1930s Brussels became an important centre of musical modernism. For example, the world premieres of Stravinsky’s Psalm Symphony (1930), Prokofiev’s Le joueur (1929) and Alban Bergs Wozzeck in a French translation (1932) serve as testimonies of the city’s high status comparable to other major European centres of modernistic music. Brussels created a unique platform for French, German and Russian modernism.
This research on modernistic music in Brussels between 1919 and 1940, is based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of historical data sources collected and centralized in a relational database with ca. 5.000 records.
Following research questions will be answered. What is the concept or definition of “New or Modern Music” music critics developed in the interwar period? How does this concept evolve? Which international composers are considered as “the leaders of the avant-garde”? Do critics use nationalistic rhetoric?
Belgian critics divide modernistic music of the interwar period into two poles: the Latin and Germanic, with Stravinsky and Schoenberg as the most extreme exponents. Following the cultural elitism of Jean Cocteau in the twenties, most Belgian music critics consider the French culture as superior to the Germanic: the 'decadent' and 'anarchist' Germanic style is giving way to the Latin style (1924) and the German-Austrian supremacy belongs to the past. From 1927 on Belgian critics are more nuanced about the Germanic music: Paul Hindemith, who ‘detoxified' Germanic music (1927) by ‘converting himself’ to the French neoclassicism and Alban Berg (1930) were recognized as very important composers. In 1932 the declared French hegemony of contemporary music was definitively over in Belgium. In 1936 Bela Bartok was considered in Brussels as the new exemplar of the modernistic scene, combining the German expressionism and the French Neo-Classicism.
This is put into a wider context that sketches the general interest in modernist music in Brussels.
Book: Music Criticism 1900-1950
Edition: Music, Criticism & Politics
Series: Music, Criticism, & Politics
Volume: volume 7
Pages: 23-40
Number of pages: 18
ISBN:978-2-503-58072-2
Keywords:musical modernism between the two wars, musical critics, Brussels
  • ORCID: /0000-0002-7322-4588/work/80950911
  • VABB Id: c:vabb:487884