The Repertoires and Canons of French and British Symphony Orchestras (1967- 2019)
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Bols, Ingrid (2020) Programming choices and national culture: The repertoires and canons of French and British Symphony Orchestras (1967- 2019). PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/82165/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Programming Choices and National Culture: The Repertoires and Canons of French and British Symphony Orchestras (1967-2019) Ingrid Bols Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Culture and Creative Arts College of Arts University of Glasgow September 2020 Abstract This thesis provides the first contemporary analysis of orchestral programming in Britain and in France, highlighting stable trends and transformations within concert canons over the past five decades. It presents the first sustained international comparison of contemporary orchestral canons and challenges the universalist approach of the Western musical canon. It examines the national differences between concert canons of French and British symphony orchestras from the mid-1960s onwards, based on four main case examples: the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Paris Orchestra and Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra. The main results show that canons do not only differ based on the old concept of national preference for local repertoire (developed by Vaughan Williams among others) but present more complex canonisation processes which impact foreign repertoire too. This thesis shows the significance of the original context of integration of a repertoire on its persistence in the canon, such as the early- twentieth-century critics using landscape metaphors for Nordic music (Sibelius, Nielsen), the Cold war for twentieth-century Russian music (Prokofiev, Shostakovich) and the tastes of intellectual circles for Second Viennese School music (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern). Furthermore, the research shows that, in addition to different proportions of certain repertoires in orchestral seasons, programming practices such as the pairing of different pieces for the same concert and its presentation to the audience significantly vary. Finally, the role of orchestras within their society, based on cultural policies and deep societal trends has an impact on the repertoire considered as valuable. The case of the integration of film and video game music in concert halls illustrates the difference between French and British cultural systems. 2 Table of contents Abstract ...................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements ......................................................................... 7 Abbreviations .............................................................................. 10 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.............................................................. 11 Research questions ..................................................................... 15 Canons and repertoires ................................................................ 16 Prestige, cultural and symbolic capital .............................................. 26 Nation making ........................................................................... 29 Cultural policies ...................................................................... 31 Economic systems .................................................................... 35 Orchestra players and administrators ............................................. 38 Political and financial context ........................................................ 39 Methodology ............................................................................. 44 London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) ................................................ 49 Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) ........................................ 53 Paris Orchestra (OP) ................................................................. 57 Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra (OPS) ........................................ 61 Thesis plan ............................................................................... 65 CHAPTER 2: FRENCH AND BRITISH MUSIC, NATIONAL CANONS AND NATIONAL MUSIC ........................................................................................ 67 A case of identity: Frenchness and Britishness ..................................... 69 Case study 1: British music and the idea of universality .......................... 73 Heritage in contemporary concert programmes ................................. 75 French music in the database ...................................................... 80 Case study 2: Claude Debussy ......................................................... 82 Debussy today, the centenary celebrations in 2018 ............................ 83 3 Contextual investigation: French cultural policies .............................. 85 Programming practices around Debussy .......................................... 88 Case study 3: Olivier Messiaen ........................................................ 94 Governments, orchestras and foundations ....................................... 95 Conductors and musicians .......................................................... 98 Reception and newspapers ......................................................... 99 Conclusion .............................................................................. 107 CHAPTER 3: NORDIC MUSIC .............................................................. 110 Case study 4: Jean Sibelius ........................................................... 116 Contextual investigation: British obsession and French curiosity of the 1930s ......................................................................................... 120 The support of recent conductors ................................................ 125 Swans, snow, Finns and motivic development: the discourses around Sibelius ......................................................................................... 128 Sibelius in recent programmes .................................................... 134 Case study 5: Carl Nielsen ............................................................ 136 Contextual investigation: a belated surge in interest ......................... 136 The British support for Nielsen .................................................... 144 Nielsen today, a revival ............................................................ 146 Conclusion .............................................................................. 148 CHAPTER 4: TWENTIETH-CENTURY RUSSIAN MUSIC.................................. 150 A case of identity: Russianness ...................................................... 153 Is Stravinsky Russian enough? ..................................................... 156 Russian music in the repertoires of orchestras .................................... 158 Contextual investigation: new music and symbolic capital, Russian music and the émigrés of the Cold War ......................................................... 161 Case study 6: Mstislav Rostropovich, growing a legend and building a canon 167 Shostakovich in London and Haydn in Paris ..................................... 171 4 Case study 7: Valery Gergiev and ‘Soviet’ music after the Fall of the Berlin Wall ...................................................................................... 177 Gergiev’s repertoire ................................................................ 178 Contextual investigation: Russian émigrés, festivals and the Alsatian performing canon ................................................................... 183 Conclusion .............................................................................. 186 CHAPTER 5: THE SECOND VIENNESE SCHOOL ......................................... 188 Contextual investigation: Wood, Clark, Deutsch and Leibowitz before 1945 . 191 Case study 8: The Second Viennese School and Pierre Boulez .................. 200 Database analysis ................................................................... 200 Conclusion .............................................................................. 209 CHAPTER 6: SCREEN MUSIC, HIGH CULTURE AND MASS ENTERTAINMENT ........ 211 Case study 9: performing film music, the economic and cultural systems of production .............................................................................. 217 Database analysis: the film industry, contextual reasons for a British success ......................................................................................... 220 Contextual investigation: cultural capital and the fields of cultural production ........................................................................... 226 Conclusion ............................................................................ 229 Case study 10: video games in concert halls, the opposition of high-culture and mass entertainment ................................................................... 231 Contextual investigation: