Sounding Nostalgia in Post-World War I Paris
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2019 Sounding Nostalgia In Post-World War I Paris Tristan Paré-Morin University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Recommended Citation Paré-Morin, Tristan, "Sounding Nostalgia In Post-World War I Paris" (2019). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 3399. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3399 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3399 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sounding Nostalgia In Post-World War I Paris Abstract In the years that immediately followed the Armistice of November 11, 1918, Paris was at a turning point in its history: the aftermath of the Great War overlapped with the early stages of what is commonly perceived as a decade of rejuvenation. This transitional period was marked by tension between the preservation (and reconstruction) of a certain prewar heritage and the negation of that heritage through a series of social and cultural innovations. In this dissertation, I examine the intricate role that nostalgia played across various conflicting experiences of sound and music in the cultural institutions and popular media of the city of Paris during that transition to peace, around 1919-1920. I show how artists understood nostalgia as an affective concept and how they employed it as a creative resource that served multiple personal, social, cultural, and national functions. Rather than using the term “nostalgia” as a mere diagnosis of temporal longing, I revert to the capricious definitions of the early twentieth century in order to propose a notion of nostalgia as a set of interconnected forms of longing. Drawing from journalistic and archival sources, histories and theories of nostalgia, and musical and cultural studies of Paris, I interrogate the continuities and discontinuities among the political, economic, and social forces affecting musical nostalgia in the aftermath of a costly, global war. I show that nostalgia was a complex notion engaging a multiplicity of meanings and functions that were experienced and cultivated collectively in a variety of musical activities in the public sphere. Nostalgia not only expressed resistance to change, but also conveyed progress and offered answers to collective debates about postwar memorialization, French national identity, and cultural modernism. The music that I discuss, ranging from concert favorites to unpublished songs, demonstrates that genres and venues usually studied separately were informed by similar struggles in defining their continuing eler vance in a new era. This music also sheds light on the interconnectedness of apparently distinct markets for nostalgia and how they intersected with civic life, politics, urbanism and nationalism. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Music First Advisor Jeffrey Kallberg Keywords cultural studies, First World War, French music, modernism, nostalgia This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3399 SOUNDING NOSTALGIA IN POST-WORLD WAR I PARIS Tristan Paré-Morin A DISSERTATION in Music Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2019 Supervisor of Dissertation _________________________ Jeffrey Kallberg William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Music Graduate Group Chairperson _________________________ Timothy Rommen, Davidson Kennedy Professor in the College, Department of Music and Africana Studies Dissertation Committee Kevin M.F. Platt, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Humanities, Department of Russian and East European Studies Naomi Waltham-Smith, Associate Professor, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to my advisor, Jeffrey Kallberg, and to my dissertation committee, Naomi Waltham-Smith and Kevin M.F. Platt, for their guidance and support over the years. I am also thankful to the University of Pennsylvania music faculty and staff for their interest in my work and for their excellent intellectual and administrative support. I would especially like to thank Timothy Rommen for spearheading dissertation workshops and for allowing me to present my work as it progressed. This dissertation is the result of interactions with dozens of scholars, colleagues, and librarians in the United States and in France. I am grateful for their assistance in my research and for their feedback at its various stages. My research was facilitated by generous funding from the University of Pennsylvania and by a Chateaubriand Fellowship in the Humanities and Social Sciences. For this financial support, I would like to thank the Department of Music at the University of Pennsylvania and the Institut de recherche sur le patrimoine musical en France at the Université Paris Sorbonne, where Gilles Demonet kindly supported my work. There are many friends with whom I shared the ups and downs of doctoral life. I am indebted above all to my friends Charlie Shrader and Daniel Shapiro. Their astonishing insight into my clumsy first drafts was as invaluable as their generous friendship. My deepest thanks also to Meagan Mason, a discerning flâneuse and the finest salonnière in Paris. Thanks to Siel Agugliaro, Juan Castrillón, Keisuke Yamada, and Bo kyung Blenda Im for questioning my ideas and challenging my conclusions. None of this would have been possible without the continuing love and encouragement of my family at every step of this journey. This dissertation is for them in recognition of all the things they did to help me pursue my dreams. Finally, to my wife Jennifer, I owe more than I can express. Her patience during my hours of work late at night, her shared excitement at my evolving ideas, and her unwavering faith in my project were a constant source of motivation and inspiration. iii ABSTRACT SOUNDING NOSTALGIA IN POST-WORLD WAR I PARIS Tristan Paré-Morin Jeffrey Kallberg In the years that immediately followed the Armistice of November 11, 1918, Paris was at a turning point in its history: the aftermath of the Great War overlapped with the early stages of what is commonly perceived as a decade of rejuvenation. This transitional period was marked by tension between the preservation (and reconstruction) of a certain prewar heritage and the negation of that heritage through a series of social and cultural innovations. In this dissertation, I examine the intricate role that nostalgia played across various conflicting experiences of sound and music in the cultural institutions and popular media of the city of Paris during that transition to peace, around 1919-1920. I show how artists understood nostalgia as an affective concept and how they employed it as a creative resource that served multiple personal, social, cultural, and national functions. Rather than using the term “nostalgia” as a mere diagnosis of temporal longing, I revert to the capricious definitions of the early twentieth century in order to propose a notion of nostalgia as a set of interconnected forms of longing. Drawing from journalistic and archival sources, histories and theories of nostalgia, and musical and cultural studies of Paris, I interrogate the continuities and discontinuities among the political, economic, and social forces affecting musical nostalgia in the aftermath of a costly, global war. I show that nostalgia was a complex notion engaging a multiplicity of meanings and functions that were experienced and cultivated collectively in a variety of musical activities in the public sphere. Nostalgia not only expressed resistance to change, but also conveyed progress and offered answers to collective debates about postwar memorialization, French national identity, and cultural modernism. The music that I discuss, ranging from concert favorites to unpublished songs, demonstrates that genres and venues usually studied separately iv were informed by similar struggles in defining their continuing relevance in a new era. This music also sheds light on the interconnectedness of apparently distinct markets for nostalgia and how they intersected with civic life, politics, urbanism and nationalism. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................... ii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. vi Preface ............................................................................................................................................. x Chapter 1: The Sounds of Nostalgia ............................................................................................. 1 1.1: Drifting Nostalgias ....................................................................................................... 1 1.2: Mapping Nostalgias ................................................................................................... 17 1.3: Sounding Nostalgias .................................................................................................. 38 1.4: Parisian Nostalgias