Abstract
The France that Napoleon created has been with us for nearly two centuries. His influence remains pervasive and inescapable throughout every aspect of French life. He modelled the legal system and divided the country into administrative units, each named after a local river and with its prefect whose duty was to keep an eye on the provinces and report to central government in Paris any unrest or conspiracy. Education was reformed and new institutions were created to ensure la carrière ouverte aux talents. The constitution of the Comédie-Française was dictated by the busy emperor at a spare moment during the Moscow campaign, and he found time, between plotting battle positions, to reorganize the Paris Conservatoire. The system of concierges in Paris houses gave him a useful network of spies who kept the police in touch with what was going on. He even laid down the method by which houses in the streets of the capital were to be numbered. As a young man he had written a sentimental novel in the best — or perhaps the worst — tradition of the emergent Romantic movement. He is now known to have composed an opera; it probably followed the model of Paisiello, a composer said to be his favourite musician.
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Notes
S. Mallarmé, Oeuvres complètes, poésie-prose (Paris, 1961), 71, 541–6.
A full discussion of Axël is in the standard biography, A. W. Raitt, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (Oxford, 1981).
Meyerbeer’s contribution to French music and the nature of his influence and achievement have been admirably summed up by M. Cooper, ‘Giacomo Meyerbeer, 1791–1864’, PRMA, xc (1963–4), 97–129 [special issue].
Quoted in C. Malherbe, Auber (Paris, 1911), 23.
Quoted in R. Myers, Emmanuel Chabrier and his Circle (London, 1969), 3.
C. Saint-Saëns, Harmonie et mélodie (Paris, 1885), 224.
C. Saint-Saëns, ‘Le vieux Conservatoire’, in Ecole buissonnnière (Paris, 1913), 39.
C. Saint-Saëns: ‘La Société des Concerts’, in Harmonie et mélodie (Paris, 1885), 189.
Franck and his disciples are exhaustively discussed and assessed in L. Davies, César Franck and his Circle (London, 1970).
Bibliographical Note Historical and cultural background
The standard general history of France is E. Lavisse’s multi-volume Histoire de la France contemporaine (Paris, 1920–22) in which the volume by
C. Seignobos, La révolution de 1848 et l’empire (Paris, 1921), refers specifically to the period, as does the same author’s L’évolution de la troisième république, 1875–1914.
A reliable short history in English is A. Cobban’s A History of Modem France, 3 vols. (London, 1965).
Individual topics and personalities have been treated by the underestimated P. Guedalla, The Second Empire (London, 1922), and by
F. A. Simpson, The Rise of Louis Napoleon (London, 1909).
The most succinct and lapidary survey of French literature remains L. Strachey, Landmarks in French Literature (London, 1912),
though G. L. Lanson, Histoire de la littérature française (Paris, 1902, and subsequent edns.)
is not to be despised, especially when consulted with R. Lalou, Histoire de la littérature française contemporaine, of which the first volume (Paris, 1947) is helpful on the period from 1870.
Music
M. Cooper, French Music from the Death of Berlioz to the Death of Famé (Oxford, 1951), covers part of the period with elegance and scholarship.
A readable general history is P. Landormy’s La musique française de la Marseillaise à la mort de Berlioz (Paris, 1944)
and La musique française de Franck à Debussy (Paris, 1943).
A more critical account is J. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Histoire de la musique française (Paris, 1946),
and the Pléiade Histoire de la musique, ed. R. Manuel, vol.ii (Paris, 1963).
O. Sére’s Musiciens français d’aujourd’hui (Paris, 1911, 1921) groups biographical articles on individual composers with useful bibliographies and work-lists.
P. Lalo’s De Rameau à Ravel: portraits et souvenirs (Paris, 1947) is especially valuable because, as the son of Edouard Lalo, he knew several of the composers about whom he wrote.
The history of musical institutions is well served by L. Rohozinski, Cinquante ans de musique française de 1874 à 1925, 2 vols. (Paris, 1925).
The Opéra is covered, idiosyncratically, by Castil-Blaze in L’Académie impériale de musique de 1645 à 1855, 2 vols. (Paris, 1855).
Later developments are chronicled in C. Dupêchez, Histoire de l’Opéra de Paris, 1875–1980 (Paris, 1985).
C. Nuitter, Le nouvel Opéra (Paris, 1875), is a painstaking account of Napoleon Ill’s new building down to such details as the number of keys (7593) and of steps to the staircases (6319).
S. Wolff, L’Opéra au Palais Gamier de 1875 à 1962 (Paris, 1962), lists full casts and production details of every opera and ballet presented there during the relevant period.
S. Wolffand A. Lejeune, Les quinze salles de l’Opéra (Paris, n.d.), gives a historical survey from early beginnings to the present day. F. Clément and P. Larousse, Dictionnaire lyrique, ou Histoire des opéras (Paris, 1869, 1881, 1897), deals extensively with long-lost operas but should be used with care.
Opera as an artistic and especially a commercial enterprise is well documented in T. Walsh’s Second Empire Opera: the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, 1851–1870 (London, 1981),
K. Pendle, Eugène Scribe and French Opera of the Nineteenth Century (Ann Arbor, 1979), casts light on many dark places.
The most reliable work on the Opéra-Comique is A. Soubies and C. Malherbe, Histoire de l’Opéra-Comique, la seconde Salle Favart, 1840–1860 (Paris, 1892),
while there is a broader history in J. Gourbet, Histoire de l’Opéra-Comique (Paris, 1978).
The lighter stage is exhaustively surveyed by F. Bruyas, Histoire de l’opérette en France, 1855–1965 (Lyons, 1974), and is also treated in Rohozinski, Cinquante ans de musique française.
A great deal of information about contemporary musical activity may be gleaned from F.J. Fétis, Biographie universelle des musiciens, 8 vols. (Paris, 1835); 2 suppl. vols., ed. A. Pougin (Paris, 1878).
Another important source is A. Elwart, Histoire de la Societé des Concerts du Conservatoire impériale de musique (Paris, 1860),
supplemented by A. Dandelot, La Société des Concerts du Conservatoire (Paris, 1923).
Colonne, Lamoureux and their respective organizations are discussed in H. Imbert, Portraits et études (Paris, 1894),
while their rival Pasdeloup figures in A. Elwart, Histoire des concerts populaires (Paris, 1864),
and in A. Jullien, Musique: mélanges d’histoire et de critique (Paris, 1896).
Personal memoirs contain eye-witness accounts and recollections, though the prejudices of the memorialist should-be allowed for, especially in the case of Berlioz and Saint-Saëns. A. Adam’s Souvenirs d’un musicien (Paris, 1857, 1871)
and Derniers souvenirs d’un musicien (Paris, 1857, 1859) are worth attention,
as are Gounod’s posthumous Mémoires d’un artiste (Paris, 1896).
Berlioz’s Mémoires (Paris, 1870) are a classic in their own right and furnish an often hilarious account of Parisian musical life and institutions;
they have been translated into English, in a way that does justice to the wit and verve of the original, by D. Cairns (London, 1969, 2/1970), whose substantial biography of Berlioz is currently underway: vol.i (London, 1989). Saint-Saëns’ Harmonie et mélodie (Paris, 1885),
Portraits et souvenirs (Paris, 1899, 1909) and
Ecole buissonnière (Paris, 1913) paint a vivid picture of musical conditions in Paris during the first four decades of the period.
Biographies and studies of individual composers abound. Meyerbeer is dispatched once and for all by M. Cooper’s indispensable ‘Giacomo Meyerbeer, 1791–1864’, PRMA, xc (1963–4); 97–129.
The following full-length studies are available: C. Malherbe, Auber (Paris, 1911);
G. Faure, Boieldieu, sa vie, son oeuvre, 2 vols. (Paris, 1944–5);
A. Cocquis, Léo Delibes: sa vie et son oeuvre (1836–1891) (Paris, 1957);
A. Pougin, Hérold (Paris, 1906);
H. de Curzon, Ambroise Thomas (Paris, 1921);
V. d’Indy, César Franck (Paris, 1924), is an exercise in hagiography.
More balanced is L. Vallas, La véritable histoire de César Franck, 1822–1890 (Paris, 1955).
L. Davies, César Franck and his Circle (London, 1970), is an enthusiastic collective study with lengthy sections on Chausson, Lekeu, Duparc and d’Indy.
Bizet is best served in English by W. Dean, Bizet (London, 1948, rev. and enlarged 3/1975), and
M. Curtiss, Bizet and his World (New York and London, 1958).
J. Desaymard, E. Chabrier d’après ses lettres: l’homme et l’oeuvre (Paris, 1934), is rewarding reading,
while F. Poulenc’s little book Emmanuel Chabrier (Paris, 1961) is worth its weight in gold since here we have one creative artist’s appreciation of another.
Other background details to the period may be found in J. Harding, Saint-Saëns and his Circle (London, 1965),
Massenet (London, 1970),
Gounod (London, 1975),
Folies de Paris: the Rise and Fall of French Operetta (London, 1979) and
Offenbach (London, 1980).
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© 1991 Granada Group and The Macmillan Press Ltd
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Harding, J. (1991). Paris: Opera Reigns Supreme. In: Samson, J. (eds) The Late Romantic Era. Man & Music. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11300-2_4
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