History of music in Paris

The city of

In the

A second important music school was established at the Sainte-Chapelle, the royal chapel on the Île de la Cité. Its choir had twenty-five persons, both men and boys, who were taught chanting and vocal techniques. The music of the religious schools became popular outside the churches; the melodies of chants were adapted for popular songs, and sometimes popular song melodies were adapted for church use.^[2]

Prior to the ninth century there were no written manuscripts of liturgy related to music. The Gallic music of the churches of Gaul was replaced by the plain songs traced to Rome.^[3]

In the late 12th century, a school of

One of the most famous composers of the 14th century was Guillaume de Machaut, who was also renowned as a poet. A canon at Notre-Dame de Reims, he composed a famous mass, the Messe de Nostre Dame, or Mass of our Lady, in about 1350, for four voices. Some of his motets use texts by Philip the Chancellor. Besides church music, he wrote popular songs in the style of the troubadours and trouvères.^[7]

Street singers and minstrels

The crowds on the streets, squares and markets of Paris were often entertained by singers of different kinds. The

The Menestrels, (Minstrels), were usually street singers who had established a more professional means of living, entertaining in the palaces or residences of noble and wealthy Parisians. In 1321, thirty-seven minstrels and jongleurs formed a professional guild, the Confrérie de Saint-Julien des ménétriers, the first union of musicians in Paris. Most of them played instruments: the violin, flute, hautbois, or tambourine. They played at celebrations, weddings, meetings, holiday events, and royal celebrations and processions. By their statutes enacted in 1341, no musician could play on the streets without their permission. In order to become a member, a musician had to be an apprentice for six years. At the end of the six years, the apprentice had to audition for a jury of master musicians. By 1407, the rules of the Confrérie were applied to all of France.^[8]

Musicians were also an important part of court life. The court of Queen Anne of Brittany, wife of Charles VIII of France, in 1493 included three well-known composers of the period: Antonius Divitis, Jean Mouton, and Claudin de Sermisy, as well as a tambourine player, a lute player, two singers, a player of the rebec (a three-stringed instrument like a violin), an organist, and a player of the manichordion, as well as three minstrels from Brittany.^[9]

Music of Renaissance Paris (16th century)

At the death of Charles VI in Paris in 1422, during the devastating Hundred Years' War which ended in 1453, the city had been occupied by the English and their Burgundian allies since 1418. The new (disinherited) French king, Charles VII, had his court established in Bourges, south of the Loire Valley, and did not return to his capital before liberating it in 1436. His successors chose to live in the Loire Valley, and rarely visited Paris. However, in 1515, after his coronation in Reims, king Francis I made his grand entrance in Paris and, in 1528, announced his intention to return the royal court there, and began reconstructing the Louvre as the royal residence in the capital. He also imported the Renaissance musical styles from Italy, and recruited the best musicians and composers in France for his court. La Musique de la Grande Écurie ("Music of the Great Stable") was organized in 1515 to perform at royal ceremonies outdoors. It featured haut, or loud instruments, including trumpets, fifes, cornets, drums, and later, violins. A second ensemble, La musique de la Chambre du Roi ("Music of the King's Chamber") was formed in 1530, with bas or quieter instruments, including violas, flutes and lutes. A third ensemble, the oldest, the Chapelle royale, which performed at religious services and ceremonies, was also reformed on Renaissance models.^[10]

Another important revolution in music was brought about by the invention of the printing press; the first printed book of music was made in 1501 in Venice. The first printed book of music in France was made in Paris by Pierre Attaingnant; his printing house became the royal musical house in 1538. After his death, Robert Ballard became the royal music printer. Ballard established a shop in Paris in 1551. The most popular musical instrument for wealthy Parisians to play was the lute, and Ballard produced dozens of books of lute songs and airs, as well as music books for masses and motets, and pieces from Italy and Spain.^[11]

The most popular genre in Paris was the chanson: hundreds of them were written on love, work, battles, religion, and nature. Mary, Queen of Scots and wife of king Francis II wrote a song of mourning for the loss of her husband, and French poets, including Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay, had their sonnets and odes put to music. The most popular composers of songs included Clément Janequin, who wrote some two hundred and fifty pieces, and became Court composer, and Pierre Certon, who was a cleric at the Sainte-Chapelle while he wrote some three hundred chansons, ranging from religious and courtly music to popular melodies, such as the famous Sur le Pont d'Avignon. In the second part of the century, a variation of the chanson, the air de cour or simply air (melody), became popular. Airs were lighter in subject, and were accompanied by a lute. They became immensely popular in Paris.^[12]

The Reformation and religious music

The movement of

Music and the first theater companies

The beginning of the 16th century saw the first

The Renaissance saw a great increase in the number and quality of musical instruments: the harp, violin and flute were produced with many new variations, the seven-string guitar appeared, and the lute, which was based on the oud, an Arab instrument brought to the Iberian Peninsula during the Moorish invasions. The trumpet evolved to something similar to its present form. Powerful organs were built for Paris churches, as well as smaller portable organs and the clavichord, ancestor of the piano. The lute, most often used to accompany songs, became the instrument of choice for minstrels and musically inclined aristocrats. In 1597, there were so many different instrument-makers in Paris that they, like the minstrels, were organized into a guild, which required six years of apprenticeship and the presentation of a master-work to be accepted as a full member.^[15]

Dance and ballet

Dance was also an important part of court life. The first French book of dance music was published in 1531 in Paris, with the title: "Fourteen gaillardes, nine pavanes, seven branles and two basses-danses". These French dance books, called Danceries, were circulated all over Europe. The names of the composers were rarely credited, with the exception of Jean d'Estrée,^[16] a member of the royal orchestra, who published four books of his dances in Paris between 1559 and 1574.

At the end of the 16th century, the ballet became popular at the French court. Ballets were performed to celebrate weddings and other special occasions. The first performance of Circé by Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx was performed at the Louvre Palace on September 24, 1581, to celebrate the wedding of Anne de Joyeuse, a royal favourite of Henry III, with Marguerite de Vaudémont.^[17] Ballets at the French royal court combined elaborate costumes, dance, singing, and comedy. During the reign of Henry IV, ballets were often comic or exotic works; those performed during his reign included "The Ballet of the fools", "The Ballet of the drunkards", "The Ballet of the Turks", and "The Ballet of the Indians".^[18]

17th century - royal court music, ballet and opera

In the 17th century, music played an important part at the French royal court; there was no day without music.

In the families of the nobles and the wealthy, children were taught to sing and to play musical instruments, such as harp, flute, guitar, and harpsichord, either in the convent schools, or at home with private tutors. Louis XIV established the Royal Academy of Music (Académie royale de musique) in 1672, and commissioned Lully to create a music school, but a school for opera singers in Paris was not opened until 1714, and its quality was very poor; it closed in 1784.[21] One notable music teacher and composer was Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, Louis XIV's harpsichord teacher, whose compositions established the French school of harpsichord music.

The Air de Cour, or Court Air, became very popular in the early 17th century, during the reign of Louis XIII, both at the royal court and in the palaces of the nobility and the wealthy. It was designed to be sung in a large room (

Cardinal Mazarin, raised in Rome, was an enthusiastic supporter of Italian culture and imported Italian painters, architects and musicians to work in Paris. In 1644, he invited the castrato Atto Melani to Paris, along with his brother Jacopo Melani and the Florentine singer Francesca Costa, and introduced the Italian singing style to the French capital. The Italian style was much different than the French style of the day; voices were stronger and the singing expressed stronger emotions, rather than the finesse of the classical French style.^[23] The first Italian opera to be performed in Paris was a comédie italienne (which may have been Marco Marazzoli's Il Giudizio della Ragione tra la Beltà e l'Affetto (1643), although this has been disputed) at the Palais-Royal on February 28, 1645,^[24] followed by Francesco Sacrati's La finta pazza in December of that year and in 1647 by the more famous Orfeo of Luigi Rossi at the Petit-Bourbon next to the Louvre.^[25]

The debut of Italian opera in Paris had exactly the opposite effect that Mazarin desired. As Parisian audiences were not prepared for a theatrical work that was entirely sung, the Cardinal was denounced and ridiculed by Parisian streets singers and pamphlets called mazarinades for spending a fortune on opera decoration and bringing Italian castrati and singers to Paris. Furthermore, during the disorders of the

The efforts to create a French opera continued. The poet

Seeing the success of Perrin's work, the official court composer, Lully, moved quickly; he persuaded the royal government to issue a decree banning any theatrical performances with more than two songs or two instruments without Lully's written permission. On November 15, 1672, he opened his own opera house in the Salle du Bel-Air. He also demanded and received from the king the exclusive rights to use the theater of the Palais-Royal, until then used by the theater company of Molière, giving him control over any and all musical performances in Paris. He presented a new opera each year, entirely funded by the royal treasury. In April 1673, he premiered Cadmus et Hermione, the first French opera in the lyric-tragedy form. This form, which dominated French opera for the next two centuries, but was rarely exported, featured stories based on mythology and ancient heroes. The performances made maximum use of machinery, allowing the creation on stage of storms, monsters, and characters descending or ascending into the heavens. The texts involved recitation of verse in a classical half-spoken, half-sung style, borrowed from Racine and Corneille, with a vocal range of an octave, words mingled with sighs, exclamations and vibrato. The works included not only singing, but also dance. The operas were all dedicated to the glory of the Sun King: in the dedication of Armide, Lully wrote: "All of the praises of Paris are not enough for me; it is only to you, Sire, that I want to consecrate all the productions of my genius."^[27]

After 1672, Louis XIV no longer lived in Paris, preferring the royal residences of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Chambord, Fontainebleau, and finally Versailles where he and the court moved permanently in 1682. The royal musicians and opera singers went with him, and Versailles, not Paris, became the center of French musical life.

Ballet

During his residence in Paris, the young Louis XIV was an avid dancer and participant in

• 
  Musicians at home, by Abraham Bosse (about 1632)
• 
  The Pont Neuf was the most popular venue for street singers and musicians (painting by Hendrick Mommers, 1694)
• 
  Tabarin's actors and musicians perform on Place Dauphine (17th century)
• 
  Guillaume de Limoges, the ribald street singer called the "Lame Lothario" on the Pont Neuf (17th century)

The most popular gathering place for street musicians and singers, as well as clowns, acrobats, and poets, was the Pont Neuf, inaugurated by Louis XIII in 1613. All the carriages of the aristocracy and the wealthy crossed the bridge, and since it was the only bridge not lined by houses, there was room for a large audience. Listeners could hear comical songs about current events, romantic poems set to music, and (after 1673), the latest melodies of the court composer, Lully. Philipotte, the "Orpheus of the Pont-Neuf", Duchemin, "The Choir boy of the Pont-Neuf", and the one-legged Guillaume de Limoges, the "Lame Lothario", known for his ribald songs, were famous throughout Paris. The celebrated bateleur Tabarin set up a small stage on Place Dauphine, at the point where the bridge crosses the Île-de-la-CIté; his company presented theater, songs and comedy. Between acts, his business partner sold medicines and ointments.^[32]

The debuts of each of the lyric-tragic operas of Lully were followed almost immediately by parodies performed on the stages at the large outdoor fairs of Paris, at Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent. A large stage was constructed at the Saint-Germain fair in 1678. The Academy of Music moved quickly to have the city ban recitation of text on stage, which was the exclusive right of the Comédie-Française and the Royal Academy of Music. The actors at the fairs responded by writing their dialogue on signs and holding them up, where the audience read them aloud. The singers sometimes also sang with unintelligible words, mimicking the formal court style of Lully's music. The performers at the fairs invented a new style which combined comic songs with satire, and acrobatics, a form which took the name vaudeville.^[32]

The foundation of the Royal Academy of Music in 1672 created a growing gulf between the official musicians of the court and the popular musicians of Paris, who were members of the guild of ménétriers (minstrels), with its own rules and traditions, under their traditional head, the elected "King of the Minstrels". While the guild of minstrels had a monopoly over the music in the streets, Lully, the head of the royal academy, had an ordinance passed which gave academy members the exclusive right to play at balls, serenades, and other public events. Academy members did not have to go through the apprenticeship required to be a member of the minstrels guild. The guild of minstrels brought a lawsuit against François Couperin and all organists of the Paris churches, demanding that they join the minstrels guild. The guild won the lawsuit, but the organists appealed to the Parliament of Paris, which exempted them from the rules of the guild. The guild continued to exist until the Revolution: in 1791, it was quietly dissolved.^[33]

18th century—the opera, the comic opera, and the salons

The musical life of Paris at the beginning of the 18th century was gloomy; the court was at Versailles, and frivolity was officially frowned upon by Louis XIV and his second wife, the Marquise de Maintenon, and the religious party at court. The King's favorite composer, Lully, fell into disgrace because of his unorthodox lifestyle. Musical satires and farces continued to be sung on stages at the fairs, but they were constantly under attack from the Royal Academy of Music, which claimed a monopoly on singing performances. The Théâtre-Italien troupe was forced to leave Paris because of accusations that they made fun of Madame de Maintenon. After the death of the Louis XIV in 1715, the Regent and royal court returned to Paris, and the musical world brightened.

The Opera

The opera continued to create lavish productions of lyrical tragedies, in the style of Lully. In 1749, the management of the opera was transferred from the court to Paris, much to the dismay of city authorities, who had to pay for the huge spectacles. The opera performed at the theater of the Palais-Royal until April 6, 1763, when a fire destroyed that venue. It moved to the Hall of Machines of the Tuileries, then back to the Palais-Royal in 1770 when the theater was rebuilt. It burned down again in 1781. After Lully, the lyric-tragedy style of opera was faithfully maintained by a series of composers, the most prominent of whom was Jean-Philippe Rameau, who arrived in Paris from Dijon in 1723 and premiered his first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie, in 1733. The Mercure de France, the first Paris newspaper, described his music as "manly, harmonious, and of a new character" different from the music of Lully. The musical world of Paris soon divided into Lullyistes and Ramistes (or Rameauneurs, as they were termed by Voltaire). The prolific Rameau produced not only lyrical tragedies, but also opera-ballets, pastorales, and comic ballets.^[34]

By the 1750s, Paris audiences were beginning to tire of the formality, conventions, repetitive themes, mechanical tricks and great length of the lyrical tragedies. In the

Another operatic feud began with the arrival of the German composer

Throughout the 18th century, the stages of the largest fairs, the

Much of the musical activity of the city took place in the salons of the nobility and wealthy Parisians. They sponsored private orchestras, often with a combination of both professional and amateur musicians, commissioned works, and organized concerts of very high quality, often with a mixture of both professional and amateur musicians. Some very wealthy Parisians built small theaters within their homes. In 1764, Louis François, Prince of Conti hosted a reception in his palace where the featured attraction was the ten-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the harpsichord. A musical society was organized by the Marquise de Prie, the mistress of the Duke of Bourbon, which gave concerts of Italian music twice a week at the Louvre. The sixty-odd members who attended paid an annual fee, which went to the musicians. Though private individuals were forbidden to hold concerts without the permission of the Royal Academy of Music, a wealthy Parisian named Monsieur Bouland had a theater within his house on rue Saint-Antoine with a stage for two actors, an orchestra of twenty, and seating for three hundred. The owners of salons invited not only classical musicians, but also popular singers of comic opera from the Paris fairs, such as Pierre Laujon and Charles Collé, who became quite wealthy.

The Masonic movement became immensely popular among the Parisian upper classes; the first lodge opened in Paris in 1736, and had four famous musicians among its first members. By 1742, there were more than twenty, each with its own musical director. One of the most famous concert societies was the Concert Spirituel, created in 1725, which organized public concerts of religious music in Latin, and later Italian and French, in a salon within the Tuileries Palace provided by the King. Attendees at the concerts included queen Marie Antoinette. The society commissioned works of music by important composers, including Haydn and Mozart, who wrote and performed the Symphony n° 31, K. 297/300a, known as the "Paris Symphony", for the Society during his visit to Paris in 1778. In 1763, the society moved to the Hall of Machines, and had an orchestra of fifty-four musicians and vocal ensemble of six sopranos, six tenors, and six basses.^[37]

Popular music and street singers

The most popular venues for popular music, satire, and comic songs continued to be the stages at the major fairs, where crowds listened to satirical, comical and sentimental songs, though they were only open part of the year. In 1742, the royal government decided that the street singers on the Pont-Neuf were a public nuisance, and were blocking traffic. Only booksellers were allowed to remain, and they had to pay a fee to the royal government. The street and popular musicians migrated across town to the Boulevard du Temple, a wide street with vestiges of the old city walls on one side, and houses on the other. In 1753, the city authorized the construction of cafés and theaters, at first made of canvas and wood, along the boulevard; and the boulevard quickly became the center of popular theater of Paris, a position it held until the Second Empire.^[38]

Public balls

Public

Patriotic and revolutionary songs gave, as one journal of the period, the Chronique de Paris, wrote, "The national color to the Revolution".

The flight of the aristocracy from Paris had created an enormous number of unemployed musicians and music teachers. However, the growing number of public concerts and ceremonies required a great number of trained musicians, particularly for the orchestra and band of the Garde Nationale, which had been formed in June 1790 to perform at the Festival of the Federation on the Champ de Mars. Bernard Sarrette, a captain of the National Guard, founded a school to train eighty young musicians, who at first were taught only wind instruments. The first national music school in France, it was given the name the Institut national de Musique. The teachers were leading musicians and composers of the period. The revolutionary Committee of Public Safety (Comité de salut public) instructed the new music school to concentrate on the composition of "civic songs, music for national festivals, theater pieces, military music, all types of music which will inspire in Republicans the sentiments and memories most dear to the Revolution."^[41]

In 1792, the revolutionary government, the National Convention, decided to create a larger and more ambitious school of music, which would teach all instruments and genres of music. It was named the Conservatoire national de musique, using the name "Conservatory", an Italian Renaissance institution much praised by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It became the first music conservatory in France, with 350 students of both sexes from the 83 departments of France of that time. The 115 music teachers were paid by the State. The institute, in the meanwhile, collected the musical instruments and musical libraries of the thousands of aristocrats who had fled France, and stored them in a central depository for the use of students. The Conservatory opened its doors in 1796.^[40]

Musical theater and the opera

Despite the turmoil of the Revolution (or perhaps partly because of it) musical theater thrived during the period. New theaters appeared: the Théâtre du Vaudeville, the Palais-Variétes and the Théâtre Feydeau. The Feydau theater featured both a troupe performing French comic operas, and another performing Italian comedies. A half-dozen new theaters on the Boulevard du Temple, the new theater district of the city, performed vaudeville, pantomime and comic opera. The actress Mademoiselle Montansier opened her own musical theater in the Palais-Royal. The great fair of Saint-Germain, was closed by the Revolution, but a new theater, the Théâtre Lyrique de Saint-Germain, opened on its old site in 1791. Seventy-six new comic operas or vaudeville programs were staged in 1790, and fifty new works in each of the following years. Censorship of theatrical works was abolished in 1791, but this freedom did not last long. In 1793, the Committee of Public Safety decreed that any theater which put on plays "contrary to the spirit of the Revolution" would be closed and its property seized. After this decree, musical works on patriotic and revolutionary themes multiplied in the Paris theaters.^[42]

The opera itself, a symbol of the aristocracy, was officially taken away from the former Royal Academy and given to the city of Paris in 1790. When the Terror began in 1793, one of its two new directors fled abroad, and the second was arrested, and only escaped the guillotine because Robespierre was executed first. Price of tickets was reduced, and special free performances were given for the poor. The program at both the Opera and the Opéra-comique were largely patriotic, republican and sometimes anti-religious. At the same time, operas by Lully and Gluck were still performed, though sometimes new lyrics were added attacking the King and monarchy. In March 1793, in the midst of the terror, Parisians heard their first Mozart opera, The Magic Flute, in French and without the recitatives. The opera was forced to move from its theater at Porte Saint-Martin in 1794 to the Salle Montansier at the Palais-Royal so the government could use the theater for political meetings. The Opera saw its name changed from the Académie royale de musique to the Théátre de l'Opéra (1791), Théátre des Arts (1791), Théátre de la République et des Arts (1797), Théâtre de l'Opéra again in 1802, then, under Napoleon, to the Académie impériale (1804).^[43]

Pleasure gardens, cafés chantants and guinguettes

During the late 18th century, and particularly after the end of the Reign of Terror, Parisians of all classes were in constant search for entertainment. The end of the century saw the opening of the pleasure gardens of Ranelegh, Vauxhall, and Tivoli. These were large private gardens where, in summer, Parisians paid an admission charge and found food, music, dancing, and other amusements, from pantomime to magic lantern shows and fireworks. The admission fee was relatively high; the owners of the gardens wanted to attract a more upper-class clientele and keep out the more boisterous Parisians who thronged the boulevards.

With the closure of the fairs by the 1789 Revolution, the most popular destination for musical entertainment became Palais-Royal. Between 1780 and 1784, the duc de Chartres, (who became the Duke of Orleans in 1785 at the death of his father), rebuilt the garden of the Palais-Royal into a pleasure garden surrounded by wide covered arcades, which were occupied by shops, art galleries, and the first true restaurants in Paris. The basements were occupied by popular cafés with drinks, food and musical entertainment, and the upper floors by rooms for card-playing. The first famous musical café was the Café des Aveugles, which had an orchestra and chorus of blind musicians. In its early days it was popular with visitors to Paris, and also attracted prostitutes, trinket-sellers and pickpockets. Later cafés in the Palais Royal, named cafés chantants, offered musical programs of comic, sentimental and patriotic songs.^[44]

The guinguette was mentioned as early as 1723 in Savary's posthumously published Dictionnaire du commerce. It was a type of tavern located just outside the city limits, where wine and other drinks were much cheaper and taxed less. They were open Sundays and holidays, usually had musicians for dancing, and attracted large crowds of working-class Parisians eager for rest and recreation after the work week. As time went on, guinguettes also attracted middle class Parisians with their families.^[45]

Music during the First Empire (1800-1814)

During the reign of

Napoleon gave eight theaters official status and, to avoid competition to his official theaters, he closed all the others. The Imperial Academy and the Opéra-Comique were at the top of the hierarchy; followed by the Théâtre de lEmpereur, the new Opera buffa of the Théâtre de l'Impératrice, the theater of the Empress, run by Mademoiselle Montansier. Major operas and melodramas were performed at the theater at Porte-Saint-Martin and Opéra-Comique; parodies at the Théâtre du Vaudeville, and rustic comedies at the Théâtre des Variétés. With the signing of the Concordat in 1801 between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII, the churches of Paris were re-opened, and religious music was allowed once more.

Music during the Restoration (1815–1830)

The Opera and the Conservatory

After Napoleon's second abdication at the end of the

The grand rival of the royal opera was the

in 1841.

Rossini continued to produce lavish operas with spectacular sets, rapid pace, the use of unusual instruments (the trombone, cymbals and triangle) and extravagant emotion. He staged

Schiller, which premiered at the Salle Le Peletier on August 3, 1829. Though the famous overture was a success, the public reception for the rest of the opera was cool; the work was criticized for excessive length (four hours), a weak story, and a lack of action. Rossini, deeply wounded by the criticism, retired, at the age of thirty-seven, and never wrote another opera.^[49]

Popular music—the Goguette and the political song

The musical salons of the aristocracy were imitated by a new institution; the

Pierre Jean de Béranger became famous for his songs ridiculing the aristocracy, the established church and the ultra-conservative parliament. He was imprisoned twice for his songs, in 1821 and 1828, which only added to his fame. His supporters around France sent foie gras, fine cheeses and wines to him in prison. The celebrated Paris police chief Eugène François Vidocq sent his men to infiltrate the goguettes and arrest those who sang songs ridiculing the monarch.^[50]

Music in Paris under Louis Philippe (1830-1848)

Public resentment against the Restoration government boiled over in July 1830 with an uprising in the streets of Paris, the departure of King Charles X, and the installation of the

Marseillaise

, which had been forbidden during the First Empire and the Restoration. As Europe was upset by revolutions and repression, many of the finest musicians in the continent came to seek sanctuary in Paris.

The most famous was Frédéric Chopin, who arrived in Paris in September 1831 at the age of twenty-one, and did not return to Congress Poland because of the crushing of the Polish uprising against Russian rule in October 1831. Chopin gave his first concert in Paris at the Salle Pleyel on 26 February 1832, and remained in the city for most of the next eighteen years. He gave just thirty public performances during these years, preferring to give recitals in private salons. On 16 February 1838 and on 2 December 1841,^[51] he played at the Tuileries for King Louis-Philippe and the royal family. (He also gave a recital for the royal family in October 1839 in the Château de Saint-Cloud). He earned his living from commissions given by wealthy patrons, including the wife of James Mayer de Rothschild, from publishing his compositions and giving private lessons. Chopin lived at different addresses in Paris: upon his arrival in September 1831 until 1836, at 27 boulevard Poissonnière, then at 38 rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, and 5 rue Tronchet. He had a ten-year relationship with the writer George Sand between 1837 and 1847. In 1842, they moved together to the Square d'Orléans, at 80 rue Taitbout, where the relationship ended. His last address in Paris was 12 Place Vendôme, where he moved in the second half of September 1849.^[52]

Franz Liszt also lived in Paris during this period, composing music for the piano and giving concerts and music lessons. He lived at the Hôtel de France on rue La Fayette, not far from Chopin. The two men were friends, but Chopin did not appreciate the manner in which Liszt played variations on his music. Liszt wrote in 1837 in La Revue et Gazette musicale: "Paris is the pantheon of living musicians, the temple where one becomes a god for a century or for an hour; the burning fire which lights and then consumes all fame."^[53] The violinist Niccolò Paganini was a frequent visitor and performer in Paris. In 1836, he made an unfortunate investment in a Paris casino, and went bankrupt. He was forced to sell his collection of violins to pay his debts. Richard Wagner came to Paris in 1839, hoping to present his works on the Paris opera stages, with no success. Some interest was finally shown by the director of the Paris Opera; he rejected Wagner's music but wanted to buy the synopsis of his opera, Le Vaissau fantôme, to be put to music by a French composer, Louis-Philippe Dietsch. Wagner sold the work for five hundred francs, and returned home in 1842.

The French composer

Symphonie Fantastique, at the time of the July 1830 revolution

. It had its premiere on 4 December 1830.

The Royal Academy, Opéra-Comique and Théâtre-Italien

The Opéra-Comique also enjoyed great success, largely due to the talents of the scenarist

The Théâtre-Italien completed the grand trio of Paris opera houses. After the fire at the Salle Favart, it moved briefly to the Odéon Theater and then permanently to the Salle Ventadour. In their repertoire, the ballet played a very small part, part, the costumes and sets were not remarkable, and the number of works was small; only a dozen new operas were staged between 1825 and 1870; but they included several famous works of

French composers including Hector Berlioz struggled in vain against the tide of Italian operas. Berlioz succeeded in getting his opera Benvenuto Cellini staged at the Royal Academy in 1838, but it closed after just three performances, and was not staged again in France during his lifetime. Berlioz complained in the Journal des Debats that there were six operas by Donizetti in Paris playing in one year. "Monsieur Donizetti has the air to treat us like a conquered country," he wrote, "it is a veritable war of invasion. We can no longer call them the lyric theaters of Paris, just the lyric theaters of Monsieur Donizetti."^[57]

The Conservatory and the symphony orchestra

With the growing popularity of classical music and the arrival of so many talented musicians, Paris encountered a shortage of concert halls. The best hall in the city was that of the Paris Conservatory on rue Bergére, which had excellent acoustics and could seat a thousand persons. Berlioz premiered his

Paganini to play. At the end of the performance, with Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas

in the audience, Paganini bowed down humbly before Berlioz. in tribute.

The Concert Society of the Paris Conservatory was founded in 1828, especially to play the symphonies of Beethoven; one at each performance, along with works by Mozart, Hayden and Handel. It was the first professional symphonic association in Europe. A second symphony association, the Societé de Sainte-Cecile, was founded shortly afterwards, which played more modern music; it presented the Paris premieres of Wagner's

Mendelssohn, the Fuite en Égypte of Berlioz, and the first works of Charles Gounod and Georges Bizet.^[58]

Birth of the romantic ballet

The ballet had been an integral part of the Paris Opera since the time of Louis XIV the 17th century. A new style,

Le corsaire

(1856) Among the great

ballerinas to grace the stage of the Opéra during this time were Marie Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, Carolina Rosati, Fanny Elssler, Lucile Grahn, and Fanny Cerrito

.

In 1842 the Belgian Adolphe Sax, 28-years old, arrived in Paris with his new invention, the saxophone. He won a silver medal for his new instrument at the Paris Exposition of French Industry in 1844, and in April 1845 won a competition held by the French Army on the Champs-de-Mars, in which a fanfare was played on traditional instruments and then on the instruments of Adolphe Sax. The jury chose the instrument of Sax, and it was adapted by the French Army, and then by orchestras and ensembles throughout the world.

Popular music—street musicians and goguettes

At the beginning of the 1830s, the Paris police counted 271 wandering street musicians, 220 saltimbanques, 106 players of the barbary organ, and 135 itinerant street singers. The goguettes, or working class singing-clubs, continued to grow in the popularity, meeting in the back rooms of cabarets. The repertoire of popular songs ranged from romantic to comic and satirical, to political and revolutionary, especially in the 1840s. in June, 1848, the musical clubs were banned from meeting, as the government tried, without success, to stop the political unrest, which finally exploded into the

The 1848 Revolution and the Second Republic

following the 1848 Revolution and the abdication of Louis-Philippe, the censorship of Paris theaters was briefly abolished. The Opera was renamed the Théâtre de la Nation, then Opéra-Théâtre de la Nation, then Académie nationale de musique. A new musical theater, the Théâtre-Lyrique, was created, devoted to presenting the works of young French composers, who had been largely ignored during the July monarchy. It was located on the Boulevard du Temple, the new theater district, in a building which had previously been occupied by the theater founded by Alexander Dumas to present historical plays.

The cafés chantants became increasingly popular, spreading from the Champs Élysées to the Grand boulevards. Some, like the Café des Ambassadeurs, had outdoor concert gardens lit by gaslights. They presented romances by popular singers, and also a new comic genre, the minstrel show, featuring French singers with blackened faces playing the banjo and violin. The famous music cafés included the Moka on rue de la Lune, the Folies and Eldorado on boulevard Strasbourg, and the Alcazar on rue de Faubourg-Poissonniére,^[61]

The Second Empire

The Imperial Opera—Verdi and Wagner

During the reign of Emperor Napoleon III (1852–1870), the top of the hierarchy of Paris theaters was the Académie Imperial, or Imperial Opera Theatre, in the Salle Peletier. The opera house on Rue le Peletier could seat 1800 spectators. There were three performances a week, scheduled so as not to compete with the other major opera house in the city, Les Italiens. The best seats were in the forty boxes, which could each hold four or six persons, on the first balcony. One of the boxes could be rented for the entire season for 7500 francs. One of the major functions of the opera house was to be a meeting place for Paris society, and for this reason the performances were generally very long, with as many as five intermissions. Ballets were generally added in the middle of operas, to create additional opportunities for intermissions. The Salle Peletier had one infamous moment in its history; on 14 January 1858, a group of Italian extreme nationalists attempted to kill Napoleon III at the entrance of the opera house; they set off several bombs, which killed eight people and injured one hundred and fifty persons, and splattered the Empress Eugénie de Montijo with blood, though the Emperor was unharmed.^[62]

Napoleon III intervened personally to have Richard Wagner come back to Paris; Wagner rehearsed the orchestra sixty-three times for the first French production of Tannhäuser on March 13, 1861. Unfortunately, Wagner was unpopular with both the French critics and with the members of the Jockey Club, an influential French social society. During the premiere, with Wagner in the audience, the Jockey Club members whistled and jeered from the first notes of the Overture. After just three performances, the Opera was pulled from the repertoire. Wagner got his revenge in 1870, when the Prussian Army captured Napoleon III and surrounded Paris; he wrote a special piece of music to celebrate the event, Ode to the German Army at Paris.^[62]

Napoleon III wanted a new opera house to be the centerpiece connecting the new boulevards he was constructing on the right bank. The competition was won by

Hervé, Offenbach and the Opéra Bouffes

The operetta was born in Paris with the work of Louis Auguste Florimond Ronger, better known under the name of Hervé. His first operetta was called Don Quilchotte et Sancho Panza, performed in 1848 at the théâtre Montmartre. In the beginning they were short comic works or parodies, with a combination of songs, dance and dialogue, rarely with more than two persons on stage, and rarely longer than one act. Early operettas by Hervé was named Latrouillat and Truffaldini or the Inconvenience of a vendetta infinitely too prolonged and Agammemnon or the Camel with Two humps. Hervé opened a new theater, the Folies-Concertantes, on the Boulevard du Temple in 1854, later renamed the Folies-Nouvelle. The new genre was termed Opera Bouffe; works by Hervé appeared at a half-dozen theaters in the city, though the genre was ignored by the opera and the other official theaters.

In 1853, the young German-born musician and composer

• 
  The Théâtre Lyrique, on Place Chatelet, in 1869. It hosted the first performances of the opera Faust and Romeo et Juliette by Charles Gounod, and of The Pearl Fishers by Georges Bizet.
• 
  The Théâtre Lyrique was known for its lavish sets and staging. The throne room of Didon for the opera

  Berlioz. a Carthage

  (1863)
• 
  The

  Verdi

  were staged there, and the famed soprano Adelina Patti sang there regularly during the Second Empire.

The Opéra-Comique was located in the Salle Favart, and staged both comedies and serious works. It staged the first performances of Mignon by Ambroise Thomas (1866) and of La grand'tante, the first opera of Jules Massenet (1867).

Romantic ballet

Paris also had an enormous influence on the development of

Napoleon had built a large number of new parks and squares in Paris, including the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes. The Emperor had bandstands installed in the new parks, and organized public concerts. Amateur as well as professional and military musicians were invited to take part in the concerts. The repertoire included classical music, military music, quadrilles, polkas and waltzes, and the latest music from Paris musical theater. Another force promoting musical education in Paris was the Orpheonic movement, which led to the creation of many new amateur orchestras and choral societies. Gounod directed the Orphéon of Paris between 1852 and 1856.

The Paris Universal Expositions of 1855 and 1867, highlighting technological progress, also had an important musical component. New musical instruments, such as the saxophone and the Steinway piano, were put on display, and several new compositions were commissioned especially for performance during the expositions, including Verdi's Les Vêpres siciliennes and Don Carlos, Offenbach's La Grand-Duchesse de Gerolstein and La Vie parisienne, and Gounod's Romeo et Juliette.^[65]

Cafés-Concerts

During the Second Empire, the Café-Concert became extremely popular in Paris; by 1872, there were nearly one hundred and fifty in the city. Some were very simple; a cafe with a piano or small organ; others had an orchestra and professional singers. The café-concerts were strictly regulated, to prevent them from competing openly with the musical theaters. The singers were not allowed to wear costumes, and there could no sets, dialogue, or dancing by the performers. No more than forty songs could be sung in an evening, and the owners of the cafes were required to submit the musical program for each night to the police for review. If a song sounded subversive, the program was cancelled. After an actress of the Comedie-Française was condemned by the police for reciting classical verse at the Café Eldorado, and for wearing a long black dress rather street clothing, the law was relaxed in 1867. Thereafter cafe performers could wear costumes, recite dialogue, and have scenery on the stage. This opened the way for a new musical genre, the music hall, a few years later.^[66]

The Belle Époque (1872–1913)

Paris composers during the Belle Époque period had a major impact on European music, moving it away from Romanticism toward Impressionism in music and Modernism.

The defeat of France in the

Bizet, Saint-Saëns and Debussy

The outbreak of the war between France and Germany in 1870 caused a group of French composers to form the

In July 1872 the Opéra-Comique commissioned Georges Bizet to write an opera based on the novel Carmen by Prosper Mérimée. The rehearsals for the finished opera were extremely difficult; in previous operas, the chorus simply lined up on stage and sang, but in Carmen, they were asked to walk around the stage, act, and even smoke cigarettes. It defied all conventions of comic opera, with its musical style, the profession of its heroine and its tragic ending. At its premiere on March 3, 1875, it scandalized both the critics and the audience; one critic reported it "was neither scenic nor dramatic." It was defended by Camille Saint-Saëns, who called it a masterpiece, but when Bizet died three months after the premiere, it was considered a failure. With time it became one of the most-performed works of Paris opera.

Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, and entered the Conservatory in 1872. He became part of the Parisian literary circle of the symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé, and an admirer of Richard Wagner, then went on to experiment with impressionism in music, atonal music and chromaticism. His most famous works included Clair de Lune (1890), La Mer (1905) and the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1903-1905). He lived at 23 square de l'Avenue-Foch in the 16th arrondissement from 1905 until his death in 1918.^[73]

Other influential composers in Paris during the period included Jules Massenet (1842-1912), author of the operas Manon and Werther; Gustave Charpentier, composer of the working-class "opera-novel" Louise; and Erik Satie (1866-1925), who, after leaving the Conservatory, made his living as a pianist at Le Chat Noir, a cabaret on Montmartre. His most famous works were the Gymnopédies (1888).^[74]

Spanish music had an important part in the music of Paris in the Belle Époque, particularly between 1907 and 1914. The prominent Spanish composers

The great Paris Universal Expositions of 1878, 1889 and 1900 brought the greatest musicians in the world to Paris to perform, and also introduced musical genres from around the world, including Javanese, Congolese, New Caledonian, Algerian and Vietnamese music, to Paris audiences, The 1889 Exposition offered concerts by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov, while the 1900 Exposition featured band concerts conducted by John Philip Sousa. At the 1900 Exposition, Claude Debussy conducted a grand concert of his work at the Palais de Trocadero. The 1881 Exposition of electricity featured the first transmission of the sound of a musical performance from the Paris opera house to the Palace of Industry, while the 1889 Exposition displayed the new phonograph patented by Thomas Edison, which played the latest songs by Charles Gounod.^[76]

The café concert, the music hall and the cabaret

The café concert was an extremely popular musical venue at the beginning of the Belle Époque. Following the 1870 war, sentimental songs and songs calling for revenge against Germany for the loss of Alsace and Lorraine were the staple of all musical cafes. Over the course of the Belle Époque, the café chantant evolved into two different musical institutions; some, like Café des Ambassadeurs and the Eldorado, became very large, crowded and filled with noise and smoke, with orchestras, dance reviews, singers and comedy.

The music hall originated in England in 1842, and was first imported into France in its British form in 1862, but under the French law protecting the state theaters, performers could not wear consumes or recite dialogue, something only allowed in theaters. When the law changed in 1867, the Paris music hall flourished, and a half-dozen new halls opened, offering acrobats, singers, dancers, magicians, and trained animals.

The first Paris music hall built specially for that purpose was the

The smaller, more intimate clubs, called cabarets, focused on individual singers and personal songs, often written by the singer, along with satire and poetry.[78] The

By 1896 there were fifty-six cabarets and cafes with music in Paris, along with a dozen music halls. The cabarets did not have a high reputation; one critic wrote in 1897, "they sell drinks which are worth fifteen centimes along with verses which, for the most part, are worth nothing.".[81]

Diaghilev, Stravinsky and the Ballets Russes

Russian music became extremely popular in Paris at the end of Belle Époque; The orchestras Lamoureux, Colonne, and the Paris Conservatory performed the music of

In 1908 the Russian impresario

The 1913 season, performed at the new Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, brought a new scandal, with The Rite of Spring, written by Stravinsky and choreographed by Nijinsky. The shouts of the audience during the performance, both for and against the dancers, were so loud that the dancers could not hear the music; the choreographer, in the wings, had to count in a loud voice to help them. The ballet transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure. The outbreak of World War I and the subsequent Russian Revolution of 1917 left the Ballets Russes stranded in Paris. They continued to perform in France and toured around Europe and the world, but never had the opportunity to perform in their own country.^[82]

Dance—the Bal-musette, the cakewalk, the can-can and the tango

Parisians of all social classes had a passion for dancing. The

The Cakewalk was introduced in Paris in 1903 by pair of American professional dancers, Professor Elk and his wife, at the Nouveau Cirque. The cakewalk was soon featured in other music halls, and was made into an early recording, with the singer Mistinguett. Claude Debussy composed a cakewalk, called Colliwog's cake-walk, between 1906 and 1908.

The Can-can originated in the 1820s, and in its original form was danced in cabarets and balls by couples at the fast pace of a galop. It was often described as immoral, because women lifted their shirts and showed their stockings. Beginning in the 1850s, it was modified into stage form, with dancers in a line facing the audience making high kicks, splits and cartwheels; a version which became known as the French can-can. The most famous accompaniment was Offenbach's The Infernal Galop from Orpheus in the Underworld (1858), though it was not written for that dance.^[85] The can-can was performed at music halls throughout the Belle Époque and remains popular today.

The tango was introduced into Paris in 1905, and was popularized by the Argentinian singer and composer Alfredo Gobb and his wife, singer Flora Rodiriguez, who came to Paris in 1907. They became professional tango teachers, and made numerous recordings of their music. It became popular throughout Paris; in 1913, even the President of France, Raymond Poincaré, danced a few steps of a tango at an official ball.^[86]

Links to music of the Belle Époque

• Le Temps des cerises (Music 1866, words 1871) [1]
• Maria Callas sing the Habanera from the opera Carmen, by Georges Bizet [2]
• Traditional Bal-Musette music [3]
• Debussy playing Golliwog's Cakewalk [4]
• Excerpt of Stravinsky's ballet Rites of Spring (1913) [5]

The Années Folles (1919-1939)

The first World War disrupted the Paris musical world; many musicians went into the army, and Ravel, too short to serve in the army, became a volunteer ambulance driver; but it did not stop musical creation altogether. The first cubist musical work,

Classical music—Ravel, Satie and Stravinsky

Many prominent composers worked in Paris during between the wars, including Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, and Igor Stravinsky. Ravel was born in 1875; one of his last works, Boléro, written in 1928, became his most famous and most-often performed work. It was written on a commission from the Russian dancer Ida Rubinstein, who had been a member of the Ballets Russes before starting her own company. The composition was a sensational success when it was premiered at the Paris Opéra on November 22, 1928, with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska and designs by Alexandre Benois. Satie (1866-1925) was in poor health, due largely to a long life of excessive drinking. Nonetheless, he established connections with the Dadaist movement, and wrote the music for two ballets shortly before his death.

player pianos. In February 1921 he met the Russian dancer Vera de Bosset and began a long affair with her, both in Paris and on tours around Europe. He became a French citizen in 1931 and moved into a house on the rue de Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. It was a very unhappy period for him; both his daughter and wife died of tuberculosis. In 1939, as World War II approached, he left Paris for the United States; he married Vera in 1940 and settled in Los Angeles

.

New musical movements flourished in Paris. The most famous was

Eric Satie. They were Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre, all born between 1888 and 1899. Their music had no common style; they were united mainly in opposition to the dramatic style of Wagner and the impressionistic style of Debussy and Ravel. They provided music for many colorful theatrical pieces written by Cocteau for the Paris stage.^[88]

Eric Satie

Between the wars, Paris was home to a remarkable colony of foreign composers, including

Etoile

.

A new three-thousand seat concert hall, the Salle Pleyel, was built in Paris in the interwar period. It was commissioned in 1927^[89] by piano manufacturer Pleyel et Cie and designed by Gustave Lion.^[89] The inauguration concert was performed by the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, with Robert Casadesus as soloist and Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, and Philippe Gaubert as conductors, A fire ravaged the interior of the hall on 28 June 1928, and it was extensively renovated, and the number of seats reduced to 1,913.

Dance—the Ballets Russes and Ida Rubinstein

The most famous Paris dance company was the Ballets Russes, Founded by Sergei Diaghilev in 1909. The company performed in Paris and internationally until Diaghilev's death in 1929. The set designers included Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí. Its choreographers included Bronislava Nijinska (1891-1972), the younger sister of the star dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, and a young George Balanchine (1904-1983). In 1924, Balanchine, then a dancer, fled a Soviet dance company on tour in the Weimar Republic and came to Paris, where Diaghilev hired him as a choreographer. The most famous production was the 1924 ballet Le Train Bleu with a story by Cocteau, music by Darius Milhaud, costumes by Coco Chanel and a curtain painted by Picasso.^[90]

The dancer Ida Rubinstein left the Ballets Russes in 1911 and started her own troupe, commissioning famous poets, including André Gide and Paul Valéry, and composers, including Stravinsky and Honneger, to write ballets for her. Her most famous creation was Boléro, written for her by Ravel, which she first danced at the Paris Opera on November 22, 1928. Ravel originally called the music Fandango, since it much more closely resembled that dance rather than a true bolero.^[91]

In 1920 a new ballet company, directed by Swedish choreographer and dancer

Studio des Champs-Élysées. Like the Ballets Rousses, Börlin also commissioned famous artists, including Pierre Bonnard and Fernand Léger to create the decor, famous poets including Paul Claudel

to write the texts, and avant-garde musicians, including Ravel, Satie and members of the Group of Six, including Taillefere, Milhaud Honnege to write the music.

The arrival of jazz—the Hot Club de Paris

Jazz came to Paris in 1917, with the American soldiers arriving to fight in the First World War. The soldiers were accompanied by military bands, including the 369th regiment band, composed of fifty black musicians directed by a celebrated Broadway band leader,

W.C. Handy

.

In August 1918, the orchestra of J.R. Europe was invited to perform at a music hall on the Champs-Élysées. The one-night performance was extended for eight weeks. The Casino de Paris presented the first French jazz review, with Gaby Deslys and Harry Pilcer and a ragtime orchestra. A black American jazz orchestra, the Jazz Kings, led by drummer Louis Mitchell, came to the Casino de Paris in 1919 to present a jazz review called Pa-ri-ki-ri, followed in 1920 by the jazz review Laisse-les-Tomber, with the young singer Mistinguett. The author jean Cocteau, enchanted by the new sound, described jazz as "an improvised catastrophe" and "a sonic cataclysm".^[92]

By 1930, Parisians were listening to recordings of American jazz;

Stephane Grapelli, Louis Vola and Roger Chaput. They became the most famous jazz ensemble in France, touring Europe and eventually to the United States.^[93]

The music hall—Mistinguett and Josephine Baker

The singer Mistinguett made her debut the Casino de Paris in 1895 and continued to appear regularly in the 1920s and 1930s at the Folies Bergère, Moulin Rouge and Eldorado. Her risqué routines captivated Paris, and she became one of the most highly-paid and popular French entertainers of her time.^[94]

Folies Bergere

(1926)

The Swedish ballet performing at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées closed in 1925, and its manager, André Davin, decided to create a musical show in the American style. He dispatched an American producer, Caroline Dudley, to New York, to recruit a company. She went to

Paul Whiteman Orchestra The other music halls, including the Casino de Paris, Moulin Rouge and les Ambassadeurs presented jazz reviews, while the main concert halls, Pleyel and Gaveau, offered symphonic jazz concerts. New cabarets featuring jazz, including Bricktop's, the Boeuf sur le toit and Grand Écart opened, and American dance-styles, including the one-step, the fox-trot, the boston and the charleston, became popular in the dance halls. .^[96]

The music-halls suffered growing hardships in the 1930s, facing growing competition from movie theaters The Olympia was converted into a movie theater, and others closed. But others continued to thrive; In 1937 and 1930 the Casino de Paris presented shows with Maurice Chevalier, who had already achieved success as an actor and singer in Hollywood.

One genre remained highly popular in Paris; the

Pigalle by nightclub owner Louis Leplée, whose club Le Gerny, off the Champs-Élysées

, was frequented by the upper and lower classes alike. He persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness. Leplée taught her the basics of stage presence and told her to wear a black dress, which became her trademark apparel. Leplée ran an intense publicity campaign leading up to her opening night, attracting the presence of many celebrities, including Maurice Chevalier. Her nightclub appearance led to her first two records produced that same year, and the beginning of a legendary career that continued into the 1960s.

The radio, phonograph, and the musical film

The arrival of radio and the musical film had a gradual but dramatic impact on Paris music. The first radio station in Paris, Radio Tour Eiffel, broadcast from the Eiffel Tower starting on December 24, 1921. The first classical music concert broadcast on French radio, was transmitted by the station Radiola on November 6, 1922, beginning with a march composed by Christoph Gluck, followed by symphonic and opera works. In 1929, a weekly series of broadcasts of classical music for school students was launched, but it had limited success. Due to the financial crisis, very few Paris schools had money to buy radios. At the beginning of Les Années Folles, the French company Pathé had a monopoly on the sale of phonograph records in France, and kept out records by other artists. In 1925, the Pathé label was bought by the American company Columbia, and soon American disks began to appear in the French market. After 1926, Parisians could buy records made by other foreign companies.^[97]

The motion picture had the greatest impact on Paris music. Due largely to competition from the movies, between 1910 and 1920 two-thirds of the Paris music halls were transformed into movie theaters. Collaboration between the Paris movie studios and the film industry had begun early. The composer Camille Saint-Saëns had written music to accompany the 1908 film L'Assassinat du duc de Guise. The composer Arthur Honegger composed music for two of the most important silent films of Abel Gance, La Roue and Napoleon. Napoleon had its grand premiere on April 7, 1927, at the Palais Garnier with a full orchestra playing the score.

The arrival in France of the first sound film,

Frehel and Josephine Baker, began making musical films. The 1934 musical film Zouzou

, with Jean Gabin and Josephine Baker, was the first film to star a black actress. The French music industry was born, as movie studios merged with record companies and used films to promote records. The route to success for Paris singers became the recording and film.

World War II—occupation and liberation

In 1939, in the early days of World War II, the music hall orchestra of Ray Ventura had a popular hit with the song We'll hang out our laundry on the Siegried Line, but many musicians and composers living in Paris, including Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud and Kurt Weil, departed Paris for the United States. The German army crossed the Meuse, and by the end of June occupied Paris. The repression of Jews in the musical world of Paris began; Jewish faculty were dismissed from the Conservatory; Jewish students were banned in 1942. The director of the orchestra of the Conservatory, Roger Désormière, helped organize an underground organization of French musicians, with a clandestine newspaper. The new director of the Conservatory, Claude Delvincourt, organized and clandestine music lessons for Jewish pupils. He also organized a student orchestra, and protected the male musicians from being sent to forced labor in Germany by promising to organize concerts for the German soldiers in Paris.^[98]

The four major symphony orchestras of Paris (Pasdeloupe, Colonne, Lamoureux and the Conservatory Concert Orchestra) continued to perform, giving 650 concerts during the four seasons of the Occupation. The Colonne orchestra, named for the composer Édourard Lamoureux, was forced to change its name. The Germans also organized a series of thirty-one concerts in Paris by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, and other German orchestras. French composers and musicians, including Martin Honegger, were invited to participate in music festivals in Vienna and Salzburg. The pianist Alfred Cortot became the Commissioner of Fine Arts of the Vichy government, took part in the Berlin music festival, and made a tour of German cities.^[99]

French music hall performers continued to perform to audiences of Parisians and German soldiers. The Germans organized a tour to Germany of several the most popular singers, including Maurice Chevalier, Édith Piaf, and Charles Trenet; they performed for French workers who had been forced to work in German factories.

Radio Paris became an important vehicle for Nazi and Vichy propaganda; it had an orchestra of ninety musicians and gave free concerts at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, which featured everything from Beethoven to Tangos and jazz. Jazz was officially banned in Germany as "decadent", and American records were banned after but remained highly popular in occupied Paris. Charles Delaunay organized a jazz festival in Paris in December 1940, and two concerts month were given at the Gaveau, and continued through 1944. Delaunay's band, called Jazz de Paris, gave a concert at the Salle Pleyel on January 16, 1941. The singer Johnny Hess also had an enormous success with his 1940 jazz-swing song, ils sont Zazous.

American jazz returned to Paris with the U.S. army on August 25, 1944. The program director of the Voice of America, Sim Copans, equipped a truck with loudspeakers and broadcast excerpts of Gershwin and other American musicians in the Paris streets. The VOA also distributed V-disks, phonograph records with the songs of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton and Cab Calloway. These were the first American records to arrive in Paris since the war began.^[100]

Just a month after the liberation of Paris, the first of a series of concerts was performed by the Orchestre national at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, presenting pieces by composers whose work was banned from public performance during the Occupation, including

Bartók. In May 1945, a Committee of National Cleansing was created for the artistic professions, to investigate musicians accused of collaborating with the Germans. Honegger was censured for touring in Germany, Mistinguett for singing on Radio-Paris. The pianist Alfred Cortot was stripped of his professorship at the Conservatory and moved back to his native Switzerland, but returned to Paris with a triumphant concert at the Salle Pleyel in 1949.^[101]

Post-war Paris (1946–2000)

Jazz clubs of Saint-Germain-des-Pres

In the early

Olympia music hall in 1955.^[102]

A concert by Dizzy Gillespie and his orchestra at the Salle Pleyel in 1948 introduced Paris to a new variety of jazz, called bebop, and soon the jazz world of Paris was divided into two rival camps, those for bebop and those for more traditional New Orleans jazz, in the style of Louis Armstrong; this group was led by Sidney Bechet and trumpet player Boris Vian; Mezz Mezzrow, André Rewellotty, and guitarist Henri Salvador.

Beginning in 1958, the leading figures in American jazz, including Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane came to Paris to perform in a series called Paris Jazz Concert, at the Olympia music hall. The musician/composer Quincy Jones came to Paris both to perform and to study composition with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen. Jazz also played an important part in the French New Wave films of the 1950s; the film Les Liaisons dangereuses of Roger Vadim, set in Paris in the 1960s. featured music by Thelonious Monk and Art Blakey; À bout de soufflé (Breathless) by Jean-Luc Godard had a jazz score music by Martial Solal. Most of the clubs closed by the early 1960s, as musical tastes shifted toward rock and roll.^[103]

Rock and roll

Rock and roll made its first appearance in Paris in 1956, when pianist and arranger

Beatles gave two hugely successful concerts at the Palais des Sports. Rock was firmly installed as the preferred music of young Parisians.^[104]

Popular music took a big step forward in 1981 when the government gave up its monopoly over radio stations. Two hundred new private radio stations appeared in Paris alone, the great majority devoted entirely to music, covering every genre, including classical, jazz, world music, French songs from the 1920s to 1960s, and every type of rock and roll.

Music from the Maghreb, Africa and the Caribbean

During the first part of the 20th century, the music from France's colonies in North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean was largely ignored; or, during the 1900 Universal Exposition and the Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931. it was treated as an exotic novelty, performed by costumed singers and dancers for the benefit of Exposition visitors. That began to change after World War II, when large numbers of temporary workers and students came to live, work and study in Paris. In the 1960s the migration grew even larger, as the colonies were granted their independence. The migrants settled in the outer neighborhoods and suburbs and brought their music with them. The music was almost entirely ignored by the French television and radio stations until 1981 when private radio stations were allowed. Soon dozens of new stations went on the air, playing the music of the new wave of immigrants.

The singer

Bambino

in 1956 became a hit in France, selling three hundred thousand records, making her one of France's leading popular singers. She recorded Italians in French, Arabic, Italian, and a half-dozen other languages, before her death in 1987.

One of the first popular styles imported from North Africa was Raï, a singing style from the Algerian city of Oran. One of the first famous singer of the style, Khaled, was born in Oran in 1960, started a band when he was fourteen, and moved to France in 1986, where he became a recording star with an international audience.

In the 1980s and the 1990s, the traditional African, Maghreb and Caribbean musical styles were blended together with French and American styles of hip-hop, techno, and rap, to create an original style, which became popular well outside the immigrant communities.

Musical styles imported into Paris include

Gambia

. a fusion of popular Western music and dance such as jazz, soul, Latin, and rock blended with sabar, the traditional drumming and dance music of Senegal.

Cabarets and music halls

Between 1945 and 1960 the

Olympia Paris and Bobino, while the important cabarets included La Galerie 55, L'Echelle de Jacob, le Port de Salut, l'Ecluse and Trois Baudets. Future French stars who debuted in the cabarets after the war included Bourvil in 1946, Yves Montand in 1947, Juliette Gréco in 1948, Georges Brassens at the Trois Baudets in 1952, and Jacques Brel at the same club in 1953. Headliners at the Olympia included Édith Piaf in 1949, Gilbert Bécaud in 1954, and Charles Aznavour, Tino Rossi and Dalida in 1955. Paris singing stars in the 1980s and 1990s included Serge Lama, Serge Gainsbourg, Michel Berger, Yves Duteil, Francis Cabrel, Patrick Bruel, and Jean-Jacques Goldman.^[105]

Classical music—the Orchestre de Paris

During first decades after the war Paris could boast four top-quality professional symphony orchestras: the Colonne orchestra at the Châtelet; the Lamoureux at Salle Pleyel; the Pasdeloup at the palais de Chaillot, and the Concert Society of the Conservatory at the théâtre des Champs-Élysées. The orchestras did not coordinate their programs; they played during the same season (October to Easter) at the same time (Sunday afternoons at 5:45) and for the most part played the same classical repertoire, rarely venturing into modern music.

In the late 1960s, André Malraux, the Minister of Culture under President Charles de Gaulle, decided to create a new orchestra as the prestige symphony of Paris. the Society of Concerts of the Conservatory was abolished in 1967, and replaced by the Orchestre de Paris. The French government provided sixty percent of the funding for the new orchestra, with smaller shares from the City of Paris and the Department of the Seine. The first conductor of the orchestra was Charles Munch. After his death in 1968, it was conducted by Herbert von Karajan, then Georg Solti, then Daniel Barenboim, who directed the orchestra from 1975 to 1989.^[106]

Much musical experimentation was taking place inside other Paris institutions. In 1954

Webern. The most influential modernist composer in post-war Paris was Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), organist at the Trinity Church beginning in 1930 and professor at the Paris Conservatory of Music from 1942. he was noted for his scientific study of bird songs (1958), his adaptations of traditional Asian and Latin American rhythms (1960); and original church music. Other notable composers included Pierre Schaeffer, founder of the school called Musique concrète, based on recorded sounds of the real world, such as the noise made by trains; and composer of Symphonie pour un home seul (1950) and Orphée 51 (1951); the composer Pierre Henry, a collaborator of Schaeffer, pioneer of electroacoustic music; and composer of The Well-Tempered microphone; and the conductor and composer Boulez, a pioneer of Serial music.^[102]

Musical theater—the mega-musical

Musical theater had a difficult time in the postwar years, due to stiff competition from musical films and high production costs. The exceptions were several mega-musicals first produced in Paris; Les Misérables, based on the novel by Victor Hugo, with music by Claude-Michel Schönberg and original French lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, opened in Paris in 1980, and went on to success in London and New York, and became one of the most popular musicals of all time. Notre Dame de Paris, also based on a novel by Victor Hugo, with music composed by Riccardo Cocciante and lyrics by Luc Plamondon, opened on September 16, 1998, and made immediate stars of its lead singers, Hélène Ségara as Esmeralda and Garou, who played Quasimodo.

The Bastille Opera and the City of Music

When President

Opera Bastille opened in July 1989.during the celebration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution.^[107]

The second grand musical project of Mitterrand and Lang, announced in 1982, was the

Le Zénith, a concert hall with six thousand seats, inaugurated on January 12, 1984. It hosted concerts by Johnny Halladay, Serge Gainsbourg, Vanessa Paradis, the rock group Téléphone, and other celebrated Paris pop musicians. The Paris Conservatory of Music was moved to a new building on the site, opened to students in 1990. The museum of musical instruments of the Conservatory was opened at the beginning of 1997. The final piece, the Philharmonie de Paris concert hall, designed by architect Jean Nouvel, with 2,500 seats,^[108] was opened on January 24, 2015.^[109]

See also

• Music of France

References

Notes and citations

1. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 12–14.
2. ^ Vila 2007, p. 14.
3. ^ ^{a b} Wright 2008, p. 46.
4. ^ Damschroeder & Williams 1990, p. 157.
5. ^ ^{a b} Wright 2008, p. 31.
6. ^ ^{a b} Wright 2008, p. 34.
7. ^ Vila 2007, p. 24.
8. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 24–25.
9. ^ Vila 2007, p. 27.
10. ^ Vila 2007, p. 30.
11. ^ Vila 2007, p. 31.
12. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 30–31.
13. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 35–36.
14. ^ Fierro 1996, p. 1172.
15. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 39–40.
16. ^ "Jean d' Estrée (15..-1576)".
17. ^ Fierro 1996, p. 574.
18. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 11–12.
19. ^ Fierro 1996, p. 498.
20. ^ Vila 2007, p. 46.
21. ^ Vila 2007, p. 50.
22. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 54–55.
23. ^ Vila 2007, p. 54.
24. ^ Powell 2000, pp. 21–22.
25. ^ Vila 2007, p. 55.
26. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 56–57.
27. ^ ^{a b} Vila 2007, pp. 62–63.
28. ^ Vila 2007, p. 38.
29. ^ (in French)
30. ^ Vila 2007, p. 60.
31. ^ Vila 2007, p. 51.
32. ^ ^{a b} Vila 2007, pp. 48–49.
33. ^ Vila 2007, p. 66.
34. ^ ^{a b c} Vila 2007, p. 82.
35. ^ Vila 2007, p. 87.
36. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 79–80.
37. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 90–93.
38. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 86–88.
39. ^ Vila 2007, p. 102.
40. ^ ^{a b} Vila 2007, p. 104.
41. ^ Vila 2007, p. 110.
42. ^ Vila 2007, p. 111.
43. ^ Vila 2007, p. 119.
44. ^ Fierro 1996, pp. 116–117.
45. ^ Fierro 1996, p. 919.
46. ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913), Jean-François Lesueur, Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton.
47. ^ Vila 2007, p. 124.
48. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 131–133.
49. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 129–133.
50. ^ Vila 2007, p. 128.
51. ^ Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, collected & annotated by Bronislaw Edward Sydow, translated by Arthur Hedley, McGraw-Hill Book Company, inc. New York, 1963, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-1770327815, p. 214
52. ^ Frédéric Chopin's letter to Auguste Franchomme, dated 17 September 1849, in Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, collected & annotated by Bronislaw Edward Sydow, translated by Arthur Hedley, McGraw-Hill Book Company, inc. New York, 1963, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-1770327815, p. 372
53. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 136–137.
54. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 138–139.
55. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 140–143.
56. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 143-144-139.
57. ^ Vila 2007, p. 144.
58. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 157–158.
59. ^ "La Sylphide". Ballet Encyclopedia. The Ballet. Retrieved March 11, 2009.
60. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 147–148.
61. ^ Vila 2007, p. 166.
62. ^ ^{a b} Maneglier, Hervé, Paris Impérial, p. 188.
63. ^ Cited in Vila (2007), pages 187-190
64. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 170–175.
65. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 203–206.
66. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 177–178.
67. ^ ^{a b} Vila 2007, pp. 211–213.
68. ^ Huebner 2003, p. 303.
69. ^ ^{a b} Petit Robert 1988, p. 1597.
70. ^ ^{a b} Vila 2007, pp. 16–27.
71. Classic Record Collector
    , Autumn 2006, p80-81.
72. ^ Vila 2007, p. 224.
73. ^ Petit Robert 1988, p. 501.
74. ^ Petit Robert 1988, p. 1622.
75. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 251–252.
76. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 233–236.
77. ^ Fierro 1996, pp. 1005–1006.
78. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 248–251.
79. ISBN 9781409438793. Archived from the original
    on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 2016-02-16.
80. ^ ^{a b} Cited in Fierro, Histoire et Dictionnaire de Paris, pg. 738
81. ^ cited in Fierro (1996), page 738
82. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 254–256.
83. ISBN 2-86424-468-3
    ).
84. ISBN 2-86253-229-0
    ).
85. ^ A somewhat simplified form of the Infernal Galop
86. ^ Vila 2007, p. 238.
87. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 267–268.
88. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 278–280.
89. ^ ^{a b} "The renovation of the Salle Pleyel". Archived from the original on 2008-06-07. Retrieved 2008-08-28.
90. ^ Vila 2007, p. 283.
91. ^ Vila 2007, p. 284.
92. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 268–269.
93. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 304–306.
94. ^ Fierro 1996, p. 1006.
95. ^ "Le Jazz-Hot: The Roaring Twenties", in William Alfred Shack, Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story Between the Great Wars, University of California Press, 2001, p. 35.
96. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 284–286.
97. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 295–298.
98. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 315–317.
99. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 319–320.
100. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 328–329.
101. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 328–331.
102. ^ ^{a b} Bezbakh 2004, p. 872.
103. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 333–334.
104. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 356–358.
105. ^ Bezbakh 2004, pp. 873–874.
106. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 370–371.
107. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 384–385.
108. ^ Vila 2007, p. 386.
109. ^ Vila 2007, pp. 385–386.

Books cited in article

• Bezbakh, Pierre (2004). Petit Larousse de l'histoire de France. Larousse.
  ISBN 2-03505369-2
  .
• Blanchard, Pascal; Deroo, Eric; El Yazami, Driss; Fournié, Pierre; Manceron, Gilles (2003). Le Paris Arabe. La Découverte.
  ISBN 2-7071-3904-1
  .
• Combeau, Yvan (2013). Histoire de Paris. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
  ISBN 978-2-13-060852-3
  .
• Damschroeder, David; Williams, David Russell (1990). Music Theory from Zarlino to Schenker: A Bibliography and Guide. Pendragon Press.
  ISBN 978-0-918728-99-9. Archived
  from the original on 1 January 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
• Dussault, Éric (2014). L'invention de Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Vendémiaire.
  ISBN 978-2-36358-078-8
  .
• Fierro, Alfred (1996). Histoire et dictionnaire de Paris. Robert Laffont.
  ISBN 2-221-07862-4
  .
• Héron de Villefosse, René (1959). Histoire de Paris. Bernard Grasset.
• Marchand, Bernard (1993). Paris, histoire d'une ville (XIX-XX siecle). Éditions du Seuil.
  ISBN 2-02-012864-0
  .
• Powell, John S. (2000). Music and Theatre in France 1600–1680. Oxford University Press.
  ISBN 9780198165996
  .
• Sarmant, Thierry (2012). Histoire de Paris: Politique, urbanisme, civilisation. Editions Jean-Paul Gisserot.
  ISBN 978-2-755-803303
  .
• Vila, Marie Christine (2007). Paris musique. Parigramme.
  ISBN 978-2-84096-419-3
  .
• Wright, Craig (2008). Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris, 500-1550. Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-521-08834-3
  .
• Dictionnaire historique de Paris. La Pochothèque. 2013.
  ISBN 978-2-253-13140-3
  .
• Petit Robert - Dictionnaire universal des noms propres. Le Robert. 1988.

Links to music by period

Early music

• Medieval motet in three voices from the School of Notre Dame
• Mass of Notre Dame in four voices by Guillaume de Machaut

16th century

• [6] Listen to Song of the birds by
  Clement Janequin
• [7] Listen to the song Je n'ose le dire by Pierre Certon

17th century

• [8] Listen to songs of the French Royal Court from the 17th century
• [9] Listen to "March for the Turkish Ceremony" by Jean-Baptiste Lully
• [10] Watch a ballet from the opera Armide by Lully (1686)
• [11] Listen to an organ work by François Couperin (1690)

18th century

• [12] Watch Hippolyte et Aricie by
  Jean Philippe Rameau
  (1733)
• [13] Listen to Mozart's Symphony number 31 (The Paris Symphony), written for the Concert Spirituel
• [14] Listen to French popular music from the 18th century
• [15] Listen to a song by André Grétry from the Paris Opéra-Comique (1788)

Songs of the French Revolution

• Listen to the Revolutionary song Ça ira
• Listen to La Carmagnole [16]
• Listen to the
  Marseillaise, with English translation [17]

The Second Empire

• [18] Watch a scene from the opera Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz (1858)
• [19] Watch scenes from the opera
  La Belle Hélène by Jacques Offenbach
  (1864)

1917–1939

• [20] Watch an excerpt of the ballet Parade with music by
  Picasso
  (1917)
• [21] Listen to Mistinguett sing Mon Homme (1920)
• [22] Watch performance of
  Folies Bergere
  (1927)

Links to music (1940–1945)

• [23] Listen to Johnny Hess sing Je suis Swing (1940)

Links to music of postwar Paris (1945–2000)

• [24] Listen to Quartet for the End of Time by Olivier Messiaen (1941)
• [25] Listen to Study of trains, a work of
  concrete music by Pierre Schaeffer
  (1948)
• [26]
  Edith Piaf sings Milord
• [27] Sidney Bechet and Claude Luter play Petit Fleur (1952)
• [28] Watch performances of Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhardt and Louis Armstrong (1952)
• [29] Watch an early performance by Johnny Hallyday (1961)
• [30] Listen to Eddy Mitchell and the Chaussettes noires (1962)