La Langue Universelle

s remark that music is the universal language of mankind does not apply well to French musical culture. There musical culture has often had a particular accent, whether in the spectacular performances at the eighteenth-century Opra and the nineteenth-century Philharmonie de Paris, in the mundane, quotidian voices of twentieth-century buskers and radio broadcasts, or in twenty-first-century streaming platforms such as Deezer. Even though opera is certainly one of the more significant examples of French music, the dynamics that played out within it during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were evident in French encounters with other musical forms in the twentieth century, whether jazz, beguine, chanson, rock, folk, electronica, or rap. The five articles contained in this special issue of French Historical Studies on music in French history reveal the importance of music as a method of studying the history of France. Music and sound have long occupied a privileged place in French history, often directly tied to France's cultural power and its efforts to incorporate external cultural influences. The dynamics at work in the history of French music operate at the highest levels of recognition and support in its institutions as well as at the margins of cultural acceptance. The articles that follow trace these dynamics to reveal how French musicians, composers, librettists, critics, and audiences participated in and reacted to them. The examples here point to how music and sound were critical in understanding efforts of political outreach, both foreign and domestic; how musical classification and the creation of repertoires have often obscured the reality of how French musicians and audiences experienced their works; and how French cultural norms have remained consistent in the production of French music in the modern period no matter the genre or players. Taken together, these articles

Political science · French Language Learning Methods · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · History · Linguistic and Sociocultural Studies

• Canonic Repertories and the French Musical Press

  Open Access•William Weber, William J Weber et al.•Canonic Repertories and the…•2021

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• Jazz and postwar French identity improvising the nation

  Olivier Bourderionnet•Modern & Contemporary France•2017

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• Rebel music

  Babak Elahi•Consumption Markets & Culture•2015

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