Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0004-2109-4701

Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MA

College

College of Creative Arts

Department

School of Music

Committee Chair

Jennifer Walker

Committee Co-Chair

Katelyn Best

Committee Member

Katelyn Best

Committee Member

Andrew Kohn

Abstract

Immediately following World War I and the death of prominent French composer Claude Debussy, French composers and music critics were concerned that the war created an unbridgeable chasm between generations of composers who, through their various aesthetic allegiances, worked to define musical sounds as undeniably French. Numerous scholars have characterized this process as an aesthetic rupture brought on by the World Wars. French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), however, seems to have bridged this gap, at least for some influential critics. My project challenges notions of wartime rupture by resituating musical modernism within a framework of aesthetic continuity. Ravel’s choreographic poem La Valse best exemplifies this blend of nostalgia and modernity. Originally commissioned for orchestra, Ravel simultaneously transcribed it as both solo and duet for piano. The work’s patron disapproved of its performance in a large concert hall, and it premiered instead in a private salon. Set in the intimate and exclusive environment of aristocratic households, the French salon encouraged the genesis and exploration of artistic movements. Literature on Ravel’s activities in salons is sparse, and this project aims to fill some of these scholarly gaps. By situating the salon performance of La Valse as a case study, I position the salon as a site of continuity that allowed for Ravel’s simultaneous aesthetic exploration of nostalgia and progress. If the World Wars were the source of cultural fissures, the salon was, at least for Ravel, a site for consensus and continuity during the interwar period that has, to date, remained overlooked.

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