French Music in Britain 1830–1914

Paul Rodmell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000281521
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Britische Geschichte der Neuzeit

French Music in Britain 1830–1914 investigates the presence, reception and influence of French art music in Britain between 1830 (roughly the arrival of 'grand opera' and opéra comique in London) and the outbreak of the First World War. Five chronologically ordered chapters investigate key questions such as:

* Where and to whom was French music performed in Britain in the nineteenth century?

* How was this music received, especially by journal and newspaper critics and other arbiters of taste?

* What characteristics and qualities did British audiences associate with French music?

* Was the presence and reception of French music in any way influenced by Franco-British political relations, or other aspects of cultural transfer and exchange?

* Were British composers influenced by their French contemporaries to any extent and, if so, in what ways?

Placed within the wider social and cultural context of Britain's most ambiguous and beguiling international relationship, this volume demonstrates how French music became an increasingly significant part of the British musician's repertory and influenced many composers. This is an important resource for musicologists specialising in Nineteenth-Century Music, Music History and European Music. It is also relevant for scholars and researchers of French Studies and Cultural Studies.

1Franco-British cultural relations 1660–1830

Given Great Britain and France’s proximity and history, it is unsurprising that cultural transfers and exchanges have occurred between them for centuries. The nature and intensity of these have varied as the nations’ self-perceptions and relations developed; the cliché that the Norman invasion of 1066 is one of few historical events embedded in collective English (sic) memory demonstrates symbolically the importance of Anglo-French relations, even though neither nation existed in the modern sense.¹ Although simplistic, this date-defined history remains potent as a popular starting point for England’s relationship with its nearest continental neighbour.

While looking back to 1066 is excessive, consideration of Franco-British relations prior to 1830 is needed to contextualise later material. This chapter examines processes and manifestations of ‘cultural transfer’ from France to Britain between 1660 and 1830; many British perceptions of France and channels of communication active in the nineteenth century were established in this period. The relationship was complex and multi-layered, with contradictions and inconsistencies, manifest sometimes even within individuals. The British were concurrently enthusiastic about and hostile toward things French throughout the long eighteenth century. An assumption that these attitudes were proportional to political and diplomatic machinations proves invalid, with both fervent engagement and xenophobic spurning of French culture cohabiting consistently, regardless of whether the nations were at war or peace. This chapter gives illustrative examples of British engagement with French culture and an overarching sense of how perceptions were created and sustained.

Anglo-French political relations 1660–1700

Gesa Stedman puts forward a persuasive case for viewing the seventeenth century, especially the years between the Restoration and Glorious Revolution (1660–88), as the period in which the English elite’s fascination with French culture ‘took off’.² Modern definitions of England, Great Britain, France, and the relationships between them also started to crystallise in a way that remained pertinent in the nineteenth century. Cultural exchanges, including of music, were set in train and reached beyond the narrow world of the royal court.

Charles II’s restoration is the most significant catalytic event for the development of England’s relationship with France in the early modern period. In the preceding century, Anglo-French relations were typically lukewarm; on occasion, collaborating to counterbalance Spain was of mutual interest, and both France and England dealt with religious reformations that, although they developed differently, involved some common experiences. Despite recurrent French perceptions that England was untrustworthy (‘perfidious Albion’³), the succession of Scottish James VI to the English throne in 1603 encouraged mutual tolerance;⁴ the Stuarts maintained links with France throughout the seventeenth century. Charles I married Henrietta Maria, youngest daughter of Henri IV, in 1625; in 1646, as the British Civil Wars escalated, Henrietta returned permanently to France and was joined by her son, the future Charles II. A formative experience for the prince, aged sixteen when he left England, this led Charles to embrace many aspects of French courtly life and culture.⁵ Upon re-establishing the court in 1660, Charles introduced many French interests and conventions, which were embraced by courtiers eager to curry favour. Anglo-French relations strengthened when Charles’s sister, Henrietta, married Philippe, Duc D’Orléans, Louis XIV’s brother, in 1665. Five years later, Charles and Louis signed the secret Treaty of Dover, in which Charles agreed to convert to Catholicism, and which allied England with France against the Dutch in the conflicts of the 1670s.

This closer relationship was not universally popular: although dogmatic Puritanism was marginalised, England and Scotland remained avowedly Protestant and suspicious of Louis’s assertive Catholicism, especially after his revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Nor was the relationship smooth: petty squabbles and standoffs occurred regularly. Despite his Catholic sympathies, Charles needed to maintain the support of Protestant denominations, especially the Church of England, in order to safeguard his position. Following his younger brother’s conversion in about 1668, and with Charles lacking legitimate children, it appeared increasingly likely that Britain would again have a Catholic monarch and so Charles, to assuage Protestant anxieties, ensured that James’s daughter Mary, heir presumptive, was raised as an Anglican and married to the Protestant William of Orange, in order to prevent the establishment of a new Catholic dynasty. Charles’s death and the end of James’s reign both came sooner than expected. The Glorious Revolution, triggered by the birth of James’s first legitimate son and his own unwise actions, ended cordial diplomatic relations with Louis, who sided with James; the deposed king was exiled to France, remaining there until his death in 1701.

Cultural transfers from France to Britain 1660–90

Despite this erratic relationship, it was during the reigns of Charles and James that a spirit of Francophilia was instilled in Britain’s ruling elite. Reservations notwithstanding, the Sun King’s glittering establishment regularly impressed British visitors. French codes of conduct were imported, as were fashions, architectural styles, literature and art, influencing elite taste and culture throughout the eighteenth century.

Charles and James’s partiality for French culture played a significant role in this process but was not the only factor. Even during times of conflict, British travellers to mainland Europe often passed through France, Dover to Calais being the shortest and most favoured sea crossing; some encounter with French society, however brief or unrepresentative, was difficult to avoid. More importantly, Paris attracted aristocrats, diplomats, professionals, merchants and artisans. French was the diplomats’ lingua franca and any ambitious young nobleman needed fluent French as part of his education.

Before the nineteenth century, interest in and informed knowledge of France was mainly confined to the London-orientated elites and arbiters of taste known later as ‘the World’ or the ton.⁶ From 1660 to 1800 this comprised just a few thousand people but still represented a significant increase compared to earlier times. After the Restoration, the ton was centred upon the court, aristocracy and landed gentry, but broadened steadily to include the closely connected politicians, financiers, civil servants, clergy, military men and their families; although small and interconnected, the ton was neither entirely homogeneous nor static. Elevated social status did not necessarily signify inclusion; mutual acceptability, active participation in social and cultural activities, especially during the London season (and, for several decades, at Bath), were also integral, for it was through shared experiences that taste and culture were determined and disseminated. Suppliers of goods and services were also essential: tradesmen, craftsmen, merchants and servants could all act as agents of cultural transfer.

As Stedman shows, the French customs and culture imported were wide-ranging and varied. Fashions and conventions introduced by Charles were embraced by the prototype elite, and spread to include such people as the Bateliers (vintners) and their friends the Pepyses, ‘members of the rising middle ranks who emulated the aristocracy’.⁷ Stedman supplies a lengthy list of fashions and practices imported during Charles’s reign: the Mollet brothers introduced long straight canals to garden landscapes; several French manuals on horticulture and manuals of French cuisine, such as Pierre de la Varenne’s La cuisinier François (1651); foods, including salad, casseroles, and fresh fruit (as a dessert) were popularised, as was pall-mall (a forerunner of croquet); plays were presented in translation and often formed the basis of new works by British writers.⁸ Trade in books, both in French and translation, further facilitated the transmission of French culture to British society.⁹

Samuel Pepys, a member of London’s senior professional class, exemplifies the newly extended community that received these commodities. Pepys, like many of his contemporaries, spoke French well, and noted opportunities for French conversation and the purchase of French books in his diary; more unusually, his father-in-law was a French exile. L...