In Renegotiating French Identity, Jane Fulcher addresses the question of cultural resistance to the German occupation and Vichy regime during the Second World War. Nazi Germany famously stressed music as a marker of national identity and cultural achievement, but so too did Vichy. From the opera to the symphony, music did not only serve the interests of Vichy and German propaganda: it also helped to reveal the motives behind them, and to awaken resistance among those growing disillusioned by the regime. Using unexplored Resistance documents, from both the clandestine press and the French National Archives, Fulcher looks at the responses of specific artists and their means of resistance, addressing in turn Pierre Schaeffer, Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc, and Olivier Messiaen, among others. This book investigates the role that music played in fostering a profound awareness of the cultural and political differences between conflicting French ideological positions, as criticism of Vichy and its policies mounted.

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The new historiography of Vichy and recent theoretical insights: implications for study of the music created and performedRecent historiographic insights into the regime's conflicting visions and evolutionInitial new directions in larger studies of Vichy cultureNew issues: dual surveillance, the complex bureaucratic matrix, and the cultural fieldVichy's musical culture and the still looming questions: what did result, when, and where?Concomitant theoretical issues: how were musical works inscribed, framed, and read?Public and creative responses: the question of collective and individual French identityWhat constituted resistance in music, and what kinds of innovations did it foster?Reformulating older questions and posing new ones1. The essential political and institutional backgroundBeyond a monolithic view of Vichy and its doctrine of the Révolution NationaleVichy and its relation to the GermansVichy's brand of patriotism and nationalismBeneath the apparent traditionalismThe evolution of the regime and the significant markersGerman and Vichy repression, and the development of the resistanceVichy's reconstruction of French identityVichy's negotiations of French cultural identityVichy and the question of the French national heritage, or cultural traditionThe limits allowed by the Germans in the reconfiguration of French national identityVichy's cultural institutions and the divergent, evolving mandatesA consistent Vichy cultural agenda?Beyond conceptions of a Vichy patriotic "double game"A Vichy musical program? Its evolving aims and the musical fieldThe role of Ministers of National Education and of the Secrétaire Générale in musicThe role of the Germans and their interest in concerts and in the musical pressGerman and French broadcasts of classical concertsThe Germans and the Paris ConservatoireThe Germans and intervention in French recordingsVichy's own constraints and shifting goals in musicVichy "experts" in music, and the case of Jacques RouchéAnother Vichy "expert"-Alfred CortotVichy and its goals in recordingsVichy's corporate organization of the musical professionVichy and state commissions in musicThe Case of the opéra: Rouché's initial latitude but growing Vichy and German PressuresVichy's interest in the Conservatoire and its regional branchesSubversion within institutions and performance venuesThe development of the musical resistance and its response both to the Germans and to Vichy2. Re-inscribing, framing, and subverting an operatic icon: Debussy's Pelléas et MélisandeThe double advantage of both Berlioz and DebussyPelléas: its nature, style, and the initial French reception in 1940Désormière's "classic" interpretation in a still relatively autonomous musical fieldThe 1940 production and the opera's enunciation within the contextAmbiguity, liminality, and the opera's impact at Vichy's startPelléas at Vichy: refocusing the opera's national significance through performanceThe recording of Pelléas and its increasing dissonance with the new discursive framingResistance responses to the Franco-German cultural discoursePelléas and the battle over national memory: the 1942 commemoration and production in ParisThe discursive framing and context of the 1942 production of PelléasVichy's political turn, mounting resistance, and the 1943 Debussy commemorationThe Resistance appropriation of Debussy and of PelléasDebussy as emblematic of authentic French classicismDebussy and Pelléas as cultural emblems of liberationFrom propaganda to national healing: Debussy in the reconstruction of cultural memory3. From the legal to the illegal: Schaeffer's journey toward resistance and artistic explorationVichy's attempt to remake French youth and Schaeffer's own personal agendaRadio-Jeunesse and Vichy's new sound cultureSchaeffer's quest to make tradition dynamic in Jeune FranceJeune France's organization and range of projectsJeune France and Mounier's "revolutionary humanism"Jeune France and the creative curation of traditionMusical innovation within Schaeffer's Jeune FranceSchaeffer's movement from the legal to the illegalSchaeffer's subjective re-assessment and reflection on the "language of things"Schaeffer's search for an "invisible theater" and new meanings, or realms of perceptionSchaeffer and the Studio d'Essai: from new perceptual fields to resistance4. The soft or hard borders of French identity: Honegger's iconic role and subjectivity during VichyHonegger omnipresentHonegger's modernism and the modernist strain condoned by both Vichy and the GermansHonegger's supporters and their ideological trajectoriesThe evolution of the French fascist aesthetic and Honegger's complex relation to itGaston Bergery and his support for HoneggerFrom state collaboration to collaborationism: the fine line and Honegger's symbolismMusic and the goal of the group collaborationHonegger and the musical synthesis promoted by later 1941The composer's dual cultures and his style in AntigoneThe original material inscription, enunciation, and reception of the operaThe context for the selection of Antigone at the Paris OperaAntigone's physical and ideological re-inscription at the Opéra in early 1943The multivalent potential of the opera's text and styleThe critical and public reception of Antigone at the Paris Opera in 1943The performative impact of Antigone in 1943 ParisHonegger's search for identity in Vichy and occupied FranceHonegger's contradictions as criticThe Second Symphony and Honegger's subjective conundrumMonologic or Dialogic? The critical reception of the Second SymphonyHonegger the resistant? His postwar sanctions5. Poulenc's metamorphosis: his journey towards resistance and a stylistic counter-discourseFrom one nationalism to anotherPoulenc at Vichy's dawnVichy traditionalism in Les Animaux modèles?From the search for personal authenticity to a new political awarenessResistance nationalism and its artistic goalsTheories and models of French musical resistancePoulenc's search for his own resistance styleExploring the tactic of stylistic disruption: Poulenc's Sonata for Violin and PianoPoulenc's turn to the literary resistance's stylistic paradigmsMetamorphosis and its meaning in Poulenc's Figure humaineThe importance of trajectories and of symbolic meanings within their context6. Messiaen in a Catholic Church divided: spiritual authority, subjective agency, and artistic breakthroughMessiaen's refusal and his nonconformist backgroundMobilization, capture, and creativityInternment, internal liberty, and Messiaen's QuatuorLevels of utterance in Messiaen's QuatuorReactions to the Quatuor and to its textual framingRelease and recruitment into Schaeffer's "Band of Christian Democrats"Messiaen's artistic explorations in Portique pour une fille de FranceThe politics of Messiaen's appointment to the Paris ConservatoirePerformance of and support for Messiaen's previous compositionsMessiaen's new circles and private commissionsVichy's political direction, division within the church, and Messiaen's creative choicesSartre, Messiaen, Hello, and subjective choiceNew content and approaches to form in the Visions de l'AmenResponses to the challenge of Messiaen's Visions de l'AmenMessiaen's turn to resistance themes and modelsMan and God in the Trois petites liturgies de la presence divineThe Resistance embrace of Messiaen and of his workConclusion: Vichy's shifting cultural goals and tactics: the results, the responses, and how to perceive themNotesBibliographyIndex