Composer sous Vichy.

Clifton, Keith E.

Composer sous Vichy. By Yannick Simon. Lyon: Symetrie, 2009. [432 p. ISBN 978-2914373-57-9. [euro]40.00]

France's humiliating defeat at the hands of the Nazis and the subsequent establishment of a puppet state under the control of former military hero Philippe Petain remains one of the darkest chapters in the nation's long history. The thriving cultural milieu of the Third Republic (1936-1938) was rapidly supplanted by food shortages, censorship, anti-Jewish initiatives, and much worse. As Yannick Simon eloquently demonstrates, musical activity persisted in Vichy France (July 1940-August 1944) despite momentous obstacles to free artistic expression. Broadening the pioneering work of historians Julian Jackson and Robert Paxton, he paints a vivid portrait of music making under the Nazis, where compromises and sacrifices that present-day musicians can only imagine were commonplace. (1)

Before proceeding through eight dense and richly-documented chapters, Simon opens with a critical question: "Comment vivent-ils, agissentils et s'expriment-ils artistiquement dans le contexte specifique de l'Occupation?" [How did they live, behave, and express themselves artistically within the specific context of the Occupation?] (p.1). In order to answer this question, he draws on his own prior work and Myriam Chimenes's groundbreaking La vie musicale sous Vichy, the first essay collection to explore French music under Nazi control. (2) Although Simon returns several times to the most influential composers of the era, he provides valuable commentary on lesser-known artists who merit wider recognition and further research.

The opening chapter considers the months just prior to the Occupation, September 1939 to May 1940, when musical activity in the French capital was abruptly reduced. Providing the foundation for Vichy's complex administrative structure, this nine-month period included the creation of a Vichy-approved commission with music under its purview and the inauguration of L'information musicale, its principal music journal. Simon examines the sharp decline in music periodicals as a whole, down from fifty-seven in 1939 to nineteen by 1941; this included an extended hiatus for the venerable Revue musicale, unpublished between April 1940 and February 1946.

In "La recomposition du paysage musical" [The reorganization of the musical landscape], Simon remembers gifted composers killed in action--including Jehan Alain and Maurice Jaubert--and revisits Vichy's contradictory views regarding Jewish musicians. While Milhaud's music was banned outright as a "symbole de la musique juive francaise pour les Allemands" [symbol of French Jewish music for the Germans] (p.33), the Nazis' own Lexikon der Juden in der Musik [Lexicon of Jews in Music] was riddled with errors and included few French musicians. In fact, many prominent Jewish artists remained in France during the war, especially in the Cote d'Azur region then under Italian control. Favored composers such as Werner Egk employed aspects of jazz and modern music, labeled "Entartete" [degenerate] by the Nazis, quite freely, while others who employed similar styles were banned or censored. As Jane Fulcher has shown, Vichy perceived music as valuable cultural capital and a potent example of what a new Europe might look like under Nazi control. As a result, they encouraged musical performances and tolerated questionable works, even those with anti-Nazi sentiments.3 Stage music was given special attention, with the Paris Opera serving as "vitrine" [showcase] for French music under the Reich (p. 215).

In two interconnected chapters, Simon explores the challenges of composing music with a sense of French national identity while simultaneously trying to please the German occupiers. After a 1940 visit to Paris by Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, opera and concert performances featured increasing numbers of French compositions, balanced by German warhorses and the music of Richard Strauss, a Vichy favorite. The regime actively commissioned works in a variety of genres, including sonatas, ballets, operas, chamber music, and symphonic poems. Perhaps not surprisingly given the circumstances, of sixty-seven commissions by sixty different composers proposed under the Occupation--and dutifully listed by Simon--only thirteen came to fruition.

A Nazi-sponsored trip to Vienna in December 1941 celebrating the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of Mozart's death emerges as a decisive moment. Attended by high-ranking Vichy officials, music critics, and prominent composers (including Honegger), the visit has been described by Lucien Rebatet as "plus Nazi que Mozartien" [more Nazi than Mozartian] (p. 109). (4) The voyage also reveals Honegger's complex and multifaceted relationship with Vichy. Simon argues convincingly that Honegger worked within the Nazi system to secure performances of his music and provide for his family, nothing more. But even the resounding success of his oratorio Jeanne d'Arc and the creation of a 1942 "Semaine Honegger" to honor his fiftieth birthday could not erase the taint of "Nazi sympathizer" and "compositeur etranger assimile" [foreign assimilated composer] (p. 296). In many ways, his reputation never recovered. Further examples of works with possible anti-German messages include Poulenc's whimsical melodie "Voyage a Paris" from Banalites. Simon's nationalistic interpretation raises questions that I wish he had explored in more depth.

Besides Honegger, Simon gives special attention to Jolivet and Messiaen. He posits Jolivet's Trois complaintes du soldat as a highly personal statement "qui symbolise la France de la defaite" [which symbolizes defeated France] (p. 300) before revisiting the familiar history of Messiaen's Quatour pour la fin du temps. Visions de l'Amen, with its piquant rejection of neoclassicism, is presented as "resolument inclassables dans le contexte musical de l'Occupation" [resolutely unclassifiable within the musical context of the Occupation] (p. 329).

In a poignant final chapter titled "De l'ombre a la lumiere" [out of the shadows into the light], Simon reviews composer-led efforts to resist Nazi oppression, including the establishment of clandestine organizations such as the Front Nationale de la Musique. The chapter concludes with other composers who contributed music to the anti-Vichy cause, including Elsa Barraine's Avis and Jean Cassou's Trente-trois sonnets composes en secret [Thirty-three sonnets composed in secret]. Because several of these composers comprise little more than footnotes in previous studies, his discussion of their lives and work is most welcome.

If any single phrase encapsulates Simon's views on the role of the artist under Vichy control, it would be that "permeabilite est la regle [flexibility is the rule] (p. 367). With admirable clarity and a palpable enthusiasm for the subject, the author explores how musicians responded in different ways to Nazi control. For many composers who remained in France, working within the system was literally a matter of life and death, and I regret that Simon did not explore the personal circumstances of Vichy era composers in more depth. Without resorting to tedious explanations of the harrowing ordeals they faced, closer attention to their individual situations would provide a broader context for his orderly descriptions of musical activities.

As with many aspects of the Nazi era, there are few easy answers. Simon focuses scrupulously on facts and figures, thus avoiding thorny questions and leaving the door open for further work and reflection. While some may take issue with the density of Simon's French, his tendency to present key points multiple times, and a lack of detailed musical analysis, readers will be grateful that he has condensed a staggering amount of information into a compact volume. The breadth of Simon's work is remarkable, as Composer sous Vichy is the first source to encapsulate the full range of concert music under Vichy. The inclusion of several indices, not to mention the affordable price, should appeal to music libraries hoping to expand their collections.

Since more research remains, Simon's book should be viewed as a broad outline rather than an exhaustive summation. Nevertheless, it should quickly become a standard source on its topic. While twentieth-century music scholars and intrepid general readers with a solid command of academic French will find Composer sous Vichy challenging and enlightening, World War II specialists should consider it indispensible.

Keith E. Clifton

Central Michigan University

(1.) Jackson surveys the artistic climate of Occupation-era Paris in France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Also see Paxton, Vichy France, Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944, New York: Knopf, 1972.

(2.) Myriam Chimenes, ed., La vie musicale sous Vichy, Brussels: Complexe, 2001.

(3.) A good example is the middle movement of Honegger's brief 1942 song set Trois psaumes, with its pointed reference to "cet homme pernicieux" (this wicked man).

(4.) Lucien Rebatet, Les memoires d'un fasciste, Vol. II: 1941-1947, Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1976, p. 40.