French music history dates back to organum in the 10th century, followed by the Notre Dame School, an organum composition style.Troubadour songs of chivalry and courtly love were composed in the Occitan language between the 10th and 13th centuries, and the Trouvèrepoet-composers flourished in Northern France during this period. By the end of the 12th century, a form of song called the motet arose, accompanied by traveling musicians called jongleurs. In the 14th century, France produced two notable styles of music, Ars Nova and Ars Subtilior. During the Renaissance, Burgundy became a major center for musical development. This was followed by the rise of chansons and the Burgundian School. France is a very musical country.
Classical Music
Opera
The first French opera may be Akébar roi du Mogol, first performed in Carpentras in 1646. It was followed by the team of Pierre Perrin andCambert, whose Pastoral in Music, performed in Issy, was a success, and the pair moved to Paris to produce Pomone (1671) and Les Peines et les Plaisirs de l'Amour (1672).
Jean-Baptiste Lully, who had become well-known for composing ballets for Louis XIV, began creating a French version of the Italian opera seria, a kind of tragic opera known as tragédie lyrique or tragédie en musique - see (French lyric tragedy). His first was Cadmus from 1673. Lully's forays into operatic tragedy were accompanied by the pinnacle of French theatrical tragedy, led by Corneille and Racine.
Lully also developed the common beat patterns used by conductors to this day, and was the first to take the role of leading the orchestra from the position of the first violin.
The French composer, Georges Bizet, composed Carmen, one of the most well known and popular operas.
Romantic Era & Hector Berlioz
One of the major French composers of the time, and one of the most innovative composers of the early Romantic era, was Hector Berlioz.
In the late 19th century, pioneers like Georges Bizet, Jules Massenet, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy revitalized French music. The last two had an enormous impact on 20th century music - both in France and abroad - and influenced many major composers likeBéla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky. Erik Satie was also a very significant composer from that era. His music is difficult to classify but sounds surprisingly ahead of its time.
20th Century
The early 20th century saw neo-classical music flourish in France, especially composers like Albert Roussel and Les Six, a group of musicians who gathered around Satie. Later in the century, Olivier Messiaen, Henri Dutilleux and Pierre Boulez proved influential. The latter was a leading figure of Serialism while Messiaen incorporated Asian (particularly Indian) influences and bird song and Dutilleux translated the innovations of Debussy, Bartók and Stravinsky into his own, very personal, musical idiom.
The most important French contribution to musical innovation of the past 35 years is a form of computer-assisted composition called "spectral music". The astonishing technical advances of the spectralist composers in the 1970s are only recently beginning to achieve wide recognition in the United States; major composers in this vein include Gérard Grisey, Tristan Murail, and Claude Vivier.
Folk Music
Traditional styles of music have survived most in remote areas like the island of Corsica and mountainous Auvergne, as well as the more nationalistic regions of the Basques and Bretons.
In many cases, folk traditions were revived in relatively recent years to cater to tourists. These groupes folkloriques tend to focus on very early 20th century melodies and the use of the piano accordion.
Art
Support for the Arts. There is a great deal of support for the arts in France at the state, regional, and municipal levels. The French Ministry of Culture funds artists as well as restoration projects and museums.
Literature. Oral traditions and folktales predominated in pre-modern France. Up until the mid-twentieth century, rural communities held veillées, in which neighbors gathered in someone's home around the hearth to trade stories and tales. French written literature is considered one of the greatest world traditions. The first works of literature in French were the Chansons de Geste of the eleventh century, a series of epic poems. During the Renaissance, France's great national literature flourished with works by François Rabelais, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, and Pierre de Ronsard. Enlightenment writers such as Voltaire, Montesquieu (Charles-Louis de Secondat), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau helped to shape a national consciousness during this time. Nineteenth-century writers took up themes of struggles between social classes, clerical and anticlerical forces, and conservatives and liberals. They also developed a form of realist writing that charted the various regional differences, and urban-rural splits, in France. François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand, Madame de Staël, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), Honoréde Balzac, and Gustave Flaubert were the great novelists of this period. Poets included Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, Alphonse-Marie-Louis de Prat Lamartine, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, and Stéphane Mallarmé. Earlier twentieth century writers include Marcel Proust, Anatole France, Jules Romains, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, François Mauriac, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, and André-Georges Malraux. French existentialism during the postwar period is associated with writers Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir. The so-called "new novel" came to the fore in the 1950s and its representatives include Nathalie Sarraute and Alain Robbe-Grillet.
France gives several literary prizes each year. These include the Goncourt, the Renaudot, the Medicis, and the Femina.
Graphic Arts. France's most important graphic art forms are painting, sculpture, and architecture. The prehistory of French art is also important, including the famous cave paintings in southwestern France. The nineteenth century period of Romanticism in painting is associated with Eugène Delacroix and Jean-Auguste Ingres. Paintings of peasant life flourished during this century, particularly in the work of Jean Courbet and Jean-François Millet. Impressionism, in which color and light became important, is associated with Claude Monet, (Jean) Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissaro, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, and Morissette. Postimpressionism followed later in the century, with works by Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, and Pierre Bonnard. Great twentieth century painters include Georges Braque, and Jean Dubuffet. The most famous French sculptor is Auguste Rodin.
Performance Arts. Theater and dance have a strong tradition in France, both in the classical sense and in the realm of folklife. As in most of France's cultural life, Paris dominates the grand traditions of theater. France's great dramatists include Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas pere and fils, Jean Anouilh, and Jean Genet. The Comédie Française in Paris still presents the classic works of Molière and Racine. Opera is also popular in France, cutting across social class. Street theater, pageants, and regional theatrical productions flourish in the provinces. The city of Toulouse is particularly well-known for its performance arts. French cinema is subsidized more highly by the state than other European movie industries, and the French have access to more nationally-produced films than their neighbors. Many French cities hold movie festivals during the year, the most famous being that in Cannes in early summer.
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