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Reading the Musical Surreal through Poulenc's Fifth Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

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Abstract

This article develops a method of understanding concepts from the Parisian Surrealist movement in music using Poulenc's treatment of cadences and fifth relations as a case study. Although music was rejected by the group's figurehead André Breton as ‘the most profoundly confusing’ of all arts, many composers were keenly involved in Surrealist circles. Notably, Poulenc's acquaintance with major figures led him to set much of their literary work. But his engagement with their aesthetic principles extends deep into the musical form. After assessing Poulenc's flirtation with the movement's ideas, I ally William Caplin's codification of the cadence to the Surrealist objet trouvé. Combining Robert Hatten's musical ‘markedness’ and literary theorist Willard Bohn's model of Surrealism in art and literature, I explore how Poulenc's music engages with the Surrealist treatment of objects, automatism, and Apollinaire's ‘fantôme véritable’.

Type
Articles
Information
Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 127 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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