Overview

From the Napoleonic Wars to the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, via the great world conflicts of the 20th century, Music and Postwar Transitions in the 19th and 20th Centuries is the first book to highlight the significance of ‘postwar transitions’ in the field of music and to demonstrate the influence that musicians, composers, critics, institutions, and publics have had on the period that follows conflict. Leading historians, political scientists, psychologists and musicologists explore the roles of music and culture in demobilization, reconstruction, memory, reconciliation, revenge, and nationalist backlash. Moving beyond the popular conception of music as an agent of peace, this study reveals music’s more complex and ambivalent role in the process of transition from war to peace.

Full Product Details

Author:   Anaïs Fléchet ,  Martin Guerpin ,  Philippe Gumplowicz ,  Barbara L. Kelly
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781836956563

ISBN 10:   1836956568
Pages:   321
Publication Date:   01 April 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Foreword Jay Winter Introduction: Rethinking post-war transitions from a musical perspective Anaïs Fléchet, Martin Guerpin, Philippe Gumplowicz, Barbara L. Kelly Part I: Reconstructing the Music World Chapter 1. Emerging from the turmoil: Georges Bizet in the early 1870s Hervé Lacombe Chapter 2. A Post-Revolutionary Musical Order: Mexico, 1910-1930 Pablo Palomino Chapter 3. First Concerts on Familiar Ground? The Post-War International Comebacks of the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, 1947/48 Friedemann Pestel Part II: A gradual demobilisation: music, cultures of war and national imaginations Chapter 4. Discourse on music and the post-war transition: The case of France after the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870-1871 Emmanuel Reibel Chapter 5. Singing about war and the enemy after a conflict: Two post-war transitions in France (1871, 1914-1918) at the café-concert and the music hall Martin Guerpin Chapter 6. From Cœuroyto Céline: Popular music in the ‘war of good taste’ during the false post-conflict transition period, 1940-1942 Philippe Gumplowicz Chapter 7. Wars, Ethnic Conflicts and the Political Use of Folk Music Michael Wedekind Part III: Memory, mourning and commemoration Chapter 8. Béranger’s Napoleonic songs: mourning, memory and the future Sophie‑Anne Leterrier Chapter 9. Paul Hindemith’s Minimax and the Trauma of War Lesley Hughes Chapter 10. A transatlantic repertoire of resistance and mourning in the post-war years: The songs from the ghettos and camps collected by Shmerke Kaczerginski (Vilnius, New York, Buenos Aires) Jean-Sébastien Noël Chapter 11. Singing the unspeakable in Rwanda in the summer of 1994: Music in the context of the genocidal abyss through a portrait of the artist Benjamin Chemouni and Assumpta Mugiraneza   Part IV: Music for peace and reconciliation? Chapter 12. ‘Congress never works better than when it dances’: Music, Peacemaking, and Congress Diplomacy, 1814-1856 Damien Mahiet Chapter 13. Internationalism and Musical Exchange in post-World-War 1 Europe Barbara L. Kelly Chapter 14. Music and peace‑building? The creation of the International Music Council (1946-1950) Anaïs Fléchet Postface: The Quest for Harmony?Music and post‑war transitions from international perspective Jessica Gienow-Hecht

Reviews

Author Information

Anaïs Fléchet is Associate professor in International History at the University Paris-Saclay, and member of the research team Centre d’histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines. Her research focuses on music, international history, Brazil and the Global South.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions