Awards

• Winner of Winner, 2022 H. Robert Cohen Award, American Musicological Society.

Overview

Military defeat, political and civil turmoil, and a growing unrest between Catholic traditionalists and increasingly secular Republicans formed the basis of a deep-seated identity crisis in Third Republic France. Beginning in the early 1880s, Republican politicians introduced increasingly secularizing legislation to the parliamentary floor that included, but was not limited to, the secularization of the French educational system. As the divide between Church and State widened on the political stage, more and more composers began writing religious--even liturgical--music for performance in decidedly secular venues, including popular cabaret theaters, prestigious opera houses, and international exhibitions. This trend coincided with Pope Leo XIII's Ralliement politics that encouraged conservative Catholics to ""rally"" with the Republican government. But the idea of a musical Ralliement has largely gone unquestioned by historians and musicologists alike. Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces provides the first fundamental reconsideration of music's role in the relationship between the French state and the Catholic Church in the Third Republic. In doing so, the book dismantles the somewhat simplistic epistemological position that emphasizes a sharp division between the Church and the ""secular"" Republic during this period. Drawing on extensive archival research, critical reception studies, and musical analysis, author Jennifer Walker reveals how composers and critics from often opposing ideological factions undermined the secular/sacred binary through composition and musical performance in an effort to craft a brand of Frenchness that was built on the dual foundations of secular Republicanism and the heritage of the French Catholic Church.

Full Product Details

9780197578056

Table of Contents

Reviews

Sacred Sounds is particularly valuable because it demonstrates the surprising role of religious music in generating a French Republican culture. * Thomas Kselman, Church History * Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces expertly demonstrates how the founding tenets of Catholicism and French culture were so strictly entwined that by 1900, the Republican state was happy to endorse a musical culture steeped in Catholic tradition - a revolution if ever there was one! Walker spins this story through nuanced case studies and finely honed arguments: a tour de force of music and cultural history of the fin de siecle. * Clair Rowden, Cardiff University * In this deeply researched study, Jennifer Walker shows how in the 1890s masses and concerts were held to honor Saint Genevieve, drawing anti-clerical intellectuals among a rapt bourgeois audience to honor the capital city's patron saint. The book will fascinate readers by opening up new perspectives on Parisian life in the Third Republic. * William Weber, California State University, Long Beach *

Sacred Sounds is particularly valuable because it demonstrates the surprising role of religious music in generating a French Republican culture. * Thomas Kselman, Church History * Sacred Sounds is particularly valuable because it demonstrates the surprising role of religious music in generating a French Republican culture. * Thomas Kselman, Church History * Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces expertly demonstrates how the founding tenets of Catholicism and French culture were so strictly entwined that by 1900, the Republican state was happy to endorse a musical culture steeped in Catholic tradition – a revolution if ever there was one! Walker spins this story through nuanced case studies and finely honed arguments: a tour de force of music and cultural history of the fin de siècle. * Clair Rowden, Cardiff University * In this deeply researched study, Jennifer Walker shows how in the 1890s masses and concerts were held to honor Saint Genevieve, drawing anti-clerical intellectuals among a rapt bourgeois audience to honor the capital city's patron saint. The book will fascinate readers by opening up new perspectives on Parisian life in the Third Republic. * William Weber, California State University, Long Beach *

Sacred Sounds, Secular Spaces expertly demonstrates how the founding tenets of Catholicism and French culture were so strictly entwined that by 1900, the Republican state was happy to endorse a musical culture steeped in Catholic tradition - a revolution if ever there was one! Walker spins this story through nuanced case studies and finely honed arguments: a tour de force of music and cultural history of the fin de siecle. * Clair Rowden, Cardiff University * In this deeply researched study, Jennifer Walker shows how in the 1890s masses and concerts were held to honor Saint Genevieve, drawing anti-clerical intellectuals among a rapt bourgeois audience to honor the capital city's patron saint. The book will fascinate readers by opening up new perspectives on Parisian life in the Third Republic. * William Weber, California State University, Long Beach *

Author Information

Jennifer Walker is Assistant Professor of Musicology in the School of Music at West Virginia University. Her research focuses on the relationship between sacred music and secular societies, and she is the author of several articles and essays that examine this subject in the context of nineteenth-century France. Her research has been funded by the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Musicological Society.

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