Alongside the other arts, from ancient Greece to the studios of Bollywood and Hollywood via the salons of the Italian Renaissance which have since evolved into opera houses from Sydney to New York, music in 2020 has become more than ever a subject of moving images and shapes, while at the same time having to step away from the stage for many months this year.
The dense schedule of innovative creations on the screen inspired by our repertoires and our composers, echoing traditions, of silent cinema, cartoons, and television series, that have been rediscovered with fresh eyes (and ears) through the fascination of our time for the motion picture: this encourages us to invite you to discover, each month, from now on the most remarkable initiatives.
We begin this month by discovering a project from the public television and radio service.
Prélude to a Faunothèque :
France Musique and the website Lumni are launching "La Faunothèque", an "animal and musical" series of twelve 5-minute episodes: a veritable initiatory musical journey, led by the pianist Célimène Daudet, this original series, mixing real and animated images, aims to transmit to our children (and their parents) the essential elements of a musical work.
It is with great joy that the publishers Durand Salabert Eschig have joined forces with this wonderful undertaking by the presence of no less than a third of the original works heard in the series. You will recognise "Le Cygne" and "Tortues" from Camille Saint-Saëns’s Carnaval des Animaux, "Poissons d’or" from Claude Debussy’s Images for piano, the lesser-heard "Danse de la chèvre" by Arthur Honegger and, from his whimsical Ephémères, "Le Canard" and "Une fourmi" by Philippe Hersant.
Camille Saint-Saëns:
It is not surprising to see in this programme of visual festivities, of parallels between drawing and photography, of colours and harmonies, the name Camille Saint-Saëns: after all, is the composer, whose centenary we will be celebrating next year, not the "author" of the opening credits of the Cannes Film Festival?
But also, of course, the first film-music composer in history (as early as 1908) and a constant inspiration for filmmakers such as Terence Malick. In the world of animation, we know for example that Alan Menken's marvellous prologue for "Beauty and the Beast" (Disney Studios) owes much to the French composer.
Claude Debussy:
The same Disney studios also brought us an animation of "Le Clair de lune" by Claude Debussy in 1940 (broadcast fifty years later, however), before the modernity of Hollywood turned the composer into a "staple classic" of its soundtracks: Wes Anderson in "The Darjeeling Limited", Steven Soderbergh in "Ocean’s Eleven", but also the young Baz Luhrmann from "Moulin Rouge" for a Chanel advertisement.
Arthur Honegger:
Fewer seem to fight for the cause of the other two composers in the series. Though Arthur Honegger has always been considered by his contemporaries (from Abel Gance to Marcel Pagnol) as a "pictures man", there are no notable collaborations to note with the world of cartoon animation.
Philippe Hersant:
The same goes for Philippe Hersant, in whom we find the melodic genius and the balanced sense of form of the great French symphonic school, and whose escapades into the world of cinema are limited merely to collaborations, though of the highest quality, with Nicolas Philibert notably for the wonderful "Être et Avoir" in which we find his “Ephémères”.
See you on France Musique' website and lumni.fr, and tune in also to Denisa Kerschova's radio show, "Allegretto"(dedicated to young audiences on Wednesday at 11 a.m.)
Photos :
Camille Saint-Saëns © BNF
Claude Debussy © DR
Arthur Honegger © DR
Philippe Hersant © Cathy Bistour
Films Saint-Saëns :
Terrence Malik - "Days of Heaven" (1978)
André Calmettes - "L'Assassinat du duc de Guise" (1908)
Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise - «Beauty and the Beast" (1992)
Films Debussy :
Sam Armstrong (Walt Disney productions) - "Clair de lune" (1940 released in 1996)
Wes Anderson - "The Darjeeling Limited" (2007)
Steven Soderbergh - "Ocean's Eleven" (2001)
James Kent - "The Aftermath" (2019)
Films Honegger :
Abel Gance - "Napoléon" (1927)
Raymond Bernard - "Les Misérables" (1934)
Abel Gance - "Le Capitaine Fracasse" (1943)
Pierre Chenal - "Crime et Châtiment" (1935)