Thematic afternoon in French
«Prima la musica»? The question of the relationship, or indeed the hierarchy, between music and text has been a subject of debate for centuries. Literature and music have been closely interlinked ever since we first began to write them both down. Some of the theatre of ancient Greece was «sung», and composers such as Claudio Monteverdi, Christoph Willibald Gluck, and Richard Wagner sought to conceptualize and implement a new way of bringing them together. Literature, as well, has always embraced music, from the bards of ancient Greece to present-day authors. Drawing on examples from the musical repertoire and the literary canon, Nicolas Dufetel – a specialist in 19th century music, Franz Liszt, and Wagner, musicologist and researcher at the CNRS, who teaches music history and the links between music and literature at the Université catholique de l'ouest (Angers) – will explore the elective affinities between music and literature. The lecture will be illustrated with examples from Aeschylus and Tasso to Marcel Proust, and from Monteverdi to Wagner, a composer who himself aspired to be the poet of his music and the musician of his poetry.
