Penser la musique, penser la race ? L’antisémitisme chez les musicologues et critiques musicaux sous l’occupation

Abstract

Thinking music, thinking race? Anti-Semitism among musicologists and musical critics under Nazi occupationAnti-Semitism was seemingly marked by paradoxes among musicologists and music critics under Nazi occupation. Music is thought to be transcendent and apolitical, and for this very reason it is considered to be of particular use to a defeated society in attempting to regenerate its national roots and traditions. Composers who were free to express their anti-Semitic beliefs in such a context also wrote about the fraternity and humanity of European peoples toward each other. On the other hand, musicians who had never before adopted an anti-Semitic stance contributed to the anti-Semitic ideology by becoming accustomed to and accepting of the persecution of their Jewish colleagues, thus enabling themselves to continue in their own activities which were considered essential to the patriotic effort to revive the spirit of the country.As intellectuals and institutional players having political and social influence and responsibility, these musicographers contributed to developing an anti-Semitic policy. The means they used were through joining groups or associations, through tacit responsibility, by carrying out orders and by adopting ideologies which could be passive or active, in which case all their creative forces were used. The discourse that prevailed in the aftermath of the war was to explain, to justify and to affect a moral reconstruction and in this context music was considered to be a “protected space”. Individual commitment or “purely musical” text was therefore deemed apolitical regardless of its pragmatic context.From a historical perspective one can see a large grey zone of daily anti-Semitism which encompassed small, pragmatic decisions and conformist discourses while at the same time there existed an autonomous discourse, an infatuation with cultural collaboration and unambiguous anti-Semitic formulations.Maybe it is precisely this “normality” of anti-Semitic phenomena among musicographers that enriches research on the cultural, intellectual and daily life in France under Nazi occupation.