A View of the French Chamber Music “Renaissance” from Parnassus

The so-called renaissance ¹ of chamber music in France during the second half of the nineteenth century is a puzzling phenomenon, full of contradictions for the historian to disentangle. Chamber music could never pad the reputations or the pocket-books of its composers as generously as opera could. Yet musicians at the center of Parisian cultural life composed a substantial body of chamber works, and public opportunities for its performance were increasing. The genre had apparent roots in Germanic absolute music. However, the chamber works of Brahms were neither well known nor well received in France until this century, ² suggesting that nineteenth-century French composers of chamber music were not interested in looking to their German contemporaries for inspiration. In fact, the ranks of French chamber music composers swelled even as they became more overtly nationalistic. Some of them became intrigued by the “classical” French heritage of Rameau, but also developed a fascination for the unmistakably German Wagner; ³ neither influence would seem very conducive to the production of chamber music, which nevertheless thrived.