ABSTRACT
Around the turn of the century, the interaction between elements of non-Western folk music and the new harmonic vocabulary of Russian and French composers laid the basis for a musical language very different from the ultra-chromaticism of the Wagner–Strauss period. Pre-World-War-I political conditions contributed to these non-Germanic national developments. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and the defeat of Napoleon III by Bismarck, Prussia became a unified empire. New political alliances were formed and international hostilities became polarized between the Triple Alliance (Prussia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Italy) and the Triple Entente (Russia, France, and England). From the time of the rule of Peter the Great in the eighteenth century, Russia had looked toward Germany for her political and cultural models, but with increasing tensions in the late nineteenth century, she now began to look toward France for new and reciprocal political and cultural relationships. The long-established German musical hegemony in Europe was then challenged by the growing nationalistic sentiment in Russia and by a new era of artistic change in France. France had undergone rapid return to prosperity under its new Republic. This surge in national interests eventually led to a weakening of the German musical sphere of influence in Europe.
