The "populaire" as material for musical innovation: Satie, Milhaud, Ives

Abstract

The paper shows how the "popular" bas been interpreted and put to use by three composers who contributed to the evolution of the musical language in the beginning of the 20th century, Charles Ives, Erik Satie and Darius Milhaud. On the basis of examples and short analyses, it proposes elements of reflection on the conception of the popular as "common patrimony" utilized by Satie for bis experiments with musical language. It shows how Milhaud enriches bis writing through the study of Brasilian music before the war and of jazz of the 1920s. The paper concludes with a reflection on the work of Charles Ives, who reached innovative results based on a conception heavily linked to the 19th century and on "popular" as an affirmation of one's cultural identity: a kind of mirror with respect to the attitudes and the esthetic choices that pushed Satie and Milhaud toward the popular.