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In The Composer as Intellectual, Jane Fulcher reveals the extent to which leading French composers between the World Wars were not only aware of but also engaged intellectually and-creatively with the central political and ideological issues of the period. Employing recent sociological and historical insights, she demonstrates the extent to which composers, particularly those in Paris since the Dreyfus Affair, considered themselves and were considered to be intellectuals, and interacted closely with intellectuals in other fields.
Their consciousness raised by the First World War and the xenophobic nationalism of official culture, some joined parties or movements, allying themselves with and propagating different sets of cultural and political-social goals. Throughout, Fulcher demonstrates how closely music had become a field of clashing ideologies in this period. She shows also how certain French composers responded, and how their responses influenced specific aspects of their professional and stylistic development.
She thus argues that, from this perspective, we can not only better understand specific aspects of the stylistic evolution of these composers, but also perceive the role that their art played in the ideological battles and in heightening cultural-political awareness of their time.
