Dr Caroline Potter
Caroline Potter is an award-winning writer and academic who specialises in French music, based in London. Currently Visiting Reader in French Music at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, she has held full-time academic positions in the Music departments of Roehampton and Kingston Universities. She gives guest lectures and pre-concert talks worldwide, including keynote lectures at Princeton University, Madrid Complutense University and for the Music since 1900 international conference. Caroline has published books on Erik Satie, the Boulanger sisters, and Henri Dutilleux: her most recent book, Erik Satie, a Parisian composer and his world (Boydell Press, 2016), was named Sunday Times Classical Music Book of the Year. She is a frequent broadcaster for organisations including the BBC and was Series Advisor to the Philharmonia Orchestra's ‘City of Light: Paris 1900-1950' season. She also reviews contemporary music for the US website I Care If You Listen and the journal Tempo. Currently she is writing a book on the literary and intellectual context of Pierre Boulez’s early work.
Qualifications
- PhD, 1995, Liverpool University
- MMus, 1992, Liverpool University
- BA (Hons) French and Music, 1990, Keele University
Research
- French music since Debussy
- Music and the other arts, especially literature
- Music and Gender
- Contemporary music criticism
Publications
Books
Henri Dutilleux (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), 236 pp. This book was reprinted in 2001 and reissued by Routledge as a paperback in 2016
Nadia and Lili Boulanger (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 192 pp. Reissued by Routledge as a paperback in 2016
French music since Berlioz (ed. Caroline Potter and Richard Langham Smith) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 363 pp. CP’s contribution includes chapters on musical life during the Second World War, and French music since 1945. Reissued by Routledge as a paperback in 2016
Erik Satie: Music, Art and Literature (ed. Caroline Potter) (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013). 10 chapters, including chapter by CP, ‘Satie as poet, playwright and composer’ (pp. 67-84), and conversation between CP and Howard Skempton, ‘After Satie’ (pp. 229-242). Reissued by Routledge as a paperback in October 2016
Erik Satie, a Parisian composer and his world (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016), 270 pp.
Journal articles
‘Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983): a centenary appraisal’, Muziek en Wetenschap (Amsterdam), vol. II no. 2 (Summer 1992), pp. 109-128
‘Dutilleux and visual music’, Muziek en Wetenschap, vol. III no. 4 (Winter 1993), pp. 251-266
‘Debussy et Dutilleux’, Cahiers Debussy, vol. 17-18 (1993-4), pp. 121-131
‘Nadia and Lili Boulanger: sister composers’, Musical Quarterly, vol. 83 no. 4 (Winter 1999), pp. 536-556
‘Nadia Boulanger and Raoul Pugno’s opera La ville morte’, Opera Quarterly, 16/3 (Summer 2000), pp. 397-406
‘Dutilleux at 90’, Musical Times (Spring 2006), pp. 51-8
‘Unreliable machines: an interview with Kenneth Hesketh’, Musical Times (Winter 2008), pp. 15-24
‘The composer, the choreographer and the film star: Henri Dutilleux’s collaborations with Roland Petit’, Musical Times, 151 (Summer 2010), pp. 71-82.
‘The end – or is it? Dutilleux’s revisions’, Contemporary Music Review, vol. 29 no. 5 (2010), pp. 515-527. Part of a special ‘Dutilleux at 95’ number edited by Caroline Potter and Caroline Rae; CP and CR are also joint authors of the Preface (pp. 429-430)
‘Erik Satie’s ‘Obstacles venimeux’’: Ars Lyrica, 20 (2011), pp. 101-114
‘Marche gaie: a rediscovered work by Lili Boulanger’, Notes, vol. 68 no. 4 (June 2012), pp. 715-728. A piano arrangement and orchestration of the rediscovered work was published by Schott in 2013
‘Erik Satie’s musique d’ameublement and Max Jacob’s Ruffian toujours, truand jamais.’ Revue de musicologie 101/2 (2015), pp. 345-366. ISSN 0035-1601
‘Pierre Boulez, surrealist’, in Music and Surrealism issue of Gli Spazi della musica, 7 (2018): http://www.ojs.unito.it/index.php/spazidellamusica/article/view/2997/2679
Book chapters
‘Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979): The Teacher in the Marketplace’ in The Business of Music, ed. Michael Talbot (Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 2002), pp. 152-170
‘The French string quartet’ in The 20th-century String Quartet, ed. Douglas Jarman (Todmorden: Arc Press, 2002), pp. 25-40
‘Debussy and Nature’ in The Cambridge Companion to Debussy, ed. Simon Trezise (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 137-151. Translated into Italian by Eddo Cimatti for an edited collection of essays on Debussy, Musica e ideologia nella Francia di Debussy e altri saggi(Milan: Carta Bianca, 2014, pp. 93-110)
‘Interview with Edwin Roxburgh’ in British music in the 1990s, ed. Peter O’Hagan (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 141-8
‘Messiaen and Dutilleux’ in Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art and Literature, ed. Nigel Simeone and Christopher Dingle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 23-37
‘Henri Dutilleux et le prix de Rome’ in Le Concours du Prix de Rome en musique, ed. Alexandre Dratwicki and Julia Lu (Lyon: Symétrie, 2011), pp. 445-456
‘Adventures in Gastromusicology: Satie, La Sirène and Trois petites pièces montées’ in Historical Interplay in French Music and Culture, ed. Deborah Mawer (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), pp. 81-96
‘The anxiety of exoticism: André Jolivet’s relationship with non-Western musics’ in André Jolivet: Music, Art and Literature, ed. Caroline Rae (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), pp. 159-172
Reviews and other publications
Article commissioned by the Paul Sacher Foundation for an exhibition catalogue (exhibition in Pierpont Morgan Library, New York): ‘Henri Dutilleux: Mystère de l’instant’ in Settling New Scores: Music Manuscripts from the Paul Sacher Foundation, (London: Schott, 1998), pp. 44-46
Preface to new edition of Francis Poulenc, Trois novelettes (London: Chester, 1999)
Review of Léonie Rosenstiel, Nadia Boulanger: A Life in Music, Music and Letters 80/2 (1999), pp. 315-7
Review of Alexandra Laederich, Catalogue de l’oeuvre de Jacques Ibert, Music and Letters 81/2 (2000), pp. 336-7
Five articles (including major articles on Henri Dutilleux and Nadia Boulanger) for The New Grove Dictionary of Music, 2nd edition (2001)
Translation of programme note for world premiere of Henri Dutilleux’s Sur le même accord: Nocturne pour violon et orchestre (27 April 2002)
Article on Germaine Tailleferre in James Briscoe (ed.) New Historical Anthology of Music by Women (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), pp. 136-9
Article on Henri Dutilleux for Makers of Modern Culture, ed. Justin Wintle (London: Routledge, 2006)
Review of Nadia Boulanger et Lili Boulanger: Témoignages et études, ed. Alexandra Laederich. Music and Letters 90/1 (2009), pp. 135-137
Review of Berlioz and Debussy: Sources, Contexts and Legacies, ed. Barbara Kelly and Kerry Murphy, Nineteenth-Century French Studies (Athens, GA, USA): vol. 37 nos. 3 and 4 (2009), pp. 319-20
Review of Robert F. Waters, Déodat de Séverac: Musical Identity in Fin de Siècle France, Music and Letters 91/2 (2010), pp. 290-1
Exhibition introduction for Westminster Music Library tribute to Henri Dutilleux (July-August 2013)
Review of Sylveline Bourion, Le style de Claude Debussy. Duplication, répétition et dualité dans les stratégies de composition, Notes 70/1 (2013), pp. 122-4
Review of Deborah Mawer (ed.) Ravel Studies. Music and Letters 94/3 (2013), pp. 536-8
Review of Kimberly A. Francis, Teaching Stravinsky: Nadia Boulanger and the Consecration of a Modernist Icon, Journal of the American Musicological Society 70/3 (2017), pp. 866-70
Review of two double CD recordings of Brice Pauset’s music for Tempo 72/285 (July 2018), pp. 95-6
Review of study day ‘Surrealism and Music in France, 1924-1952: interdisciplinary and international contexts’ (Senate House, 6 June 2018) in French Studies Bulletin, 148 (Winter 2018), pp. 53-4
Review of CD of Georges Aperghis’ orchestral music for Tempo 73/288 (April 2019), pp. 93-4
Review of Kimberly A. Francis, Nadia Boulanger and the Stravinskys: a Selected Correspondence. French History (April 2019), https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/crz035
Review of Barbara Kelly and Christopher Moore (eds.) Music Criticism in France, 1918–1939. Authority, Advocacy, Legacy. Revue de musicologie vol. 105 no. 2, pp. 459-61
Review of Esther Cavett and Matthew Head (eds.), Howard Skempton: Conversations and Reflections (Boydell Press) for Tempo, vol. 74 no. 291 (January 2020), pp. 117-119
Review of Kaija Saariaho orchestral works conducted by Clément Mao-Takacs (BIS 2402 CD) for Tempo, vol. 74 no. 292 (April 2020), pp. 89-90
Review of Georgia Rodgers CD ‘A to B/Late Lines’ for Tempo, vol. 74 no. 294 (October 2020), pp. 88-89
Review of Ning Yu CD ‘Of Being’ for Tempo, vol. 75 no. 295 (January 2021), pp. 106-7
Media Work
Caroline frequently appears as a pre-concert speaker, including for the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra. She also broadcasts on the BBC and internationally.
Work With Industry
Caroline was Series Advisor to the Philharmonia Orchestra’s City of Light: Paris 1900-1950 season.