‘Accenting the Classics’ Project
Under the umbrella of the French Music Research Hub, this AHRC-funded project (£461,583 full value) is founded on the historical interplay initiative. It embraces a spectrum of times and places; a mix of historical, cultural, analytical and editorial skills; and a mixed university-conservatoire base, with a performance practice angle. The substantial, but under-researched, Édition classique A. Durand et Fils acts as a ‘prism’ for exploring relations and dimensions: early 20C French composers’ and musicologists’ engagement with their pasts – French and more broadly European (some figures have been largely written out of music history); relations between composers’ editorial and compositional practices; issues of wartime publishing; role of the enterprise within pedagogy at the Paris Conservatoire (some volumes advertise the fact that many listed editors were also Conservatoire professors); implications for keyboard-based performance practice, then and now.
This exciting, multifaceted project (2016-19) involves the complementary skills of Profs. Deborah Mawer (PI), Graham Sadler (CI), Dr Rachel Moore (RF) and Prof. Barbara Kelly (CI, RNCM, Manchester), and the practice-based, pedagogical skills of pianists at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Research and teaching specialisms
- Twentieth-century French music (Ravel, Milhaud, Les Six, Jolivet)
- Music-dance interplay (ballet productions, British dance band)
- Transcultural classical-jazz relations
- Music and meaning (interpretation, criticism)
- Music education
- Music for strings, string pedagogy
Deborah's research interests are in:
- Historical, analytical and critical musicology of twentieth-century French music, especially Ravel, Milhaud, Les Six, Jolivet
- Music–dance relations: ballet, British dance band
- Transcultural classical–jazz relations, including George Russell, Bill Evans and Brubeck
- Music analysis, theory and meaning
- Music education; string-instrument pedagogy
Grants and funding
- AHRC Research Grant: PI, ‘Accenting the Classics’ (£461,583 full project value; 2016–19) 2016
- FHNW Musik-Akademie Basel 2015
- Université Paris Diderot 2014
- Music & Letters Trust 2013
- L’Observatoire interdisciplinaire de création et de recherche en musique (OICRM), Université de Montréal 2012
- Music Analysis Development Fund 2012
- OICRM, Université de Montréal 2011
- Music & Letters Trust 2009
- Royal Musical Association 2008
- British Academy Small Grant 2004–5
- AHRC Research Leave 2003–4
- British Academy Small Grant 2001–2
- British Academy Small Grant 1998
- Music Analysis Development Fund 1997
French Historical Interplay Project
This project was catalysed in summer 2014 by the first international symposium of the French Music Research Hub based at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, directed by Mawer and Dingle. It has culminated in an edited book: 2018: Mawer (ed.), Historical Interplay in French Music and Culture, 1860-1960. London and New York: Routledge. This essay volume, which has been further developed and expanded, offers a history of French music in the ‘long’ modernist era with a dynamic difference: one that engages with a complex interplay of times present and past; matters of musical memory; music’s connections with literature, visual art, philosophy and politics; questions of French cultural heritage in relation to European (especially Germanic) identity; as well as issues of reinterpretation and meaning. Contributors comprise Conservatoire researchers on French music and other international scholars.
Classical–Jazz Transcultural Perspectives
This is a follow-on transcultural project developing out of the monograph: French Music and Jazz in Conversation (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Forthcoming outputs include: ‘ Performing Improvisation: Bill Evans and Jean-Yves Thibaudet’ (jazz conference paper; book chapter). How can one (re)perform an improvisation; how much spontaneity remains and where does composition enter into the equation? A transcultural prism is adopted via the recordings of the French concert pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Chosen loci include ‘ Waltz for Debby’ (1956), ‘ Song for Helen’ (1978) and ‘ Your Story’ (1980). While improvisatory-compositional boundaries become more blurred, substantive differences are revealed between Evans and Thibaudet, even when handling the same material. ‘ Darius Milhaud, critique de jazz: le caractère de ses écrits et son rôle’ , Les Actes du colloque: La Critique de jazz (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, forthcoming). Proceedings of international colloquium, Université Paris Diderot (6–7 February 2014). Funded Université Paris Diderot.
André Jolivet: Theory and Practice
Among the members of La Jeune France, André Jolivet (1905–74) has typically been overshadowed by his close contemporary Olivier Messiaen. This revisionist project aims to investigate Jolivet’ s distinctive contribution and establish his rightful position within a French modernist canon. It represents part of an increasing interest in Jolivet’ s music more widely in the UK, France and internationally.
Outputs include:
- 2019: ‘Jolivet’s Early Music Theory and its Practice in Cinq danses rituelles (1939)’, in Caroline Rae (ed.), André Jolivet: Music, Art and Literature. London and New York: Routledge.
- 2018: ‘Jolivet’s Rameau: Theory, Practice and Temporal Interplay’, in Mawer (ed.), Historical Interplay in French Music and Culture, 1860-1960 London and New York: Routledge.
Deborah is pleased to hear from prospective students in her research areas.
10 PhD supervisee awards on topics including: twentieth-century French music (Ravel, Poulenc, Tailleferre, Dukas); ballet/dance interactions; twentieth-century musics; jazz studies; music analysis and performance; timbral analysis; rhythm-metre in Fauré’s song setting; transformational analysis (after Lewin)
Doctoral awards include:
- Andrea Granitzio (2017)
- René Mogensen (2017)
- Darquise Bilodeau (2016)
- Adam Greig (2014)
- Emma Gallon (2011)
- Philip Purvis (2011)
- Helen Minors (2007)
- Lee Tsang (2000)
Currently supervising 5 PhD students on topics including: jazz motivic, harmonic set-theoretic analysis; performer experience of aleatory choral music; jazz improvisational techniques in choral composition; musical intertextuality and re-composition around Beethoven; creating music using modal techniques and natural elements (stone)
