Honoloulou: A Document Addressing African Influence in Poulenc’s Rapsodie Nègre and Ravel's Chansons Madécasses

Abstract

With music coming out of Paris at the turn of the twentieth century as its primary focus, specifically Poulenc’s Rapsodie Nègre and Ravel’s Chansons Madécasses, this document discusses moments, whether explicit or implicit, in which musico-dramatic means used to express blackness cause a lingering effect. It questions the utilization of blackness as a theme or source of inspiration by non-black composers. This document means to peer into the larger Africanist influence. It wants to know how Africa, the land, and its people, sparked a fascination that was manifested in works not written by them; works reflective of them, but not by them. Sweeping change came to Paris in the years following the first World War but significant cultural colliding occurred at the century’s turn when Claude Debussy began publishing music influenced by cakewalk dances and American Minstrelsy. Francis Poulenc would go on to write Rapsodie Nègre, a work that paints an image of Africa using exhaustive ostinato and sung lines of nonsense by a made-up poet named Makoko Kangourou, while Maurice Ravel would add elements of jazz and blues in works like his Sonata for Violin and Piano and push the limits of exoticism in the Chansons Madécasses. The document will provide a purpose-specific analysis of the selected works and seek to find connections between them and the people they represent.