The Vinteuil Centenary: Music, Memory and Repetition in Proust - CONCERT
23 June 2022, 7:00 pm–8:30 pm
Concert featuring music inspired by 'In Search of Lost Time' and the music of the salons of the time, and a new composition by Alex Hills.
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Institute of Advanced Studies / UCL European Institute
Location
-
UCL Haldane RoomWilkins BuildingGower StreetLondonWC1E 6BTUnited Kingdom
“This year marks 100 years since the death of Marcel Proust. Readers and scholarsÌýalike have long noticed the central role played by music in Proust’s major work, In Search of Lost Time. This concert, together with the connectedÌýconversation event (2:00 pm -4:00 pm), exploreÌýthe role of music in the novel, including ofÌýthe famous sonata, and then septet, written by the fictional composer, Vinteuil - but als theÌýnumerous real composersÌýthe narrator of the novel discusses, too. It also premiersÌýa new composition by Alex Hills in the light of this analysis.
Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre Mvmts from Violin Sonata No 1 in D minor
Schumann Violin Sonata No 1 in A minor Op 105
Ìý
Faure Romance Op 28
Leon Delafosse Baisiers (a Msr. Marcel Proust) from Les Chauves-souris
Reynaldo Hahn A Cloris
Lili Boulanger D’Un Matin de Printemps
Ìý
Alex Hills Misremembrances (First Performance)
This concert presents some of the music around Marcel Proust and the Parisian musical salon of the early 20th century. It includes composers important to Proust in Schumann, Wagner and Faure, all of whose music is heard during the course of A La Recherche. His friendsÌýLeon Delafosse and Reynaldo HahnÌýboth performed regularly in the salons and are often suggested as partial models for the characters Albertine and Charles Morel respectively. Delafosse’s songs are now little known, but his cycle Chauve-souris (Bats) sets poems by Robert Montesquieu, in turn the inspiration for the outrageous Baron Charlus. Hahn’s songs are still performed, although after one salon in 1894 the hostess noted, ‘Hahn sung with incomparable artistry. The music was detestable’. Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre and Lily Boulanger are women from the opposite historical ends of the French musical tradition that was so important to Proust. In 1907 he put on a concert at the Ritz including music going back to Couperin, a contemporary of Jacquet de la Guerre. Lily Boulanger died in 1918 at just 24, but the music she wrote was both acclaimed at the time – she was the first woman to win the Prix de Rome, France’s main prize for young composers – and provides a parallel to the contemporaneous stylistic advances of Debussy and Ravel.
The concert also features a new piece by Alex Hills, written for the event as part of a larger project exploring music in A La Recherche.ÌýThisÌýtakes Proust’s notion of involuntary memory to explore often strange and jarring aural connections between Debussy, Cesar Franck and Wagner.
Organised by Dr TomÌýStern, Associate Professor of Philosophy, UCL andÌý,Ìýcomposer and lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music.Ìý
ÌýTheÌýconcert is followed by our buffet and drinks closing the Music Futures Festival. RSVP.
This concert is linked to the "talking event" earlier in the day (2:00-4:00 pm), whichÌýwill offer a series of short talks, aimed at the general public, on the subject of Proust and music. Come to hear scholarsÌýfrom different disciplinary angles, including philosophy, composition, music history and literary studies.“
Image credit: 'a few centimetres in the midst of this superhuman multitude’, coarse figurine on the Porch of the Booksellers, Rouen Cathedral, photo by Thomas Stern.
All welcome. Please note that there may be photography and/or audio recording at some events and that admission is on a first come first served basis. Please follow thisÌýFAQÌýlink for more information. All our events are free but you can support the IASÌýhere.