Turn of the century French music?

Question

Im trying to find the type of music listened to in France around the turn of the century - before WWI and before the roaring twenties. Basically music from the Belle Epoque era. Would anyone be able to guide me to some artists I can look up? The closest thing I can research so far is french "salon" music. But have yet to be able to find any artists from that genre to listen to.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Answer 1

French popular music at the turn of the 20th century (to which I think you refer) was typically rather raunchy music hall. One famous singer was Mistinguette (http://www.geocities.com/~jimlowe/mist/mistdex.html)

Maurice Chevalier also began singing in cafés as early as 1901 (http://members.tripod.com/~compmast/chevalie/chevalie.html)

Answer 2

First, you're going to have a hard time finding recordings from that era. Recording technology was quite primitive at that time (think recording with a metal needle onto a wax cylinder) and most of the recordings made were done in the US (where the technology was invented).

If you're looking for the names of popular French singers (other than opera singers) of that time, be prepared to do extensive library research as most of the primary sources are likely to be special materials out of general circulation.

However, you're on the right trail if you are looking into French "salon" music. The salons were where the upper classes would gather to party, so the music played in these events would likely fir whatever project you are trying to accomplish.

In this case, you will be looking for contemporary recordings of "melodies" (French art songs) written over 100 years ago. There are quite a bit of these around: see the link at the bottom (which contains the names of composers in that era) and do a search for "[name of composer] melodie" and you are likely to find plenty of CD and mp3 recordings.

(See the second link for a search result example.)