French vs German Music

"If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; If you would know, and not be known, live in a city." - Charles Caleb Colton

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"The American Composer Ned Rorum likes to classify music as either French or German.

By French, Rorum means music that is sensuous, economical and unabashed superficial.

By German, Rorum means art music that strives to be brainy, complex and impenetrably deep."

(Wednesday's Composer's Datebook)


Elsewhere, in his own words:

"I'm very French by nature and I lived in France for a long time and I am very sympathetic to French music as distinguished from German music. And I feel that all aesthetics in the universe are divided between French and German. Everything is either one or the other. If that's true, then I fall roundly into the French category. German means extravagance and beating your breast and repitition and thickness and heaviness. French means continuity and transparency and say what you have to say, then shut up, with a certain overlay of sexuality. As opposed to German which is sexuality with a lot of sweating. It is loud. Beethoven is pretty crude"

"The world is divided into two aesthetic styles: French and German. The color red is German. The color blue is French. Men are German, women are French. Japan is French, and China is German. German art is known for being profoundly superficial, and French art, for being superficially profound... I am French. If you disagree with my analysis, then you are German."

And:

"Unlike 30 or 50 years ago, there is no culture in Europe. There is nothing coming out of France that I know about—and I would know—in terms of serious theatre or music, or literature or painting, either good or bad; likewise Germany. England is fairly interesting but, strange as it may seem, America, with all its vulgarity, is the most interesting country culturally on earth today in music, in literature, in theatre, in painting."