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'Jolivet's Search for a New French Voice: Spiritual "Otherness" in Mana (1935)'

This refereed chapter argues for a canonic readjustment between the recognized authority, Messiaen, and his frequently overlooked compatriot, André Jolivet (1905-74). Mawer posits that Jolivet had a profound influence on Messiaen’s non-Western theoretical explorations and that, while sharing a quest for spirituality and expressivity, he in fact moved ahead of his supposed rival in reaping compositional benefits before World War II. The claim is substantiated by archival research, discussion of Jolivet’s personal library, including unpublished and published writings, and by culturally contextualized interpretation of musical materials. The chapter focuses on a close analytical reading of movements from Jolivet’s seminal work Mana, especially ‘La Princesse de Bali’, in turn related to aspects of Polynesian and Balinese culture. It concludes that Jolivet was a crucial member of La Jeune France whose new French identity was forged partly through the ‘foreign’ and the ‘old’; and whose non-Western vision was universal as a social ideal, and yet precise in offering parallels and instinctive insights into the cultural milieu of Polynesia and Bali. It suggests that, perhaps in this unsustainably materialistic twenty-first century, a stark reassessment of values may enable Jolivet’s ‘anti-materialist’ voice to be better heard. Reviews include those in Musical Times (2008) and Notes (2009), and that written by Carlo Caballero (2008). Mawer has subsequently written a further invited chapter for a new edited volume on Jolivet: ‘Jolivet’s Early Music Theory and its Practice in Cinq danses rituelles (1939)’, in Caroline Rae (ed.), André Jolivet: Music, Art and Literature (Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming 2014).