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Musique: Revue mensuelle de critique, d'histoire, d'esthétique et d'information musicales

(Paris, 1927-1930)

Prepared by Doris Pyee
Online only (2018)

« Musique » Revue mensuelle de critique, d’histoire, d’esthétique et d’information musicales [MQE], a monthly journal, was published in Paris, from October 15, 1927 until February 1930, replacing the Revue Pleyel (1923-1927). MQE comprises of twenty-six issues totaling 1,277 pages printed in single column format. Each issue contains some fifty pages with additional unnumbered pages of advertisements. The editors are Robert Lyon and the well-known musicologist and collector Marc Pincherle. Contributors include important musicologists and writers on music such as Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, Roland-Manuel, Léon Vallas, Adolphe Jullien and Émile Vuillermoz.

Each issue begins with a “Sommaire” followed by feature articles dealing with historical or theoretical matters, for example, mechanization and music (radio) or Maurice Ravel’s musical style, followed by in-depth reviews of premières in lyrical theatres and concert halls in Paris, in the French provinces, and major European and North American cities. The section "Les Livres" [The books] contains reviews of recently publications. “Revue des revues” [Review of reviews] gives synopses of the contents of major music journals published in France, Italy, Germany, England, Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the United States. “Premières auditions” [First performances] concentrates on newly released recordings of contemporary music such as symphonies by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Alexander Tcherepnine and Vincent d’Indy’s Pianoforte Trio, while “La musique par disques” [Music on records] discusses performances by important contemporary operatic singers including tenor Georges Thill, baritone Mariano Stabile and soprano Rosa Ponselle. Radio broadcasts of concertsare also discussed. Trends in international musical life are analyzed in “Le Mouvement musical” [The musical movement]. This section deals with performances at the Paris Conservatory of Music, the Paris Opéra and the Opéra-Comique, as well as activities in the provinces (Amiens, Nancy, Meaux and Strasbourg), in major European cities including Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Brussels and Sofia, as well as the United States (with performances at the Metropolitan Opera House) and Japan.

The journal is richly illustrated, featuring portraits of the bass Chaliapine in Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov, and a wide collection of portraits of composers such as Berlioz, Debussy, Dukas, Gossec, Schoenberg and Chopin; the facsimile of a letter by Berlioz to Pleyel; and many handwritten scores by composers such as Schubert, Debussy, Schoenberg, Alfredo Casella, and a photograph of Paganini’s guitar.

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