Compositeurs français à l'heure allemande (1940-1944) : le cas de Marcel Delannoy

Si la vie musicale en France sous l’Occupation est aujourd’hui un champ de recherche bien balisé, le parcours de l’un des compositeurs majeurs de cette période, Marcel Delannoy (1898-1962), n’a encore fait l’objet d’aucune étude approfondie. Appuyé sur un large éventail de sources, dont le riche fonds Delannoy conservé à la BnF, ce travail vise à combler cette lacune en situant Delannoy dans le contexte plus large d’une génération particulièrement exposée sous Vichy. Dans ce contexte coercitif mais favorable à la création musicale, plusieurs compositeurs de cette génération (notamment Poulenc et Honegger) sont en effet impliqués dans diverses activités qui révèlent leurs engagements et leur degré d’accommodation face à la situation d’Occupation. Pour rendre compte des activités de Delannoy sous Vichy, il s’est avéré nécessaire d’élargir la périodisation. D’abord parce que son principal projet et succès de la période, Ginevra, un opéra créé en 1942 à l’Opéra-Comique, est le fruit d’une commande d’État de 1938. Et plus généralement parce que ses choix musicaux et extra-musicaux, comme ceux de ses contemporains, ne peuvent être compris dans le seul contexte des 4 années d’Occupation. Delannoy, qui se fait connaître à la fin des années 1920, est un compositeur actif dans les entreprises de popularisation de la culture des années 1930, tandis que son style musical éclectique et accessible conquiert un large public. En 1942, son opéra Ginevra est très bien accueilli en raison de son inscription dans le genre français de l’opéra-comique, de ses emprunts éclectiques et de ses références à la musique du passé. Mais ce moment de grande médiatisation s’accompagne de plusieurs compromissions : critique musical d’un journal collaborationniste, membre du groupe Collaboration et de la délégation française invitée à Vienne pour la Semaine Mozart du Reich allemand (1941), Delannoy prend part à plusieurs projets de collaboration culturelle. À la Libération, ces compromissions lui sont reprochées : il est sanctionné par différentes instances officielles d’épuration et fait en outre l’objet d’une épuration plus informelle. Au croisement de l’histoire et de la musicologie, cette approche monographique qui situe le compositeur étudié dans sa génération vise plus largement à rendre compte des conséquences de l’Occupation sur les carrières des compositeurs, de leurs engagements et du rôle qu’ils ont tenu dans la politique musicale de Vichy et de l’occupant. Although the French musical life during the Occupation is now a familiar field of research, no detailed study has been made of Marcel Delannoy (1898-1962), one of the most important composers of the period. Supported by a wide range of sources, including the large collection of Delannoy’s papers conserved at the BnF, the present work aims to fill this gap by situating Delannoy in the larger context of a generation of musicians that were especially visible during the Vichy years. In this context, both coercive and favorable to musical creation, several composers (notably Poulenc and Honegger) were indeed involved in a number of activities that reveal their commitments and the degree of adaptation when faced with the Occupation. To account for Delannoy’s activities under Vichy, it was necessary to extend the period under study: his principal project and success of the period, Ginevra (an opera premiered in 1942 at the Opéra-Comique), was the result of a 1938 State commission; more generally, his musical and extra-musical choices, much like those of his contemporaries, cannot be understood if they are restricted to the four years of the Occupation. Having made his name in the 1920s, Delannoy participated in the 1930’s ventures of cultural popularization, while his eclectic and accessible style won him a large public. In 1942, his opera Ginevra was very well received thanks to its ties to the traditional genre of French opéra-comique as well as its eclectic borrowings and references to the music of the past. Very much in the public eye, Delannoy also compromised himself in different ways: as a musical critic of collaborationist newspaper, as a member of the “Groupe Collaboration” and of the French delegation invited to Vienna for the Mozart Week of the German Reich (1941), he took part in several projects of cultural collaboration. It is because of these activities that the composer was penalized by professional and judicial purges following the Liberation, and also by a kind of more informal épuration. At the intersection of history and musicology, this monographic approach which places the composer in the context of his generation aims at a broader understanding of the Occupation’s consequences on composers’ careers, their political commitments, and the roles they played in the musical politics of Vichy and the German occupier.

Keyphrases: Compositeurs, France, Vichy, Occupation, Politique, Génération, Accommodation, Collaboration, Résistance, Vichy, Occupation, Collaboration, Composers, German Occupation, Politics, Generation, Adaptation, Resistance