Écrits sur la musique by Jean Cocteau (review)

Many regard enfant terrible Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) as a “jack of all trades,” as Philippe Halsman’s famous 1949 photo embodies (http://time.com/3878148/jean-cocteau-by-philippe-halsman-playful-portraits-of-a-surrealist/; accessed 3 October 2016). In this regard, and given the broad range of work produced by this poet, novelist, playwright, muralist, portraitist, actor, and movie director, we may better understand the reasons that reception history has underplayed his output as a music critic and his collaborations with musicians, even in those studies that review his contributions to the musical field.

For at least a decade, musicologists David Gullentops and Malou Haine have endeavored “to re-evaluate Cocteau’s contributions to the field of music in a methodical and objective manner” (all translations are my own; David Gullentops and Malou Haine, ed., Jean Cocteau, textes et musique [Sprimont: Mardaga, 2005], 6). The volume under review continues this trend. Specifically, it aims to give the same critical attention to Cocteau’s writings on music that his literary output has received (see p. 7 n. 4). As the editors point out, although Cocteau himself assembled some writings, he did not undertake the task “in a systematic or critical manner” (p. 7).

The book contains 310 entries, including republications of Cocteau’s Le coq et l’arlequin, journal and newspaper articles (with articles in English and German heretofore untranslated in French), prefaces, eulogies, radio transcriptions, program notes, liner notes, and other promotional materials, and some unpublished materials (see, for example, the synopsis of Dieu bleu, text 8). The editors reserved “private” comments on music, gleaned from his correspondence and diary, for a future publication. They also did not incorporate other parts of his creative work that include allusions to music, such as poems. On the other hand, the book presents all versions of the chosen texts, leading to a system to account for the variations: the volume incorporates many helpful footnotes, which refer to the different versions available, attempt to clarify context and meaning, and give information about people and works. The book’s editors strategically scatter 137 of Cocteau’s illustrations throughout the book, which makes for a handsome publication.

Gullentops and Haine opt to present the volume’s documents chronologically, dividing the book into decades, from 1910 to 1963. The reader can easily identify recurrent themes, such as the Ballets Russes, jazz, the circus, composers (viz., Igor Stravinsky, Francis Poulenc), performers (viz., Vaslav Nijinsky, Barbette, Louis Armstrong), works (viz., Le sacre du printemps, Le boeuf sur le toit), and so on. Certain themes tend to be more present during certain periods. Nijinsky, for example, is prevalent in the writings from 1910 to 1919. Nonetheless, Cocteau refers to other people and works, such as Erik Satie or Parade, throughout his entire output, although the essence of many thoughts was already exposed in his Le coq et l’arlequin. As an anthology of documents, rather than a monograph with a guiding line, a chronological presentation makes sense. Two indexes—one of names and another of works—allow the reader to journey across time while focusing on a given topic. (A third index of subjects would have made traveling even easier.) Nevertheless, grouping these documents according to topic could have highlighted a problem, of which the editors seem aware: “the abundance and diversity of [the different] versions’ variants,” (p. 19) or, less generously, Cocteau’s narcissistic propensity for self-reference, which forms the main target of the critique below.

The scholarship behind this book is very good. The editors scrutinize Cocteau’s works, published and unpublished, study each work’s multiple copies, choose the most complete version, and annotate it critically. In one instance, where Cocteau claims to have invented the term “impressionisme musical,” the editors note that “Cocteau is exaggerating his role,” as he tends to do, and proceed to trace the history of the term (p. 232 n. 140). Gullentops and Haine also make...