User:Pahpaha/Culture

Culture

Arts

Music

Although the musical creation in France dates back to the Middle Ages, it knew its golden age in the seventeenth century thanks to Louis XIV, who employed several musicians and composers in the royal court. The most renowned composers of this period include Marc-Antoine Charpentier, François Couperin, Michel-Richard Delalande, Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marin Marais, all of them composers at the court. After the death of the "Roi Soleil", French musical creation lost dynamism, but in the next century the music of Jean-Philippe Rameau reached some prestige, and today he is still one of the most renowned French composers. French classical music knew a revival in the nineteenth and twentieth century, at the end of the romantic movement, with many precursors of modern classical music such as Hector Berlioz, Georges Bizet, Gabriel Fauré, Charles Gounod, Jacques Offenbach, Édouard Lalo, Jules Massenet, Camille Saint-Saëns, Érik Satie, Francis Poulenc, and later Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. The period was a golden age for Operas, being popular in the country the opéra bouffon, the opera-ballet and the opéra comique styles. More recently, at the middle of the twentieth century, Maurice Ohana, Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Boulez contributed to the transformations of contemporary classical music.

French music then followed the rapid emergence of pop and rock music at the middle of the twentieth century. Although English-speaking creations has reached some popularity in the country, French pop music, known as chanson française, has remained very popular. Among the most important French artists of the century are Georges Brassens, Léo Ferré, Charles Aznavour, Serge Gainsbourg and Yves Montand. Although there are very few rock bands in France compared to English-speaking countries, bands such as Noir Désir, Mano Negra, Superbus, Niagara, [(Rita Mitsouko]] and more recently Phoenix are reached worldwide popularity. Other French artists have known international career, being popular in several countries, for example pianist Richard Clayderman, electronic music composer Jean-Michel Jarre, Breton music composer Yann Tiersen, and dance music composer David Guetta. In the 1990s and 2000s, electronic duos Daft Punk, Justice and Air also reached worldwide popularity and contributed to the reputation of modern electronic music in the world.