"The Hatred of Music", by Pascal Quignard
Pascal Quignard is considered one of the most important names in contemporary French literature. He won the Grand Prix de l’Académie française in 2002 and the prix Goncourt in 2004. Being at a crossroads of novels, philosophy essays, poetry, critic and translation, the work of this gifted polygraph writer is quite unclassifiable.
However, music turns out to be in his artistic world a guiding principle, a keystone, as indicated by his most popular book, titled All the World's Mornings. This novel, which tells the lives of 17th-century viola de Gamber player Marin Marais and of his teacher M. de Sainte Colombe, was adapted for the screen in 1991 by director Alain Corneau. That is why, the reading of The Hatred of Music, recently (and finally) translated into English is undoubtedly a tremendous way to discover (even further) Quignard’s masterful writing.
The puzzling expression “the hatred of music” is “meant to convey to what point music can become an object of hatred to someone who once adored it beyond measure”, tells the author. Indeed, this fragmentary and brilliant essay, surprising in an amazing way, learned but accessible, invites us to think about the relationship between music, power and human suffering.
“From prehistoric chants to challenging contemporary compositions, Quignard reflects on music of all kinds and eras, explains his editor*. He draws on vast cultural knowledge – the Bible, Greek mythology, early modern history, modern philosophy, the Holocaust and more – to develop then accessible treatises on music. In each of these small masterpieces the author exposes music’s potential to manipulate, to mesmerize, to domesticate. Especially disturbing in his scrutiny of the role music played in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Quignard’s provocative book takes on particular relevance today, as we find ourselves surrounded by music as never before in history.”
Mixing historical analysis with aphoristic poetry, this truly singular book, written with sharpness, echoes Plato’s theories of politics and music and emphasise that art is definitely not the opposite of barbarity. And music has not always “charms to soothe the savage beast”.
* The Hatred of Music, by Pascal Quignard, translated by Matthew Amos and Fredrik Rönnbäck, Yale University Press, 2016.