Serge Nigg’s political opposition to Stravinsky’s neoclassicism after World War II and his involvement with French Vichy politics and the French Communist Party (PCF) contextualize his mid-1950s foray into composing French nationalist music. As a result of experiencing the German occupation and associated artistic propaganda, Nigg turned away from the neoclassical establishment (Stravinsky) and toward serialism and communism. After Soviet artistic directives instructed composers to abandon serialism and embrace their national heritage, Nigg’s political ideology and artistic proclivity were in conflict. Nigg’s 1954 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra was his first orchestral attempt at a (fleeting) embrace of his national heritage as directed by the Soviet proclamations. Nigg modeled his concerto on Vincent d’Indy’s 1886 Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français. Like d’Indy’s Symphonie, Nigg’s concerto adapts a French folksong for the primary theme using a similar orchestration. The transformations Nigg applies to the folksong, Filles, chantez le mois de mai, have led some critics to argue that he did not adhere to the ideals of socialist realism as closely as he said he did. The conservatism Nigg adopted in his concerto was similar to the same conservatism he protested in Stravinsky’s music. Nigg’s new approach was short-lived, however, as he and many others left the PCF in 1956 after the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

Works: Serge Nigg: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (123-30)

Sources: Vincent d’Indy: Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français (123); Traditional: Filles, chantez le mois de mai (123-30)

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet