At the end of the 19th century, under the influence of Richard Wagner, many French artists aspired to create total works of art and explore new avenues. A proliferation of incidental music then appeared under the Third Republic, associating such famous names as Darius Milhaud and Paul Claudel, Jacques Rouché and Ida Rubinstein, Arthur Honegger and Jean Cocteau or Jean Giraudoux. The ancestor of film music, however, seems neglected today, and few studies are devoted to it. This book testifies to the richness and multiplicity of this genre between the pit and the stage, between music and words. It also offers important documentary resources, thus opening new perspectives for musicology.
