Pastiching the Classical, the Romantic and the early 20th century — the stylistic-writing discipline of the DEM (specialised cycle / CPES): identify the signatures of a style, then reproduce them.
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Pause Culture · Stylistic pastiche
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
At the Paris Conservatoire, Maurice Ravel was the most subtle pasticheur of his generation: his <em>Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn</em> or his <em>À la manière de…</em> (Borodin, Chabri…
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À retenir : To write in a style is first to analyse it: you spot the signatures of a model (harmony, harmonic rhythm, texture, voice leading, cadences), then reproduce them — without ever committing an anachronism.
Three styles, three harmonic languages
Stylistic writing — pastiche — is a central discipline of the DEM in writing (specialised cycle / CPES, e.g. at the CRR of Lyon). You are asked to harmonise a given melody or to complete a page in the language of a precise era. Each style has its signatures: a recognisable way of treating harmony, rhythm, texture and voice leading.
The principle: you can only pastiche well what you have analysed. Before writing, you identify the characteristic traits of the target style; you then reproduce them faithfully, without mixing in devices from another era.
Click a style to expand its description and its signatures.
Classical
Classical style — Mozart, Haydn
The Classical style aims for clarity. A given melody is readily harmonised for string quartet, in homophonic texture: a clear melody supported by a transparent accompaniment (often an Alberti bass). The harmony is diatonic, the cadences clear-cut.
The trap to avoid — harmonic anachronism: each device belongs to an era. A “Brahms-style” augmented sixth in a Mozart pastiche, or Debussyan planing on a Classical page, immediately “break” the style. It is the error most severely penalised at the DEM.