tönend bewegte Formen

Or the Birth of the Animated Cartoon from the Spirit of Music
Tönend bewegte Formen oder die Geburt des Zeichenfilms aus dem Geiste der Musik. 

Listening to Chabrier’s Joyeuse Marche (in a 1919 recording conducted by Eugène Ysaÿe) it dawned upon me: before there was the animated cartoon, there was animated cartoon music. In fact the piece dates from 1888 (the original four hand piano version from 1885) – that is, from a period when the animated cartoon was just developing. The first public screening of an animated projection (by Charles-Émile Reynaud) took place in Paris in 1892, but his Pauvre Pierrot looks poor indeed and suggests that the spirit of the cartoon was there musically before it took shape graphically.

But what makes this music cartoonish? – Chabrier called his piece Joyeuse Marche, not Marche Joyeuse, and I’m not sure what that word order implies to the native French, but it seems to me that the composer thought of a walk (a silly walk) rather than a march. Listen to it (preferably in an early recording), and I bet you won’t be able to stay in your chair. You’ll start walking around in a funny way – jerky, angular, and a trifle too fast, like an early cartoon character. Not with those rounded corners, those stereotyped retards, that make modern computer animation look like swimming in syrup.

Music consists of animated forms, the 19^th century music critic Hanslick thought, but he was at a loss what to do with the idea: what does it mean, animated? – The answer came from the movies.