Opera in France—Lully and Rameau—Clavecin and Harpsichord Composers
We left French Opera in 1600 when Henry IV married Marie de’ Medici.
Ballets which resembled the English masques had been performed when Baif
and his friends had produced _Le Ballet Comique de la Reine_, but no
real opera had yet been written in France. In 1645, Cardinal Mazarin,
the powerful Italian prime minister of France, invited a company of
Italian singers to give a performance of Peri’s _Euridice_ in Paris. The
French did not like the opera, as they said it sounded too much like
plain song and airs from the cloister, and yet it led to Abbé Perrin’s
writing a work in 1658 which he called the _Pastoral_, and for which a
composer named Cambert wrote the music. The _Pastoral_ was a very great
success, and was repeated by order of Louis XIV, King of France. Ten
years later, Louis gave Perrin and Cambert permission “to establish
throughout the kingdom academies of opera, or representations with music
in the French language after the manner of those in Italy.” Their next
work, _Pomone_, was the first opera performed publicly in an opera
house, built purposely in Paris for them. The opera was so
enthusiastically received, that it ran nightly for eight months, and the
crowds were so great, that the police had to be called out. This
combination of poet and composer came to an end with _Pomone_, and a new
man acquired the right to give opera in the new opera house. This man
was Jean Baptiste Lully or in Italian, Giovanni Battista Lulli
(1632–1687).
LULLY THE KING’S FAVORITE
You may hear that the first famous opera writer of France had been a
pastry cook or kitchen boy, but no matter how humble his start in life,
he rose to the highest social position ever reached up to that time by a
composer in France. He became a great favorite of Louis XIV, he was
covered with titles and honors, he was on friendly terms with all the
nobility of the court, he was musical dictator of the opera and in fact
of all the musical happenings of the court. The greatest literary
geniuses of the period, such as Molière, Racine, La Fontaine, Quinault,
Corneille and Boileau, worked with him when he wanted new librettos for
his operas. He paid dearly for all his privileges, because his fellow
composers were jealous of his genius and his opportunities, and they
lost no chance to blacken his character.
Lully was born in Florence, Italy, in 1632, but we can tell you little
or nothing of his parentage or of his childhood. A monk taught him a
little about music and how to play the guitar. When he was about twelve
years old, he was picked up by the Duke de Guise who saw him with a
group of traveling comedians, and was so attracted by his vivacity, his
singing and talent for mimicry, that he took him back to Paris, where he
placed him in the household of his cousin, Mlle. de Montpensier. In her
memoirs, Mademoiselle said that she had been studying Italian and had
asked her cousin to bring back from Tuscany where he lived, a little
Italian _garçon de la Chambre_, a sort of personal errand boy. However,
his guitar playing and musical gifts soon lifted him out of a servant’s
position and he became one of the musicians of the great lady’s
household playing at concerts, balls and in the ballets. He learned to
play the violin, and soon began to compose popular dances. He remained a
member of Mademoiselle’s household until he was nineteen when he asked
permission to leave her service, as she had moved to the country, and he
liked the gay life of Paris better.
He had no difficulty in attaching himself to the King’s court, first as
actor and dancer in the ballets, and soon as “composer of instrumental
music.” Louis XIV was only fourteen years old, and was evidently highly
entertained by the capers of the young Italian who was willing to play
any rôle, dance any kind of a dance, or play the violin “divinely” for
his young monarch’s amusement. The King remained Lully’s faithful friend
always. Louis loved music, and played the lute, the guitar, the
harpsichord, and sang very well. Feeling that he needed to know more,
Lully studied counterpoint, composition and learned to play the
harpsichord, and whatever he attempted musically, he acquired without
difficulty.
In 1656, Lully composed music for a scene in a ballet, _Psyche_, and
from that time on, his compositions became the most popular of any at
court. Although he was born an Italian, his music was French, and he
even shared the French dislike of the Italian opera. In spite of his
love of acting in the ballets, of dancing, and of courting social favor
with the King and nobles, Lully was a thorough musician. When he went
into music he found that few of the singers could read notes, but they
learned their parts by ear. He soon changed this, and by the time he
died, all singers and players of orchestral instruments could read well.
In this reform, he did a great service to the growth of music.
His first stage works were called comedy-ballets. One of his early works
was ballet music written for a performance of Cavalli’s opera, _Xerxes_,
which was performed upon Mazarin’s invitation at Versailles (1660). He
next was given the position of “Superintendent of Music,” became a
naturalized French citizen, and was married. Lully wrote 19 ballets, 12
comedy-ballets, and 18 operas, besides about 23 motets for special
occasions. His ballets included recitatives, airs, dialogues and
symphonies, which was the name given to music written for orchestra.
From 1672 until the time of his death in 1687, he wrote an opera a year,
and sometimes two!
The splendor and extravagance of the costuming and stage settings of
these ballets and operas of Lully are almost unbelievable! At times,
even the orchestra wore costumes of the period represented on the stage.
Lully conducted the orchestra for one opera in a magnificent Egyptian
dress. Louis XIV loved these elaborate performances, and took part in
some of them.
After the downfall of Perrin and Cambert, which many said was caused by
Lully, he became absolute ruler in all musical matters. He used his
power to close a rival opera house, and no opera could be given anywhere
in France without his permission, for which he received a sum of money.
He was such a tyrant that he had many enemies, some of whom tried to
poison his snuff, in order to get rid of the King’s favorite.
“Le Roi Soleil” (The Sun King), as Louis XIV was called, had to be
entertained, and Lully understood so well how to keep him amused, that
the King could not get along without his composer whose performances
dazzled all beholders!
You must read French history of that period in order to understand just
how gorgeous and how extravagant life at the palace of Versailles was
and how eventually it led to the revolt of the people and the French
Revolution. Or perhaps you have seen the elaborate gardens, fountains
and palace,—a playground built at fearful cost where the Kings of France
might forget their cares! The King went so far as to give Lully a post
of royal secretary, usually held by nobles. It is said that his only
claim to the position was that he made people laugh!
In 1681, his ballet _Triomphe de l’Amour_ (Triumph of Love) was given,
in which, for the first time, women instead of men danced. Indeed,
ladies of the nobility took part in the ballet!
The French Overture introduced by Lully, was in two parts or
movements,—the first slow and serious, the second by way of contrast
fast, and bringing in the contrapuntal style of the church composers;
sometimes a third part resembling the first was added. These overtures
were very much liked in Lully’s time and during the 18th century, and
was the form used by the German composers in their orchestral suites and
by Handel. Lully was very successful in composing military music, and
his military marches were used not only by the French army, but by the
armies marching _against_ France. All of his music is simple and clear
in outline, it is easy to remember, its rhythm is vigorous and definite,
and the people, as well as musicians of his day, loved and understood
it. One writer said that one of his songs from _Amadis_, an opera
(1684), “was sung by every cook in France and Lully would stop his
carriage on the Pont Neuf (the New Bridge across the Seine) to set some
poor fiddler right who was playing one of his airs.” His works reached
Italy, Germany, England, Holland and Flanders, and influenced many of
the composers like Purcell, Humphrey and Handel to say nothing of the
French composers who followed him.
Lully built up the orchestra, and used the different groups of
instruments in entirely new ways.
Lully died in 1687 as the result of having dropped the stick with which
he directed his orchestra on his foot. This does not sound possible, but
the baton used in his time was very large and heavy, and the accident
caused blood poisoning. He was very much missed, for there was no one
with his talent for conducting and disciplining the singers and dancers
to replace him.
RAMEAU
In 1683, was born another French composer who carried on the work that
Lully had begun, a work so much loved by the French public, that Jean
Philippe Rameau found as strong a rival in the dead Lully as his
contemporaries had in the living. Rameau’s father was organist of a
church at Dijon, and although the family was very poor, the father was
determined to give his three children a musical education, and began to
teach them before they could read. As a result of this early training
little Jean Philippe, when he was only seven years old, could play at
sight on the harpsichord any music put before him, and when he was sent
to school, he was very unruly and sang out loud in class or scribbled
music all over his papers instead of doing his lessons.
When he was eighteen, he went to Italy, but as he did not like the
music, he left. He was always headstrong and self-willed, and this was
one of the hasty decisions for which he was afterwards sorry. He
traveled from place to place on this journey, playing his way as he
went, on the organ in churches and the violin in a band of traveling
musicians. In the south of France, old Provence, the home of the
troubadours, he became organist at Clermont, and lived quietly for six
years. Here he wrote his first pieces for clavecin (spinet) and three
cantatas. (The cantata was a new form which came from Italy, and was a
small opera to be sung in a drawing-room.) When Rameau grew tired of his
work as organist at Clermont, he showed his discontent by playing as
badly as he possibly could, by using untuneful organ-stops and by
playing fearful discords. An attempt was made to shut him off but he
paid no attention until a choir boy was sent to him with a message,
whereupon he left the organ and walked out of the church. He finally
succeeded in making the directors give him his release, but before many
years he returned to his old post, and was taken back in spite of his
disagreeable temper, and so proud was Clermont of its organist, that his
chair is still kept and exhibited.
From Clermont he went to Paris where he studied with the organist
Marchand, and read the old books of musical theory such as Zarlino’s,
for Rameau during his career wrote five important books on musical
theory and harmony. He was the first to establish definitely the classic
principles of harmony, and to put them into a form that for many years
was used by all students. You must remember that up to the 17th century,
counterpoint was the chief study, but when Italian opera succeeded in
breaking down the polyphonic habit, a new science had to be made to
explain the new system of _chords_ that had been gradually built up by
the Italians and also by Luther and his chorals. This was the _science
of harmony_, and Rameau’s _Treatise of Music, containing the Principles
of Composition_ (1722), was one of the first books of its kind.
Until Rameau was fifty, he was known as an organist, a teacher of
composition and a writer of many charming works for harpsichord and
clavecin. He married a young singer when he was 43, and the year after,
he made the acquaintance of a wealthy patron of the arts, at whose house
he met artists, literary men, princes and embassadors. Rameau taught his
patron’s wife, and had the use of his organ and private orchestra. Here
he first found himself among friends who understood and appreciated his
talents; here he met the great French writer, Voltaire, and the Abbé
Pellegrin, both of whom wrote librettos for his operas. There is a tale
that the Abbé made the composer sign an agreement about payment for the
use of his book but after hearing the first rehearsal he tore it up—so
pleased was he with Rameau’s first opera, _Hippolyte et Aricie_ (1733).
Now Rameau met the jealousy of Lully’s followers, who tried to prevent
the success of the work. They hissed it and wrote slighting verse about
it:
If difficulties beauty show,
Then what a great man is Rameau.
If beauty, though, by chance should be
But nature’s own simplicity,
Then what a small man is Rameau!—
(Frederick H. Martens’ translation of _A History of Music_ by Paul
Landormy.)
It is curious how often a new style in music has been greeted with just
such criticism and prejudice as the “Lullyists” showed for Rameau’s
opera! They claimed that the work was not French, that he used strange
chords, that his music was too difficult to be understood! In fact they
said exactly the same things that are said today about new works which
are different from what the public is used to hearing. Voltaire said
that it takes a whole generation for the human ear to grow familiar with
a new musical style!
His third opera, _Castor and Pollux_, in 1737, was his first real
success. With this work, he became famous, and was regarded as France’s
greatest composer. An English noble in Paris at the time stated “that
although everyone was abusing Rameau’s ‘horrible’ work, yet it was
impossible to get a seat at the opera.”
Although Rameau brought nothing new to opera, he was the step between
the Lully traditions and the innovators who came with Gluck. The French
composers today turn to him in their search for the direct road along
which French music has traveled.
In spite of Rameau’s unfriendly reserved nature, he won fame by force of
his genius. He was as unlike Lully as two men could possibly have been.
Rameau accepted favors from no one, and was generous in his attitude
towards his fellow composers. He talked very little and was not popular.
However, he was at the height of his career, when a company of Italian
singers arrived in Paris (1752), and played _La Serva Padrona_ by
Pergolesi. The fresh sparkling little opera took Paris by storm, and
this was the beginning of a sharp fight known as the war of the buffoons
(page 330), which divided Paris into two factions,—those who stood by
Lully and Rameau, and those who wanted to see French opera replaced by
the new Italian comic opera.
“The charm of these light operas,” says Mary Hargrave in her little
book, _The Earlier French Musicians_, “lay in the simplicity of their
subjects, taken from scenes and persons in ordinary life, humorously
treated. They came as a delightful relief after the stilted classical
heroes and heroines, the threadbare episodes of gods and goddesses, the
Greek and Roman warriors in tunics, with ribbons and helmets on powdered
wigs, in short, all the artificial conventions of which people had at
last grown unutterably weary.”
Even the court was divided: Louis XV was on the side of French music,
but the Queen was for the Italian, and crowds gathered nightly at the
opera near the royal boxes, which were known as the “King’s corner,” and
the “Queen’s corner.” Word bombshells were thrown from one camp into the
other, and sometimes these became real insults! Poor Rameau! First he
was the butt of the Lullyists because he was too modern, and now storms
of abuse were heaped on his head because he was too old-fashioned!
Nevertheless, to the end of his life his operas were received with great
enthusiasm, and on one occasion when the old man of eighty was seen
hiding in the corner of a box during one of his operas, he was called
out with storms of applause. He was always very shy about appearing in
public, applause embarrassed him, and no doubt much of his
disagreeableness was due to his being bashful.
Rameau looked upon his scientific studies as more important than his
composing, and Bach, Handel and many other composers studied his theory
work even when they were not great admirers of his compositions. We
never hear his operas, but his lovely pieces for the harpsichord, many
of which are out of his operas, are played in piano recitals and are
unsurpassed as examples of the French dance suite. Following the fashion
of his time, he gave his pieces amusing titles such as _The Call of the
Birds_, _The Hen_, _The Whirlwinds_, _The Egyptian_.
A list of his works show that he wrote 26 operas, 2 cantatas, 5 books on
theory, and 4 volumes of harpsichord music.
His death occurred in 1764, and all France mourned their “greatest
composer” and for years held memorial services in his honor.
Piron, a French writer, said of him: “All his mind and all his soul were
in his harpsichord and when he had closed that, the house was empty,
there was no one at home.”
FRENCH COMPOSERS FOR CLAVECIN AND HARPSICHORD
In every collection of French instrumental music of the 17th and 18th
centuries, besides the names of Lully and Rameau, we find Jacques
Champion de Chambonnières (1600–1670), Jean Baptiste Loeilly, or
Loeillet (?–1728?), François Couperin (1668–1733), Jean François
Dandrieu (1684–1740), Jean Louis Marchand (1669–1733), Louis Claude
Daquin (1694–1772) and Schobert (1720–1768).
These writers for clavecin and harpsichord of the French school were the
first to write music for instruments to which they gave names describing
the nature of the compositions. So, now, in addition to the names of
dances which formed the suites, we find _The Coucou_, _Butterflies_,
_Tambourine_, _The Windmill_, _The Turtle-Doves_, and so on. This was an
important step for it led directly to the kind of titles given to piano
pieces in the 19th century by the German romantic school.
The most important of this group was François Couperin, called “the
great,” as he was the most gifted member of a family, who supplied
France with musicians for two centuries. From 1665 to 1826, there were
eight Couperins who were organists of St. Gervais’ Church in Paris.
We can compare the Couperin family to the Bachs who flourished at the
same time in Germany. François (1668–1733), was only a year old when his
father died, but a friend, who was an organist, taught him and in time
he, too, became organist at St. Gervais. He was harpsichord player to
the King, and was a favorite in court circles. No fashionable affair was
complete without Couperin at the harpsichord, and every Sunday evening
he played chamber music for Louis XIV, the royal patron of Lully. One of
the books of pieces for the clavecin was published under the title of
_Royal Concerts_, and in the preface, Couperin told that they were
written for “_les petits concerts du roi_” (the little concerts of the
king), and he also said that he hoped the public would like the pieces
as much as the King did. For twenty years Couperin played in the King’s
household, and taught several princes and princesses.
You know the old proverb, “All roads lead to Rome.” We would change it,
and say that all roads lead to Bach! And Couperin is one of the main
highways, for without knowing that he was doing so, he prepared the way
for Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Everything he wrote, and most of
his pieces were in the dance form of the suite, was exquisite in
refinement and taste. The French musicians of today look upon him as one
of their composers, most truly French, and they try to follow in the way
he led, so as to be able to write music that will express the French
people, in heart and character. Later in the story of music, the German
classic school and then the romantic school had a very strong influence
on the music of every country in the world, and in France there was the
desire to brush aside the outside influences, and to find the road that
the early French composers of the 17th and 18th centuries had traveled.
Paul Landormy, a French writer on musical history has summed up Couperin
as “one of the miracles of the French spirit in music, and across the
gulf of time he clasps hands on one side with Jannequin and Costeley (p.
437), on the other with Fauré and Debussy” (p. 416).
All the important music outside of opera written in France at this time
was for the clavecin and harpsichord, and if the flute or the viol was
invited to take part in a concert, it was only to double the melody
played by the harpsichord, and did not have a part especially created
for it.
Wouldn’t you be surprised today if you should see an announcement of a
concert to be given by the President’s chauffeurs? But in the time of
Couperin and Lully wind instruments were used in all the court
festivals, balls and ballets, and were played by men attached to the
great hunting stables of the king. The band was called _la musique de la
grande écurie du Roi_ (music of the King’s stables). There were twelve
trumpets, eight fifes and drums, the cromornes (krumhorn—a curved reed
instrument), four to six Poitou oboes and bagpipes, and twelve large
oboes under which title were included violins, oboes, sackbuts and
cornets. These players of wind instruments accompanied the royal hunting
parties and made the beautiful forests of France ring with their merry
music. Each family had its own hunting call, by which it was recognized
from afar. We heard a phonograph record in Paris of these ancient calls,
and with each one, the name of the family to whom it belonged was
announced.
By the way, do you know the difference between a band and an orchestra?
(This is not a conundrum!) A band was originally a group of musicians
who played while standing or marching, while the orchestra was always
seated. This word comes from the Greek word meaning dance, and was first
given to a group of players who accompanied the dancers in the dramas,
and were seated in that section of the theatre which is still called the
orchestra.