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Rameau's Last Years: Some Implications of Re-discovered Material at Bordeaux
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 1984
Extract
More frequent performance of Rameau's major works is beginning to stimulate long-overdue analysis of those aspects of his technique that make the sound of his scores so immediately recognizable. Such analysis enables us to distinguish these characteristics from the body of traditional French baroque procedures which Rameau inherited in common with his contemporaries. Some of these procedures had remained virtually unchanged since their development by Lully, but many others were evolved by the generation between these two great masters of the French stage. It was the achievement of Lalande, Couperin, Campra and their contemporaries to absorb successfully stimuli from Italy while retaining a distinctive Gallic flavour, a process openly acknowledged in works such as Couperin's Les goûts réunis. It is particularly important to recognize these developments in different periods of the French baroque when we consider the evolution of the orchestra, and the new technical demands that were made of players, since without a knowledge not only of the Lullian tradition but also of that which followed it, we cannot properly evaluate Rameau's contribution to style and technique.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © 1986 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors
Footnotes
This article is a development of papers given at the American Musicological Society's 50th Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, 1984, and to the Northern Chapter of the Royal Musical Association, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1985.
References
NOTE:
1 Lully's practice has been discussed in detail by J. Eppelsheim, Das Orchester in den Werken Jean-Baptiste Lollys, Tutting, 1961. For a brief outline of Lalande's orchestral practice, see the preface to M-R. de Lalande (ed. L. Sawkins), Jubilate Deo, Stuttgart (Cams Verlag), 1985.Google Scholar
2 Sadler, G., ‘Rameau and the Orchestra’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, cviii (1981–2), 47–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 See: L. Sawkins, ‘Nouvelles sources inédites de trois oeuvres de Rameau: leur signification pour l'instrumentation et l'interprétation du chant’, Actes du Colloque International Jean-Philippe Rameau, Dijon, 1983, Paris (in the press) and id., ‘New Sources for Rameau's Pigmalion and other works’, Early Music, xi (1983), 490–496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 For a survey of the work of this important contemporary of Rameau, see : R. Peter Wolf, ‘An Eighteenth-century Oeuvres complètes of Rameau's musical works’, Actes du Colloque International Jean-Philippe Rameau, Dijon, 1983, Paris (in the press).Google Scholar
5 For example, sources in the libraries of the little towns of Apt, in Provence, and Valenciennes, in the north, as well as that of Lyon, hold the key to understanding the chronology of the different versions of Lalande's motets, despite the fact that Lalande, as far as is known, spent his entire creative life as a church musician at Versailles.Google Scholar
6 The region was also the birthplace of several of the most outstanding musicians of the period, such as the soprano, Marie Fel, born in Bordeaux, her colleague, the haute-contre, Pierre Jélyotte, from Lasseube, in the Basses-Pyrénées, and the composer, Mondonville, born in Narbonne.Google Scholar
7 Scholars are divided on the extent to which Molière understood the local language (the langue d'oc), the use of which seemed essential to guarantee the success of a new work in that city. As late as 1754, Mondonville employed this dialect in the text for his Daphnis et Alcidamure.Google Scholar
8 Relation de l'Arrivée, Entrée et Réception de Madame la Dauphine dans la ville de Bordeaux de 27 janvier 1745, Bordeaux [1745]. The copy consulted is contained in Spicilège Bordelais, Bordeaux, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 713/2/1.Google Scholar
9 Bordeaux, Archives départementales, C.3638; Archives municipales, BB. 172.Google Scholar
10 The exchanges between librettist and composer are detailed in Malherbe's preface to the edition of La princesse de Navarre, Paris, 1906 (repr. 1968), forming pan of the Oeuvres complètes.Google Scholar
11 The celebrated choreographer, Jean Noverre, had brought ballets there in that year, including La toilette de Vénus.Google Scholar
12 Mercure de France, janvier, 1764, vol I, p. 167., reproduced in the Avant-propos to the edition of the work in the Oeuvres complétes, pp. xxxvii-viii.Google Scholar
13 The first performance took place at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on 24 April 1977, the first time any music by Rameau had been heard there.Google Scholar
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15 This evidence includes: (1) The imprint on these livrets is that of ‘Ballard fils’ which appears on livrets of various works for the 1750s such as those for Fontainebleau in 1754, and it is quite different from that of Jean-Baptiste-Christophe Ballard which appears on the 1745 livret for Les fëtes de Ramire. J–B–C. Ballard's imprint continues on publications until his death in 1750, when he was succeeded by his son, Christophe-Jean-François. (2) The Avertissement printed at the beginning of the volume gives a description of the royal party leaving the first performance (including the hour at which they did so) which seems hardly possible if the livret was printed before the performance. It is also worth observing that the title page of source B3 includes a note (clearly, from its content, written after 1764) to the effect that les paroles ont été imprimées plusieurs fois.Google Scholar
16 Sadler, G., ‘A re-examination of Rameau's self-borrowings’, Annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, Boston, 1981.Google Scholar
17 ‘Pageantry and Plagiarism; royal weddings and Rameau re-workings’, University of California at Santa Cruz, May 1981 (repeated in a revised version at the IMS Congress, Strasbourg, 1982).Google Scholar
18 The author wishes to thank Mlle Sylvie Bouissou who suppled him with a copy of this Etat, prior to the publication of her article, ‘Les Boréades de J.–Ph. Rameau: un passé retrouvé’, Revue de musicologie, lxix (1983), 157–185.Google Scholar
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20 See : R. Peter Wolf, ‘Jean-Philippe Rameau: Les Paladins – Prospectus for an edition’, French Baroque Music : A Newsletter, 1, Aug. 1983, pp. 11–21, and id., ‘Rameau's Les Paladins : From autograph to production’, Early Music, xi (1983), 497–504.Google Scholar
21 The lengthy enquiries that preceded this re-discovery extended over a three-year period, involving several libraries in Bordeaux. Like Malherbe in 1905, the author found that correspondence initially produced no information. Only with the generous help of various Bordeaux historians and musicians (notably the late M. François Pariset, and MM. Henri Lagrave and Jean-Louis Laugier), did he finally gain access to the fonds du Grand Théâtre which contains not only this material, but that of almost 1,500 other works as well; the composers represented range from Lully, Destouches, Campra, Desmarest, and Rebel to F-A-D. Philidor, Gluck, Paisiello, Rossini, Donizetti and many others.Google Scholar
22 Although this Entrée (marked Air vif when it recurred in Les fëtes de Polymnie) was not included on the recording of the present writer's edition of La princesse de Navarre by the English Bach Festival (directed by Nicolas McGegan) [Erato STU 71283), it has been included (played gracieusement rather than vif) in L'apothéose de la danse à Versailles, (directed by Jean-Claude Malgoire) (CBS 76979).Google Scholar
23 Sadler (‘Rameau and the Orchestra’, p. 62 – see note 2) points out that Rameau 'grew remarkably fond of the sound of these horns in his later years!, and that he included them in 21 movements of La Paladins. Thus, the presence of these extra horn parts lends support to the likelihood of the participation of Rameau in the preparation of this material for the Bordeaux revival of La princesse de Navarre.Google Scholar
24 Paris, Archives Nationales, 01 3253.Google Scholar
25 Both the correct version and the incorrect one have been recorded, in both cases on period instruments, on Erato 71283 and CBS 76979 respectively; see note 22.Google Scholar
26 Both of these passages are given in the incorrect versions in the Oeuvres completes, pp. 47, 49, since the latter is copied from D.Google Scholar
27 In Lully's practice, divisi violins were normally reserved for the upper two parts in three-part ritournelle passages. But, in some works written at the turn of the century, two violin parts (the second often higher than the first) were used as well as the traditional three viola parts and basse-continue, giving six real parts. For example, see the second movement of M-R. de Lalande (ed. P. Oboussier), Confitebor tibi, Domine, London, 1982. (Such a work also shows that, as oboes and flutes doubled violins, never violas, their parts in concerted movements developed in the same way, alongside their increasing use in elaborate obbligati in movements for solo voices.)Google Scholar
28 Sadler, G., ‘Rameau and the Orchestra’ pp 59–60 (see note 2).Google Scholar
29 The author is grateful to Graham Sadler for drawing his attention to these passages.Google Scholar
30 It would seem there must have been at least one intermediate part for violas in this movement; if so, the extra sheet is not present in the part marked ‘Parties et Viole [sic]’.Google Scholar
31 Rameau had re-used ‘Triomphe, Victoire’ in 1751, in Acante et Céphise, Act 3, sc.iii, where it is transformed into a substantial sequence of solos and choruses.Google Scholar
32 Bouissou, S., op. cit., p. 178, quoting : Paris, Archives Nationales, 01 30095: Comptabilité, 1763, Voyage de Fontainebleau, ‘Etat des logements …’.Google Scholar