Rameau, Jean-Philippe
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Rameau, Jean-Philippe (b Dijon, bap. 25 Sept 1683; d Paris, 12 Sept 1764). French composer and theorist. He was one of the greatest figures in French musical history, a theorist of European stature and France's leading 18th-century composer. He made important contributions to the cantata, the motet and, more especially, keyboard music, and many of his dramatic compositions stand alongside those of Lully and Gluck as the pinnacles of pre-Revolutionary French opera. 1. Life. 2. Cantatas and motets. 3. Keyboard music. 4. Dramatic music. 5. Theoretical writings. WORKS BIBLIOGRAPHY GRAHAM SADLER (1–4, work-list, bibliography) THOMAS CHRISTENSEN (5, bibliog- raphy) 1. Life. (i) Early life. (ii) 1722–32. (iii) 1733–44. (iv) 1745–51. (v) 1752–64. (i) Early life. His father Jean, a local organist, was apparently the first professional musician in a family that was to include several notable keyboard players: Jean-Philippe himself, his younger brother Claude and sister Catherine, Claude's son Jean-François (the eccentric ‘neveu de Rameau’ of Diderot's novel) and Jean-François's half-brother Lazare. Jean Rameau, the founder of this dynasty, held various organ appointments in Dijon, several of them concurrently; these included the collegiate church of St Etienne (1662–89), the abbey of StSt Bénigne (1662–82), Notre Dame (1690–1709) and St Michel (1704–14). Jean-Philippe's mother, Claudine Demartinécourt, was a notary's daughter from the nearby village of Gémeaux. Al- though she was a member of the lesser nobility, her family, like that of her husband, included many in humble occupations. Jean-Philippe, the seventh of their 11 children, was the eldest sur- viving son. His birthplace in the cour Saint-Vincent on the rue Saint-Michel still remains (now 5–7 rue Vaillant). Despite only modest means, the family maintained influential connections; the composer's godparents, for example, were both from noble families connected with the Bur- gundian parlement .. 11 The first 40 or more years of Rameau's life can be reconstructed only sketchily. Most of this pe- riod was spent in the comparative obscurity of the French provinces; it was not until his 40th year that he began to make his mark as a theorist and later still as a composer. He himself was secretive about the first half of his life: according to Chabanon, ‘he never imparted any detail of it to his friends or even to Madame Rameau his wife’. Rameau père apparently took responsibility for his children's early musical education: ‘he taught them music even before they had learnt to read’ (Maret). It is possible that in 1692 or later Jean-Philippe also had lessons from Claude Derey, organist of the Ste Chapelle, Dijon. Eventually, perhaps as late as the age of 12, he was sent to the Jesuit Collège des Godrans. There he would have encountered the didactic music theatre that was an important element in the contemporary Jesuit curriculum; indeed, it was quite probably the experience of taking part in such productions that sparked off his enthusiasm for opera which, he later admitted, had be- gun when he was 12. No precise details of the Dijon school productions have come to light, however. In view of his later achievements, it is surprising that the young Rameau did not dis- tinguish himself at the college; according to a classmate, he would sing or write music during lessons, and he left without completing the course. Certain anecdotes suggest that his written French was defective at this time, and indeed his prose style in the theoretical works and else- where is notable for its lack of clarity. After leaving school, Rameau went to Italy. The date of his departure from Dijon is not known; Maret presumed that it was before his 19th year, but Decroix, in a biographical article (A1824) based on material collected as much as 50 years earlier, states that the composer was 18. The visit was short – perhaps only a few weeks or months – and he never went beyond Milan. In later life he confided to Chabanon his regrets at not having stayed longer in Italy, where he be- lieved he might have ‘refined his taste’. Decroix claims that Rameau returned to France as a violinist with a touring theatrical troupe that performed in various towns in Provence and Lan- guedoc. If this is true, the troupe concerned was that of the Lyons Opéra (Zaslaw, Dijon 1983),), in which case Rameau must have joined it in southern France (not in Milan, as Decroix main- tains). Yet no documentary evidence of Rameau's involvement survives, and Decroix may even have confused the composer with the dancing-master Pierre Rameau (no relation), known to have belonged to the troupe at that time. On 14 January 1702 Rameau was temporarily appointed maître de musique at the Cathedral of Notre Dame des Doms, Avignon. By 1 May, however, he had taken up a post as organist atat Clermont Cathedral. The contract, signed on 30 June, was for six years, though in fact Rameau served no more than four. By 1706 he had moved to Paris, where he is said to have lodged op- posite the monastery of the Grands Cordeliers (Franciscans) to be near the church where Louis 22 Marchand was organist. By the time his Premier livre de pieces de clavecin was published in 1706, he had succeeded Marchand as organist at the Jesuit college in the rue Saint-Jacques (the famous Collège Louis-le-Grand, the pupils of which at that time included his future collaborator Voltaire); he was also organist to the Pères de la Merci (Mercedarians). On 12 September 1706 he won a competition for the post of organist at Ste Madeleine-en-la-Cité, but when the judges learnt that he was unwilling to give up his other two posts they appointed Louis-Antoine Dornel. Rameau still held the same posts in July 1708. In 1709 he returned to Dijon to succeed his father as organist at Notre Dame, at that time the town's principal church. On 27 March he signed a six-year contract with the church authorities, sharing the post with Lorin fils. Rameau was required to play only on solemn feast days, at per- formances of the Te Deum and at public ceremonies. It is clear, though, that when Lorin suc- ceeded to the post (2 July 1713), Rameau had relinquished it some time before. Probably he had already moved to Lyons: by 13 July he had been there long enough to be described as ‘ maistrere organiste et musicien de cette ville’ when the Lyons authorities paid him for organizing a con- cert to celebrate the Peace of Utrecht (the concert never took place). Rameau's compositions at this time probably include motets: the library catalogue of the Lyons Concert, a concert-giving society founded in August 1714, lists his Deus noster refugium among its earliest acquisitions; the piece may even have been written for the Concert. (Although the catalogue includes three more of his motets, among them the lost Exultet coelem laudibus, their position in the catalogue suggests that they were acquired after Rameau had left Lyons.) By 1 July 1714 he was organist at the Dominican convent known as the Jacobins, the organ of which had only recently been rebuilt; he may already have been there for a year or more. On 13 December, the day of his fa- ther's death, he drew his salary and travelled to Dijon, remaining there for the wedding of his brother Claude in January 1715. When he returned to Lyons, he organized and composed musicic for a concert at the Hôtel de Ville (17 March 1715) in honour of the new archbishop. By this date he had been succeeded at the Jacobins by Antoine Fioco (presumably Antonio Fiocco) and Etienne Le Tourneur. The following month, Rameau signed a second contract as organist at Clermont Cathedral, this time to run for 29 years from 1 April 1715. A contemporary description of the organ reveals that it had 15 stops on the grand orgue, ten on the positif and four each on the pedals and echo organ. As in 1702, his duties included the instruction of one chorister. (According to Suaudeau (F1958),, there existed autograph teaching materials from 1717, but none is now known.) Rameau briefly revisited Dijon for the baptism on 31 January 1716 of his brother Claude's eldest son Jean- François. Maret claims that three of Rameau's cantatas – Médée, L'absencece (both lost) and L'im- patience – were composed at Clermont. Four others – Thétis, Aquilon et Orithie, Orphée and 33 Les amants trahis – survive in copies made during his time there. It was at Clermont, too, that the greater part of his Traité de l'harmonie must have been written. From 22 August 1721 until his departure a year later, Rameau seems to have shared his cathedral post with an organist named Marchand, a member of a local family of musicians. Rameau was still at Clermont on 11–13 May 1722, when he was paid for taking part in three Rogation Day processions. He finally left for Paris shortly afterwards, once again well before his contract expired (on this occasion it still had 21 years to run). It is alleged that at first the cathedral authorities refused him permission to go, and consequently that during the octave of Corpus Christi he selected the most disagreeable stop-combinations and discords until the au- thorities relented. It is possible, however, that this incident took place (if at all) before Rameau first left Clermont in 1705 or 1706 (Zaslaw, Dijon 1983).