Sacred, Secular, and Political: Dance Rhythms in French Grands Motets

Sacred, Secular, and Political: Dance Rhythms in French grands motets under Louis XIV Lindsey O’Brien University of Florida Gainesville, Florida April 20, 2012 O’Brien 1 Any form of art reflects the values of the society in which it is created. Because contemporary society tends to focus on the ‘self’ and personal identity, to a great extent the arts of today are a vehicle of self-expression. However, this was not always the case. Before it served as a means of self-expression, art played a much different role: rather than serving the artist alone, the art served the interests of an institution, such as the church or a particular monarch. As a result, prior to the Romantic era, the majority of professional and highly esteemed artists made a living by working either within the Catholic Church or at a noble court,1 institutions that served as training grounds and helped define both local and national artistic aesthetics. Whereas religious art reinforcing God’s omnipresence and supremacy was the primary focus of the church, royal courts produced politically charged art reminding all courtiers of the monarch’s ubiquity and infallibility throughout his kingdom. Rather than serving God and the church institution, artists now directly served a single person: a king who possessed a higher social standing than all of his subjects, including the artists. All art forms filled the social and political function of extolling the monarch. Two that did this particularly well (and often in conjunction with one another) in seventeenth century France under the reign of Louis XIV are music and dance. 1According to Michael Hurd, “Those composers who existed without patronage—the uneducated man with a natural instinct for music, the lapsed cleric unwilling to submit to church authority—were social outcasts who earned a living precariously as wandering minstrels or general entertainers.” This suggests that as early as the Middle Ages there was a distinction between art of true aesthetic value that served some greater role in society and art for entertainment’s sake. Hurd also acknowledges that working under the direct patronage of the church was a practice that began to fall out of vogue in the 15th century, with the rise in importance of individual monarchs. Although the rise of monarchs freed composers, musicians, and other artists from the confines of working for the church, they were still confined to working for someone and were not at liberty to practice their art for personal expression. As Hurd explains, although they were liberated from the church, “it cannot be said that composers were freer agents,” nor did they produce for themselves. Consequently, artists, who entered master-servant relationships with their patrons, were bound to produce according to the political agendas and aesthetic desires of royal courts, whose primary objective was the glorification of the court. See Michael Hurd, “patronage,” in The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham, Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e5038 (accessed April 10, 2012). O’Brien 2 Secular served as a way of asserting social dominance and authority; musical events were “lavish display[s] to enhance the standing of the noble or aristocratic household.”2 Musical entertainment was of great importance in the Versailles court of Louis XIV, and the king himself oversaw its development and genesis. As a courtly and political art in France, music was under the constant scrutiny of the monarchy. The monarch’s direct involvement in music has a long history that predates Louis XIV: According to the French Baroque scholar James R. Anthony, François I, the “most pleasure-loving of the Valois kings, who was receptive both to spectacular fêtes and to more intimate and contemplative arts,”3 divided music into two categories, Music of the Chamber and Music of the Stable, for which he personally selected virtuosi from among the most adept musicians in all of France. In this way, as music became regulated by the king rather than by the church, it played an increasingly political role that suited the king’s personal preferences. Dance, a quintessentially French art form, has always been associated with music: ballets de cour were popular forms of aristocratic entertainment as early as the reign of Henry III.4 These productions, which became more elaborate over time, served as a means of affirming and glorifying the ever-increasing royal power and prestige. As the monarchy’s presence continued to grow, so too did the importance of state arts, including both music and dance. To date, most scholarship has not acknowledged the political role of the ceremonial bal de cour, instead focusing on the choreography, staging, and music of the more theatrical ballet de cour. Nonetheless, it is important to acknowledge the social role of the bal de cour as well as the 2 Hurd, “patronage.” 3 James R. Anthony, French Baroque Music: from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau, (Amadeus Press: Portland, 1997): 20. 4 James R. Anthony, “Ballet de cour” in Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/01894 (accessed April 9, 2012). O’Brien 3 various ways in which dance idioms, both rhythmic and melodic, permeated all genres of seventeenth century French music, including the grands motets sung in the Chapelle Royale. Seventeenth century Europe witnessed great political changes, perhaps most notably the expansion of sovereign power that ultimately lead to the emergence of the Age of Absolutism. Absolute monarchs, either a unique sovereign or a ruling body whose power was not confined to constitutional limits, attempted to impose a variety of codes and regulations in order to simultaneously glorify the nobility and maintain social stability. Although not an invention of the 1600s, absolutism swept across Europe and dominated seventeenth century French political theory as rulers such as Louis XIII and, more significantly, Louis XIV, who reigned from 1643 to 1715, centralized and expanded royal authority.5 For centuries, monarchs had derived their power from God,6 but it was not until the seventeenth century, the grand siècle, after both the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent of the sixteenth century and in the wake of numerous religious and political conflicts, that this power transcended, and became separate from, papal authority. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, a French bishop and orator, was one of the most influential advocates of absolute monarchy by 5 In 1567, the prominent French political thinker Jean Bodin published his Six Books of Commonwealth or Les Six livres de la République in which he argued for a sovereign state in which the monarch was not bound to pre- existing legal codes, but rather, to divine power. See Mario Turchetti, “Jean Bodin,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta, ed., http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/bodin/ (accessed June 16, 2011) Throughout this paper, I will draw from Bodin’s definition of absolutism to refer to a system of government by which a ruler’s power is, in theory, regulated by some sort of higher laws, either positive or divine. In reality, absolutist leaders acknowledge the existence of higher laws, but consciously and freely choose to act against or above them. See Paul W. Fox, “Louis XIV and the Theories of Absolutism and Divine Right,” The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienne d’Economique et de Science politique, Vol. 26, Number 1(1960): 128-42. 6 The foundations for secular absolutism stem from the Romans, but the religious aspect of authority was added during the Middle Ages with Christianity’s increasing importance. The early Catholic Church believed that political power came directly from God, who then in turn bequeathed power to the pope, and other ecclesiastics. This hierarchical church structure then acted as a model for medieval political thought, which relied upon the concept of the Great Chain of Being, a hierarchy with the king positioned at the metaphorical head of the political body he ruled. Just as the pope ruled by divine right, so too did the king, according to medieval philosophy. See Fox, 128-42. O’Brien 4 divine right, drawing parallels between King Louis XIV’s France and King David’s Israel. Furthermore, Bossuet drew a distinction between un gouvernement absolu and un gouvernement arbitraire, reminding Louis XIV that his political powers came directly from God, and were therefore regulated by God.7 Thus, with scriptural justification, the absolute monarch was seen as an extension of God, and religious services glorified not only God, but also the symbolic God of France, Louis XIV. In the Mémoires pour l’instruction du Dauphin, a work in which he explains his personal political theory to his son, Louis XIV states, “To tell you the truth, my son, we lack not only gratitude and justice, but also prudence and common sense, when we lack veneration for Him of whom we are but lieutenants. Our submission to Him is the model and example of that which is due to us,”8 an indication of his personal belief of his proximity to God.9 To affirm his legitimacy as a truly divine ruler, Louis XIV sought to control all aspects of state affairs, including cultural and religious endeavors. Examples of this search for power can be seen not only through policy changes, e.g., the expansion of the academies to include an Académie Royale de Musique in 1669, but also in the Royal Court’s permanent move to Versailles in 1682. At the newly constructed Palace of Versailles, removed from the ongoing political tensions in Paris exposed during the civil wars known as the Fronde, Louis XIV found refuge at the former hunting lodge of his predecessor, Louis XIII.

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