Instrument of Enlightenment: a Cultural History of the Pipe Organ in Pre-Revolutionary Eighteenth-Century France
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W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 5-2009 Instrument of Enlightenment: A Cultural History of the Pipe Organ in Pre-Revolutionary Eighteenth-Century France Laura Frances Wagstaff College of William and Mary Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons, and the Other Music Commons Recommended Citation Wagstaff, Laura Frances, "Instrument of Enlightenment: A Cultural History of the Pipe Organ in Pre- Revolutionary Eighteenth-Century France" (2009). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 298. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/298 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Instrument of Enlightenment: A Cultural History of the Pipe Organ in Pre-Revolutionary Eighteenth-Century France A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelors of Arts in French from The College of William and Mary by Laura Frances Wagstaff Accepted for ___________________________________ (Honors, High Honors, Highest Honors) ________________________________________ Maryse Fauvel, Director ________________________________________ Michael Leruth ________________________________________ Thomas Payne Williamsburg, VA May 5, 2009 Table of Contents Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................. i Author’s Note...................................................................................................................... ii Introduction......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Paris, Music, and the Enlightenment........................................................... 7 Chapter Two: Liturgical Organ Music............................................................................. 18 Chapter Three: Visual Aesthetics, Space, and the Organ ................................................ 32 Chapter Four: The Concert Spirituel and the Organ........................................................ 49 Chapter Five: The Participation of the Organ in the Public Domain............................... 60 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 72 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 79 Appendix A: Images ........................................................................................................ 85 Wagstaff i Acknowledgements I would like to thank the many professors, mentors, and friends who supported me as I researched and composed this thesis. Thank you to my advisor, Professor Maryse Fauvel, for reading numerous rough drafts of my work, for pushing me to ponder difficult questions, and for knowing when to end her e-mails with an encouraging “pas de panique.” Her hard work, dedication, and support have not only contributed to the completion of this project, but also have made the experience more enjoyable. It has been a pleasure working with her this year. Thank you also to the other members of my reading committee, Professor Michael Leruth and Professor Thomas Payne. Their expertise in French cultural studies and musicology has enabled me to deepen my analysis of this topic. I greatly appreciate the time these gentlemen were willing to spend discussing my topic, reading my work, and offering critical feedback. This project would not have been possible without the generous support of the McCormack family through the Reboussin-McCormack Scholarship. As a recipient of this grant, I was able to conduct research at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris during the summer of 2008. This research allowed me to incorporate both primary and secondary sources into my thesis that became the foundation for many of my arguments. Furthermore, the opportunity to begin undergraduate research at the National Library of Paris is an experience I will never forget. Thank you to Mr. Mark McCormack, his daughter Mrs. Leslie McCormack-Gathy, and the William and Mary French department for placing such value on undergraduate independent research. I appreciate the influence of many other William and Mary professors. Thank you to Professor Giulia Pacini, for helping me to plan my research trip to the BN and promptly responding to my e-mails despite being on sabbatical this year; to Professor Magali Compan, for inspiring in me a love of French cultural studies; to Professor Ruth van Baak Griffioen, for her passion for musicology and insight into European travel; and to Professor Tom Marshall, for patience throughout four years of Monday morning pipe organ lessons. Finally, I am so grateful for the love and support of my family and friends this year. Thanks for the constructive conversations, late-night editing parties, cupcakes, and a willingness to hear more information about the eighteenth-century French pipe organ than you ever wanted to know. Without your encouragement, I would still be on page one. Wagstaff ii Author’s Note Much of the information in this thesis is drawn from French primary and secondary sources. However, I felt that reporting my findings in English would allow me to reach a wider audience. To account for the bilingual nature of this paper, I use footnotes to include translations of direct quotes from French texts. These translations are my own. Wagstaff 1 Introduction Throughout its history, the pipe organ has captivated those in the liturgical, musical, and technological fields. Since its invention by the Greeks in the first few centuries of the Common Era, this instrument was regarded, along with the clock, as the “most complex of all mechanical instruments developed before the Industrial Revolution.” 1 Early pipe organs operated through the use of a hydraulic system, which used water pressure to control the flow of air through the organ’s pipes in order to produce sound. In the sixth century, sets of bellows replaced such mechanisms. Though not originally considered a sacred instrument by its creators, the organ began appearing in churches during the tenth century. By the year 1400, large, immovable pipe organs had become an expected feature of both Catholic and Protestant liturgical music. 2 Despite inheriting practices of organ construction from Dutch and Italian schools, the French pipe organ became independent of foreign influence around 1650 and continued to evolve apart from these other traditions both in repertoire and timbre. 3 Its status as a religious tool was further established in the Baroque era. The Ceremoniale episcoporum , issued by the Vatican in 1600, controlled when and how the organ would officially participate in the various chants of the mass. 4 The continued use of this decree, in addition to other ceremonials written later in the seventeenth century, exemplified the control of the Roman Catholic Church over the organ and the organ’s strong liturgical identity. As the eighteenth century began, this instrument was undoubtedly a tool of French Catholicism, just as it had been a mechanical marvel centuries before. Wagstaff 2 Many musicologists have paid great attention to the repertory and history of the pipe organ as it developed in Christian worship. There is no shortage of scholarly literature regarding the great Johann Sebastian Bach and the more general role and effects of the pipe organ in the Germanic Protestant tradition. Studies of the French pipe organ, though far from neglected, are less varied. Some articles and books describe the use of the organ in the Catholic mass, while others study the construction, registration, and sound of the French organ during different periods of its history. For example, Fenner Douglass’ The Language of the Classical French Organ: a Musical Tradition Before 1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969) paints a picture of the organ’s acoustic characteristics during the eighteenth century. A fairly wide range of works discuss the French Romantic tradition found in the compositions of Franck and Widor or speak to the restorative work of nineteenth-century organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. 5 These studies present excellent information and analysis regarding French organ construction and certain periods of its repertoire. However, studies of eighteenth-century French organ practices and the relationship between the instrument and its listeners are difficult to find. Few works discuss how the French felt about the organ, how they reacted to the organ, and if the organ could be an indication of a larger French identity. This honors thesis works to contribute to this gap in the history of the pipe organ (and, simultaneously, that of the French people and their culture) through an examination of the cultural history of the pipe organ. Cultural history is a qualitative approach which attempts to analyze the culture of a group of people through the interpretation of representative symbols within the social and political context of a specific time period. As such, this attitude approaches a style similar to that of literary analysis, 6 and often Wagstaff 3 emerges as an interdisciplinary study.