Chapter XVI: 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.