Although humble in origin, the hunting lodge at Versailles certainly outgrew its first structure to become the most glamorous palace in Europe. Today, it remains a landmark of France’s magnificent history, from Louis XIII in 1630 to the bloody days of Revolution in 1789. A large part of Louis XIV’s decision to aggrandize the royal hunting lodge outside Paris into a magnificent palace and seat of court involved political infighting among the nobility. But beyond palace intrigue, the actual reality also meant that Versailles became a world unto itself, orbiting around the “Sun King” at its center. And like moths to the flame, Europe’s finest musicians were drawn to Versailles to compose, perform, instruct, and indulge in all the festivities that Parisian court life could provide. Fortunately Louis had good taste and a penchant for music. The list of musicians employed at Versailles reads like an illustrious Who’s Who and includes many of the finest composers and musicians of the age.

No one was more important to music at Versailles than Jean-Baptiste Lully. Lully would become the touchstone for generations of French composers, though ironically he was born in Florence and worked hard to dispel notions that he had brought “Italianisms” into French music. Lully entered the service of Louis XIV in 1652 and achieved almost immediate fame for his striking ballets; on occasion, the King himself would dance! He took charge of the royal string band, helping to fashion the violons du roy into one of the premier ensembles in western Europe. In the vocal genres, Lully achieved brilliant success with operas on mythical or classical topics. His career waxed and waned as his personal behavior and affairs often earned him official disfavor. Lully’s most famous faux pas was also his last. While conducting a performance and using a heavy staff to beat time against the floor, he struck his foot. The subsequent infection went unattended, and he died within two months.

Equally famous is Jean-Philippe Rameau, whose legacy in composition and theory has dominated French music history. His system of chord theory and fundamental bass progressions laid out in the 1722 Treatise on Harmony remains in common use today. At the time, he was best known for challenging Lully’s command of the opera world. Rameau often contributed to the 18th-century debate over national influences in French music. His simple airs and gracious instrumental writing helped forge the signature clarity of the new French style, as it moved away from the overly decorated mannerisms of the prior generations.

The third major name in French music is Couperin, a dynasty of composers and performers active from 1601 until 1750. Among the older generation of the family, Louis Couperin (1626-1661) made significant contributions to French harpsichord music and technique. Only a small amount of his works survive, and he is represented this evening by one of his many “unmeasured,” quasi-improvisatory Preludes.

The scion of the family, François Couperin, was Louis’ nephew. François created an enormous treasury of harpsichord works, as well as arguably the most important treatise on performance written during the Baroque era. He led a new generation of composers at Versailles that included Charles Dieupart, Antoine Forqueray, and Marin Marais, who studied opera composition with Lully. Marais and Forqueray were widely considered the leading gambists of the day, and both created fantastic suites for their chosen instrument. The earliest figure presented tonight is the singer and dancer Michel Lambert, who worked at Versailles from 1651 until his death. Details of his life are hardly more documented than those of his student and disciple Honoré d’Ambruys. Both men achieved success in the genre of French song, and it is with such works that they are celebrated this evening.

Each in his own way, these composers built a musical edifice every bit the rival of the glittering palace around them. Musicians and their careers often fall victim to the whim of employers and patrons. It is indeed fortunate that Louis XIV was himself an astute supporter of the musical arts, for his unprecedented 72-year reign could have made or broken French culture for generations. However one feels about the disconnect between royal splendor and the poverty of the larger population, it was Louis’ vision that transformed a simple hunting lodge into what we see today. Moreover, the sheer scope of operations at Versailles meant that many, many musicians were required. And that diversity and “critical mass” of talent tipped the scales in favor of a musical culture admitting no equal anywhere in Europe.

Very little is known of Rameau’s (1683-1764) early life except that he came from a musical family in Dijon, traveled for a time in Italy, and had his first professional jobs as an organist (like his father). His first taste of success – a publication of harpsichord works – came during a short residency in Paris, which would become his permanent home in 1722. His reputation as an opera composer blossomed only later, after his 50th birthday. As such, these dramas enjoy the fruits of Rameau’s long maturation. Indeed, there are no operas later than Les Boréades, which was in rehearsal in 1763 but never publicly performed. No one knows for certain why this opera was not performed until after Rameau’s death, but quarrels over musical style would not be impossible.

Tonight we will hear several excerpts from Les Boréades, one of Rameau’s most popular works. The opera centers on Alphise, Queen of Bactria, and her love for Abaris, a valiant man of unknown lineage. By tradition, the Bactrian queen may only wed a Boread (descendant of Boreas, the god of the North Wind), but the strength of her affection cause her to rebel against this convention. Thus ensues her abduction by Boreas, her rescue by other gods and heroes, and the ultimate plot twist: Abaris is a Boread after all (gasp!), so their wedding can proceed as desired.

When François Couperin (1668-1733) wrote the Concerts royaux in 1714, he was doing so at the request of the French sovereign. Sundays at court often involved music and other entertainment, and Louis asked his resident harpsichordist to pen some chamber works. Published in 1722, the four “Royal Concerts” include many of the familiar dances which were already firmly established in the Baroque instrumental suite: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Minuet, and Gavotte to name a few. The order and number of dances in Couperin’s world was rather less fixed than, for example, in J. S. Bach’s, who was also composing keyboard suites during these same years. For Couperin style, variety, and graceful ornamentation were the order of the day.

The Concert No. 4 in E Minor offers a concise introduction to Couperin’s style and French Baroque chamber music in general. An opening Prélude features dotted rhythm throughout and is meant to draw the listener in. A short French Courante follows, after which he interestingly inserts an “Italian Courante.” The latter demonstrates the aspects of Italian music that had captured Europe in the early 1700s: lively tempo, imitation between the leading instrumental parts, and less ornamentation in favor of greater forward drive. After a Sarabande and Rigaudon (not heard this evening), the Concert closes with a buoyant Forlane in rondeau form. The Forlane originated about a century earlier; it was a folk dance popular in and around Venice. By Couperin’s day it still retained its simple, rustic appeal.

As we have noted, many French composers prided themselves on nurturing a humane, natural expressive style that did not need the excessive displays cultivated in Italy. This was particularly germane in genres of vocal music. The recognized master of French songs or “airs” during Louis XIV’s reign was Michel Lambert (1610-1696), who worked alongside Lully at Versailles for many years. Not that Lambert ignored other genres; his lute works are still treasured, and he earned a living also as a dance instructor and “master of the king’s chamber music.” Still, Lambert’s signature repertoire centers on solo voice. He was a gifted singer and would often accompany himself on theorbo, offering a clear French correlate to Italian Giulio Caccini, a pioneer in the invention of opera.

Lambert’s feeling and sensitivity to text helped in the evolution both of classical French opera and in solo song. Lambert’s outstanding collection, a volume of sixty airs published in 1689, includes “Tout l’univers obéit à l’amour.” The multivoice texture and fluctuations of mood show a direct connection to earlier Italian madrigals. A more refined style can be heard in the music of Lambert’s disciple, Honoré d’Ambruys (ca. 1660-ca. 1702). Very little is known about this figure; he garners barely a paragraph in New Grove’s exhaustive Dictionary of Music and Musicians. In 1685 d’Ambruys’ first book of airs appeared containing the very intimate and beautiful “Le doux silence.” Listeners will revel in this hushed sound world, and it presents melody at its most pure: just solo voice and basic harmonic support via the theorbo.

Marin Marais (1656-1728) is adored for his poetic, refined, and sensitive style. The popular French biopic Tous Les Matins Du Monde – centering on the life of Marais – brought his music to global attention. Marais’ name is now synonymous with the instrument he loved: the viola da gamba, a larger member of the viol family held between the legs and thus related to the baroque and modern cello. The Prelude in C Minor provides a glimpse into his distinctive sound. It is vibrant, rich in sonority, and relies heavily on the gamba’s potent lyricism.

Like Marais, Antoine Forqueray (1671-1745) was also a virtuoso on the viola da gamba but composed extensively for keyboard as well. He became fully employed at Versailles while still a teenager and held the position until his death over fifty years later. Only about ten percent of Forqueray’s music survives today, including several suites of dance music. Like “Jupiter” heard this evening, much of his music started out for gamba or was conceived with the gamba’s traits foremost in mind: a rich cantabile tone, ability to mimic human speech. After Forqueray’s death, his son made solo keyboard versions of many works, published them, and bequeathed the last remaining legacy of his brilliant father to the modern world.

The early years of Charles Dieupart (1667-1740) are lost to history. He was born in Paris but relocated to London – likely because of friendships formed with a tourist couple he met – in his early 20s. Dieupart spent the majority of his life in England. The Sonata No. 1 in G Major for recorder and continuo makes no extravagant demands on the performers; such music was the daily fare in Baroque courts. It opens with a dulcet Largo and concludes with a spirited Gigue.

Equally forgotten today, Claude Balbastre (1724-1799) enjoyed unrivaled fame during his lifetime. Born in Dijon, the birthplace of Rameau, he studied first with his father (a local church organist) before taking instruction with Rameau’s brother. He progressed quickly and moved to Paris to seek wider fortunes. In the capital he came under the protection of Rameau himself, who lent his social caché to the young man. Doors being thus opened, Balbastre quickly earned several of the highest available jobs, including organist at the Royal Chapel and Notre Dame. His three movement Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major includes a delightful Aria central movement. It is based on one of Balbastre’s own keyboard works and features steady triple rhythm and triplets in the keyboard part. Formally the movement suggests a rondeau (AABACA), with two contrasting episodes that give the violin soloist expressive liberty.


INTERMISSION


Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) attained the very pinnacle of success in French musical society – serving for over 30 years as resident composer and violinist under Louis XIV – but such heights would hardly be expected from a poor boy born a miller’s son in Florence, Italy. We have almost no verifiable facts upon which to build a picture of Lully’s early life, and he clearly took pains to suppress his true origins. Born Giovanni Battista Lulli, he Gallicized the name and claimed to have aristocratic parentage even before arriving in France as a teenage servant at the minor court of the Chevalier de Guise. But being in the right place at the right time, Lully absorbed all of the cultural richness on offer, met important people, and made influential friends. Thus by age 20 he had already met the young King socially and soon took a job composing ballet music at Versailles. The rest, as the saying goes, is history: three decades of gradually increasing prominence at court and expanding artistic ambitions.

Lully’s significance today rests primarily in opera, though he did compose a sizable amount of sacred music (despite never holding a position at the Royal Chapel). Of his 25 motets, the grand Te Deum is perhaps his best-known work. He scored it for a five-part orchestra, including first and second violins, several viola parts, cello and continuo. Lully’s preferred texture may be described as homophonic: all, or nearly all, voices move in consistent rhythms, generating massive edifices of consonant harmony. The counterpoint of Bach or Handel seems quite far away; instruments nearly always double the chorus, yielding an immense reinforcement of the sacred text. In general, Lully’s motets – and this is certainly true of the Te Deum – served to glorify both God above and God’s chosen vessel on earth (i.e., the King). Lully produced his Te Deum at Fontainebleau on September 9, 1677 for the baptism of his son (already aged 13), with Louis himself standing as godfather. It was a shining moment in an otherwise turbulent period for Lully, fraught with professional squabbles, legal issues, and royal displeasure over his personal foibles.

© Jason Stell, 2024