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‘My father was a poor Parisian musician’: A Memoir (1756) concerning Rameau, Handel's Library and Sallé

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

David Charlton  and
Sarah Hibberd
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Abstract

The emergence in 1756 of the Journal encyclopédique, published in Liège (later in Bouillon), encouraged an international readership to view cultural developments across national boundaries. An anonymous review of Rameau's new version of Zoroastre was prefaced by ‘Mémoires d'un musicien’, whose author recalls significant events in his musical education and life history to date. These include extended travels to England and Italy. The narrator describes meeting Handel and also Marie Sallé in London, and details various contents of Handel's library supposedly seen and discussed on more than one visit, deduced as occurring late in 1746. These accounts are analysed and contextualized, and a report on archival searches for the author's identity provided, together with an English translation of the 1756 text.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 128 , Issue 2 , 2003 , pp. 161 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 2003

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References

We wish to thank two colleagues who, in many particulars, gave extended help during the preparation of this article: Anthony Hicks (London) and Sarah McCleave (Queen's University, Belfast). In addition we thank those whose kind searches or other offices on our behalf produced useful information in many of the different areas investigated: Monique Abud (Paris); Hervé Audéon (Paris); Guy Biart (Namur); Cyprian Blamires (Oxford); Bruce Alan Brown (Southern California); Donald Burrows (Open University); Peter R. Campbell (Sussex); A. W. F. Charlton (London); James Clements (London); Manuel Couvreur (Brussels); Graham Dixon (London); Annick Fiaschi-Dubois (Montpellier); Elisabeth Garms-Cornides (Rome); David Garrioch (Monash University); Wendy Gibson (Reading); Hannah Godfrey-Mahapatra (New York); Eva Haas-Betzwieser (Berlin); Michel Henrion (Bouillon); Erik Kocevar (Dijon); Marco Marica (Rome); John McManners (Oxford); Sabine Mehlem (Berlin); Harvey Mitchell (Vancouver); Jean-Paul Montagnier (Nancy); Philip Robinson (Canterbury); the late John Rosselli; Graham Sadler (Hull); Jean Sgard (Grenoble); Peter Turner (Norwich); Jeroom Vercruysse (St Martens-Lennik); Jacques Wagner (Clermont-Ferrand); Louis de Weissenbruch (Brussels).Google Scholar

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45 ‘Rich, John, called “Lun”‘, Highfill et al., A Biographical Dictionary, xii, 337–53 (p. 350). His wealth allowed him to expend large sums on both equine and human company.Google Scholar

46 Anthony Hicks, ‘Handel and the Idea of an Oratorio’, The Cambridge Companion to Handel, ed. Burrows, 145–63 (p. 159). Although this account in no way suggests the following hypothesis, it relies on the evidence of Christopher Smith in 1743, who wondered ‘how the Quality will take it that He can compose for Himself and not for them’.Google Scholar

47 Händel-Handbuch, ed. Walter Eisen and Margret Eisen, iv: Dokumente zu Leben und Schaffen (Kassel, 1985), 386: Jennens to Holdsworth, 21 February 1745. Jennens's tone is partly explained by his disenchantment with precisely this turn of Handel's preferences.Google Scholar

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57 ‘When a choirboy's voice broke, the chapter saw to his future. There was a “trousseau” of clothing and a leaving payment, a basic sum with extras … At Notre-Dame of Paris and the great parish of Saint-Eustache and at Chartres, the total was regularly 300 livres or more.‘ John McManners, Church and State in Eighteenth-Century France, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998), i, 453.Google Scholar

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64 From Charles Burney, The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Provinces (2nd edn, London, 1775), i, 267–8, quoted in Patricia Howard, Gluck: An Eighteenth-Century Portrait in Letters and Documents (Oxford, 1995), 20.Google Scholar

65 The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, 15 (1745; repr. London, 1998), 665 (Historical Chronicle, Thursday 5 December 1745).Google Scholar

66 Anne-Claude-Philippe de Tubières Grimoard de Pestels de Levis, comte de Caylus (1692–1765). For a recent assessment see Haskell, Francis, History and its Images (New York, 1993). One of Caylus's publications, Tableaux tirés de l'Iliade, de l'Odysée d'Homere et de L'Eneide de Virgile (Paris, 1757), specifically existed to reveal Homer and Virgil as sources for artists.Google Scholar

67 Guillaume Coustou père (1677–1746), creator of the important ‘Marly’ horses now to be found at the entrance of the Champs-Elysées; Guillaume Coustou fils (1716–77), a relatively minor sculptor.Google Scholar

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114 Bruce Alan Brown, Gluck and the French Theatre in Vienna (Oxford, 1991), 55, note 123.Google Scholar

115 Ibid., 55; see also Bruce Alan Brown, ‘Durazzo, Giacomo’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd edn), vii, 746–8.Google Scholar

116 Anon., Sentiment d'un harmoniphile sur différens ouvrages de musique (Amsterdam and Paris, [1756]; repr. Geneva, 1972). This author's brief self-portrait is not that of a musician trained from youth (p. 3); he was in favour of having the Opéra mount Italianate comic works as afterpieces to tragédies lyriques (pp. 133–5). His analysis of Zoroastre is on pp. 144–60.Google Scholar

117 Cecil Hopkinson, ‘Handel and France: Editions Published There during his Lifetime’, Edinburgh Bibliographical Society Transactions, 3/vi (sessions 1953–4 and 1954–5) (Edinburgh, 1957), 223–48. It may be noted here that the following does not include reports on Paris or France: Theophil Antonicek, Zur Pflege Händelscher Musik in der 2. Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 250/i (Vienna, 1966), 3–60.Google Scholar

118 Plus two further publications, one of J. C. Schulze's music masquerading as Handel's, the other of Babell's arrangements of Handel arias: all are found in William Charles Smith, Handel: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Early Editions (2nd edn, London, 1970), 223–4, 237, 243, 246, 252–3, 276, 304–5, 329.Google Scholar

119 Corrected by reference to Pierre, Histoire du Concert Spirituel, 244, 249: an aria of Handel was heard on 8 December 1736 and a concerto on 9 December 1743.Google Scholar

120 Lowell Lindgren, ‘Parisian Patronage of Performers from the Royal Academy of Musick (1719–28)‘, Music and Letters, 58 (1977), 4–28 (p. 22).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

121 Such metaphors are also found in the war of words over things English: anglomanie was described not only as a ‘sickness’ but also as an ‘epidemic sickness’. Grieder, Anglomania, 10.Google Scholar

122 Otto Erich Deutsch, Handel: A Documentary Biography (London, 1955).Google Scholar

123 F–Pn Vm6 33: copy manuscript paginated 1–113.Google Scholar

124 Les ensorcelés, ou Jeannot et Jeannette, a parodie mêlée de vaudevilles et d'ariettes; see F–Pn ThB. 3039 (1758 edition), air noté 22. In the same key, A major, but with different words ('Le badinage') the same melody appeared in 1764 in Dubreuil's anthology Dictionnaire lyrique portatif, 2 vols. (Paris, 1764), i, 235. For another French source of this music see F–Pn D. 14501, a manuscript ‘Recueil d'airs italiens’ where it is not identified on the (incomplete) contents list, but occupies pp. 11–14, transposed to G major.Google Scholar

125 Händel-Handbuch, ed. Eisen and Eisen, iv: Dokumente zu Leben und Schaffen.Google Scholar

126 [Jean Bernard Le Blanc], Lettres d'un François (The Hague, 1745), 73–85: ‘Lettre à M. le Duc de '; trans. as Letters on the English and French Nations (Dublin, 1747), 109–13: ‘To the Duke of D’ (p. 113). An earlier translated edition was announced and excerpted in The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, 16 (1746; repr. London, 1998) 626–9.Google Scholar

127 Grieder, Anglomania, 34–5, note 3, citing Mornet, ‘Les enseignements des bibliothèques privées (1750-1780)‘, Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, 17 (July–September 1910), 449–96.Google Scholar

a JE: ‘toutes les Ecoles de l'Europe’: thus ‘style’ in the sense of ‘national styles’. We have modernized the paragraphing in the following translation and indicated the original pagination within square brackets.Google Scholar

b Perhaps Jean-Baptiste-François Lalouette (1651–1728). See Section V above for further details.Google Scholar

c Perhaps Notre-Dame, Paris; otherwise the Parisian church of St-Germain-l'Auxerrois.Google Scholar

d At Notre-Dame, either Dean de Gontaut (to 1732) or Dean Abraham Harcourt de Beuvron (from 1733); see above, Section V.Google Scholar

e Indeed, the ‘Principes de composition’ of Nicolas Bernier were never published, being handed down presumably in various manuscripts, of which only one survives, at F–Pn Rés Vmb. ms. 2. See Philip Nelson's translated edition: Nicolas Bernier (1665–1734): Principles of Composition (Principes de Composition) (Brooklyn, NY, 1964).Google Scholar

f Bernier was maître de musique at the Sainte-Chapelle from 1705 to 1726. His many pupils included, for example, Louis Homet (1691–1777), who joined Notre-Dame in 1734.Google Scholar

g As shown in Philip Nelson's translation of Bernier's ‘Principes de composition’, Bernier's method is to break down musical procedures into intervallic rules which are discussed, with numerous examples, one by one through a series of topics forming the whole, like chapters: composition in two parts; cadences; variation of the modes; false relations; embellished counterpoint in two parts; suspensions; composition in three parts; embellished counterpoint in three parts; composition in four and five parts. It is easy to imagine the exceeding difficulty of remembering and explaining the numerous individual cases; the surviving manuscript is 111 pages in length.Google Scholar

h Here the word used is ‘brochure’, but this term alternates in the following lines with ‘livre’. See below, note i.Google Scholar

i Jean-Philippe Rameau, Traité de l'harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels ([Paris]: Ballard, 1722). Roughly quarto in dimensions, it is divided into four parts and contains 432 pages and a supplement of 17 pages. Its substantial proportions, as well as its intellectual content, thus explain the narrator's dilemma described in the following sentences.Google Scholar

j JE: ‘je mis mon livre dans mon sein’: he kept it close to his breast.Google Scholar

k Anne-Claude-Philippe de Tubières Grimoard de Pestels de Levis, comte de Caylus (1692–1765).Google Scholar

l See above, Section V, for commentary: the sculptor concerned was Edme Bouchardon (1698–1762) rather than Guillaume Coustou père (1677–1746) or Guillaume Coustou fils (1716–77).Google Scholar

m Praxiteles, celebrated Athenian sculptor born c.390 BC.Google Scholar

n Père Pierre Brumoy (1688–1742), Le théâtre des Grecs, 3 vols. (Paris: Rollin père, 1730, and re-edited up to 1825; English trans. 1759).Google Scholar

o See above, Section V, Table 2(b): 1740 was a peak year for total numbers of dead recorded in Paris, followed by steadily declining recorded levels.Google Scholar

p Inoculating doctors were active in Sussex, Hampshire, Surrey and Dorset.Google Scholar

q Spelt Hendel throughout. Handel's last Italian opera, Deidamia, had been given in 1741. However, the oratorios continued to be given their premières at Covent Garden or the King's Theatre.Google Scholar

r ‘Mais choisie dans tous les genres’: perhaps the narrator refers not just to music but also to books of various types, such as we know Handel possessed (see above).Google Scholar

s Marie Sallé (1706–56).Google Scholar

t Scipione Maffei (1675–1755).Google Scholar

u In Rome, the narrator could have heard the following of Jommelli: Artaserse (1749), Ifigenia in Aulide (1751), Talestri (1751), Attilio Regolo (1753) and a couple of intermezzi. Roman operas by Galuppi included Evergete (1747), Vologeso (1748), Antigone (1751) and Sofonisba (1753). Both composers produced one or two opere serie at the same period in Venice. Goldoni's and Galuppi's drammi giocosi were given every year in Venice from 1749 through to 1755.Google Scholar

v The form ‘Pomelli’ for Niccolò Jommelli (1714–74) appears also later in the Zoroastre review.Google Scholar