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Rameau and the Orchestra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1981

Graham Sadler
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Extract

Although Rameau's amazingly resourceful treatment of the orchestra has been discussed by a number of previous writers,’ there is one important aspect of the subject that has been largely ignored. Little attention has so far been paid to the ways in which thee composer's orchestral practice changed during his fertile thirty-year operatic career. Yet one has only to compare the scoring of his first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), with that of his last, Les Baréades (1764), to see that a whole series of changes have come about. This development has been badly obscured by the nature of the composer's Œuvres complètes, still the most easily accessible ‘modern’ source of most of his works. Outwardly, this appears to be a respectable scholarly edition, with lengthy and authoritative prefaces, lists of sources and critical apparatus. Nowhere is it stated, however, that many of the operas have been partly re-orchestrated, some of them quite extensively.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 108 , 1981 , pp. 47 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 The subject is naturally mentioned by most of Rameau's 20th-century biographers and other commentators. But only Paul-Marie Masson, L'opéra de Rameau (Paris, 1930) gives it the systematic and detailed treatment it deserves.Google Scholar

2 Jean-Philippe Rameau: Œuvres complètes, General Editor Camille Saint-Saëns (Paris, 1895–1924, repr., New York, 1968); henceforth O.C.Google Scholar

3 Only in O.C. xvi (p. lviii) are the re-scorings mentioned: ‘Au cours de l'ouvrage, M. Vincent d'Indy a jugé nécessaire d'ajouter certaines parties d'alto, qui parfois faisaient défaut dans la partition originale, et de modifier ou completer les parties d'instruments à vent, trop sommairement indiquées.’Google Scholar

4 E.g. O.C. vi, 96–102, 125–126, 174, 178–192.Google Scholar

5 This is seen at its most extreme in the chorus ‘Que l'on chante’ from Dardanus (O.C. x, 243–257).Google Scholar

6 But see Charles B. Paul, ‘Rameau, D'Indy and French Nationalism’, The Musical Quarterly, lviii (1972), 46–56, though the author seems (understandably) unaware of d'Indy's re-scorings.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Gerald Abraham, The Concise Oxford History of Music (London, 1979), 455.Google Scholar

8 About one-third of the musical examples in Chapters 5–7 of Cuthbert Girdlestone, Jean-Philippe Rameau: His Life and Work (revised 2nd edition, New York, 1969) contain re-scorings. The proportion in other chapters is smaller since many are derived from the more reliable volumes of O.C. Grant Allan Brundett, Rameau's Orchestration (Diss, Northwestern University, 1962) is based almost exclusively on O.C., and thus largely invalid.Google Scholar

9 Telefunken SAWT 9584/87A.Google Scholar

10 A new complete edition — Rameau: The Musical Works (Senior Editors, Neal Zaslaw and François Lesure) — is in preparation, to be published by Broude Trust, New York, and L'Association pour le publication des œuvres de Rameau, Paris. But production of the 45 volumes currently planned is unlikely to be completed until well into the next century.Google Scholar

11 In ‘Académie Royale de Musique: Etat Général des Acteurs et Actrices de Chant, Danseurs et Danseuses, Symphonistes de l'Orchestre … Premier Avril 1750’, Paris, Archives nationales AJ xiii l (iv). The list shows that additional instruments (musettes, cors de chasse and various percussion) were played by members of the string section. (Most lists before 1759, however, do not mention horns.)Google Scholar

12 O.C. xi, p. xliv.Google Scholar

13 E.g. the orchestra in Mme de Pompadour's Théâtre des petits cabinets, which performed Rameau's La surprise de l'Amour and other works, numbered between 20 and 30 players. See Recueil des comédies et ballets représentés sur le Théâtre des Petits Appartemens pendant l'hiver de 1747 à 1748 (Paris?, 1748) and Divertissemens des Théâtre des Petits Appartemens pendant l'hiver de 1748 à 1749. [1749 à 1750] (Paris?, 1749–50). Each volume lists the orchestral players.Google Scholar

14 Anon. [L.J. Travenol?], La gelerie de l'Académie Royale de Musique (Paris, 1754), 40; quoted in Mary Cyr, ‘Basses and basse continue in the Orchestra of the Paris Opéra 1700–1764’, Early Music, x (1982), 162. For the most recent discussion of changes in the role of Rameau's continuo section see Sadler, Graham, ‘The Role of the Keyboard Continuo in French Opera 1673–1776’, Early Music, viii (1980), 148–157 and M. Cyr, op. cit. See also Julie Anne Sadie, ‘Bowed Continuo Instruments in French Baroque Chamber Music’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, cv (1978–79), 37–49.Google Scholar

15 Michel Corrette, Méthode de violoncelle (Paris, 1741), preface. In the preface to Les Indes galantes … reduit à quatre grands concerts (Paris, [c. 1735]), Rameau himself gives advice as to the octave transpositions that might be necessary for the ‘violoncelle’ in concert performances of certain pieces.Google Scholar

16 See M. Cyr ‘Basses and basse continue’, 158.Google Scholar

17 E.g., Montéclair, Jephté (Paris, c.1732); La Coste, Biblis (Paris, 1732); Rameau, Les Indes galantes (F-Po, A.132.a), MS, c.1735; Niel, Les Romans (Paris, 1736); Grenet, Le triomphe de l'harmonie (Paris, 1737); Mion, Nitetis (Paris, 1741).Google Scholar

18 E.g., Collin de Blamont, La caractères de l'Amour (Paris, 1738), 2, vii; Rameau, Hippolyte et Aricie, F-Pn Vm2. 319 (MS with printed title: Paris, J.B.C. Ballard, 1742), 5, iv.Google Scholar

19 See O.C. xi, p. xliv. The orchestra in Mme de Pompadour's theatre (see note 13) included two ‘violes’. It is possible, however, that these were violas, which are otherwise absent from the lists.Google Scholar

20 None of Rameau's orchestral writing before Hippolyte a Aricie is known to have survived, apart from some early motets whose scoring is unremarkable.Google Scholar

21 Where the violas both rest, of course, the violins often divide; like many of his French contemporaries, Rameau shied away from the two-part texture of unisoni violins and bass so common outside France. He does, however, employ this in such overtly Italianate pieces as ‘Sur les ombres fugitives’ (Castor et Pollux, 4, ii) and the second movement of the overture to La princesse de Navarre.Google Scholar

22 This scoring, which is the norm at least while the chorus is actually singing, contrasts markedly with the five-part choral accompaniments of Leclair's Scylla et Glaucus (1746) and other operas.Google Scholar

23 In parts of the tonnerre (1, iv) and the chorus “Que ce rivage' (3, viii), in ‘Vous qui de l'avenir’ (2, v) and the two choruses ‘Hippolyte n'est plus’ (4, iv).Google Scholar

24 Hippolyte, 1, iv; Les Indes galantes, Prologue, sc. i and iii, 3.e entree, sc. viii. (The latter two include flutes.)Google Scholar

25 See Rameau's reference (Démonstration des principe de l'harmonie, 1750, p. 94) to ‘[La Pouplinière's?] musicians of goodwill’ who managed passages that the Opéra musicians had found impossible, including the enharmonic ‘Trio des Parques’. (See also the criticism cited in note 46, though admittedly not concerning the string section.)Google Scholar

26 Mondonville, Isbé (Paris, 1742); Leclair, Scylla et Glaucus (Paris, 1746).Google Scholar

27 E.g., ‘C'est des dieux’, 2, vi.Google Scholar

28 E.g., the 1754 version of Castor et Pollux (3, ii).Google Scholar

29 ‘Apprends que pour sentir’ (4, iii).Google Scholar

30 E.g., Mondonville, in Isbé (1742), 3, iv.Google Scholar

31 The pizzicato writing in Hippolyte was added in 1757, and ii not found in the 1733 version as Masson (L'Opéra de Annas, 514) claims.Google Scholar

32 See, however, ‘Soleil, fuis de ces lieux’ (Platés, 1, vi) and the representation of rain in Anacréon (1757) sc. in.Google Scholar

33 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dictionnaire de musique (Paris, 1768, repr. 1969), article ‘Pincer’. Rameau was not the only French opera composer to use this device, see, for example, Leclair's Scylla et Glaucus (5, ii).Google Scholar

34 In Isbé (1742), 3, iv. Mondonville had previously introduced them in his sonatas Les sons harmoniques (Paris and Lille, 1738).Google Scholar

35 In Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, ed. Denis Diderot (Paris, 1751–1772), article ‘Exécution’.Google Scholar

36 Recorders can be found in French opera scores as late as 1732. See Montéclair, Jephté, 2, v and 4, i — the latter involving recorders in six parts, from petits dessus de flûte à bec to basses de flûté à bec.Google Scholar

37 Blavet entered the orchestra in 1740.Google Scholar

38 [Michel Corrette], Méthode pour apprendre aisément à jouer de la flûte traversière (Paris, after 1735), quoted in Dale Higbee, ‘Michel Corrette on the Piccolo and Speculation regarding Vivaldi's “flautino”’, Galpin Society Journal, xvii (1964), 115–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Zaïs (1748).Google Scholar

40 I.e., two lines of oboes and one of bassoons, a favourite sonority in French opera since Lully's day.Google Scholar

41 Les Paladins, F-Po Rés. A.201, p. 86.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., p. 88.Google Scholar

43 The oboe middle c' is however used to imitate croaking frogs in Platée (1, iii).Google Scholar

44 The existence in Les fêtes d'Hébé of a low-tying 2nd oboe part that descends to a (‘2e Rigaudon’, 2, vi) indicates that a larger size of oboe was then available to Rameau; it may have also played the parts involving c' sharps (unreliable on the normal baroque oboe) in his first three operas.Google Scholar

45 In the chorus ‘Que tout soit heureux’ (5, viii); significantly, this line is safely doubled by violins in the 1742 version.Google Scholar

46 [Jean-Baptiste Jourdan], Seconde lettre du Correcteur des Bouffons à l'écolier de Prague [Paris, 1753), quoted in Georges Cucuel, La Pouplinière et la musique de chambre au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1913, repr. Geneva, 1971), 124.Google Scholar

47 E.g., Michel Brenet, ‘Rameau, Gossec et la clarinettes’, Le guide musical, 1903; Lionel de La Laurencie, ‘Rameau, son gendre et ses descendants’, Le mercure musical, vii (1911), 12–23; ibid. ‘Rameau et les clarinettes’, Le mercure musical, ix (1913), 27–28; Georges Cucuel, ‘La question des clarinettes dans 1'instrumentation du XVIIIe siècle’, Zeitschrift der internationalen Masikgesellschaft, xii (1910–11), 280–84; ibid., La Pouplinièe; Jacques-Gabriel Prod'homme, ‘Notes d'archives concernant l'emploi des clarinettes en 1763’, Revue de musicologie, (1919), 172–94; ibid., ‘Austro-German Musicians in France in the 18th Century’, The Musical Quarterly, xv (1929), 171–95; Masson, L'Opéra de Rameau, 523–26.Google Scholar

48 Sources of the 1749 version of Zoroastre, however, contain no due as to what the clarinets played.Google Scholar

49 La Laurencie (‘Rameau, too gendre et ses descendants’) shows that four ‘clarinettes’ were paid for playing in Acante et Céphse. Two of these, Louis and Schenker, were in fact horn players (see Cucuel, La Pouplinière, 339), and it was presumably for them that Rameau wrote the extremely taxing horn parts in this opera.Google Scholar

50 The relevant entry in the Encyclopédie (1753), for instance, says merely: ‘Clarinette: sorte de hautbois’.Google Scholar

51 In Les Boréades, Rameau does in fact mark ‘h.b. et clar.’ on the same line in two fully-scored passages; but in more lightly-scored places, clarinets are always suggested as alternatives to oboes or violins.Google Scholar

52 In Le temple de la Gloire and Les fêtes de l'Hymen.Google Scholar

53 Quoted in Emile Dacier, ‘Les premières représentations du Derdanus de Rameau’, Revue d'histoire et de critique musicales, iii (1903), 170.Google Scholar

54 The Mercure de France (December 1748, ii, 181) refers to ‘deux nouveaux cors de chasse allemands’ at the Concert Spirituel, the first reference to what were undoubtedly orchestral horns.Google Scholar

55 See R. Peter Wolf, Jean-Philippe Raman's comédie lyrique ‘Les Paladins’ (1760): a Critical Edition and Study (Diss., Yale University, 1977).Google Scholar

56 See James R. Anthony, French Baroque Music from Beaujayeutx to Rameau (London, 1973), chapter 9; Caroline Wood, ‘Orchestra and Spectacle in the tragédie en musique 1673–1715: oracle, sommeil and tempéte’, in this issue of Proceedings.Google Scholar

57 L'Opéra de Rameau, 540.Google Scholar