In the mid-eighteenth century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the most important French philosophers of the time, wrote Lettre sur la musique francaise (Letter on French Music) in response to the musical debate pitting French music against Italian music. In the first part of this paper, an attempt will be made to explain both Rousseau’s argument for so heavily criticizing the music of his people and what elements of Italian music he prefers; in the second half, an endeavor will be made to defend Jean-Phillipe Rameau’s opera against Rousseau’s criticism by examining an excerpt from Rameau’s Hippolyte et Arcie.
In his letter, Rousseau seeks to determine whether France actually possesses its own music by explaining some experiments he conducted concerning “which of the two languages [Italian or French] is by its nature adapted to the best kind of music.” In one experiment, Rousseau gave some Italians “the most beautiful airs of Lully to sing” and he gave some French some Italian airs to sing. He observed that the Italian airs were melodious, agreeable, and well-cadenced, but that the French airs—while sung with the greatest exactness—were merely a series of notes set down almost randomly. In another experiment, Rousseau observed an Armenian man who had never heard any music listen to both a French monologue and an Italian air that were sung. Rousseau noted that “during the French song the Armenian showed more surprise than pleasure, but everybody observed that from the first bars of the Italian air his face and his eyes grew soft; he was enchanted; he surrendered his soul to the impressions of the music; and though he understood little of the language, the mere sounds visibly enraptured him.”
Rousseau identifies three things...
... middle of paper ...
...lightning, and an earthquake, all imitated by the orchestra [m. 25]; and closes with dignified resolve in a slower accompanied recitative [m. 47].”
After having examined Rameau’s excerpt, it appears that Rousseau’s ultimate conclusion is grossly unfounded. It would seem the French do have their own music, and Hippolyte et Aricie is an exemplar of eighteenth century tragédie en musique, combining several styles of accompaniment, texture, tempo, and harmony where appropriate to achieve maximum dramatic effect, and incorporating nearly everything which Rameau declared the French never possessed.
Works Cited
J. Peter Burkholder and Claude V. Palisca, Norton Anthology of Western Music, 6th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), 700.
Oliver Strunk and Leo Treitler, eds., Source Readings in Music History, rev. ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998), 897.
Stolba, M. K. (1998) The Development of Western Music, A History, Third Edition. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 20 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1980)9: 708-709
3. Davis, Nathan T. Writings in Jazz. Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. Dubuque, IA. 1996. p. 152-153, 163, 166.
John Dowland (1563-1626) was a composer of Renaissance England and considered one of the most prolific and well-known composers of English lute song. A composer and accomplished lutenist, he is probably the most well traveled English composer of his time. Through his travels he was exposed to the musical elements of his Italian, French and German contemporaries. He developed his own musical language, in which he created a unique style for the lute song. As a composer, he focused on the development of melodic material and was able to elegantly blend words and music with a wide range of emotion and technique. For the purpose of this document we will focus on the influence of his Italian travels. John Dowland’s use of chromaticism in his lute songs as can be directly associated with such as “All ye whom love or fortune.” In these pieces, we can see the influence on this genre through his travels to Italy and encounters with such composers as Marenzio.
8. Waley, Arthur, and Joseph Roe. Allen. The Book of Songs. New York: Grove, 1996. Print.
“Follow me, modern musicians, and attribute it to your arts, unknown to antiquity: in these last centuries, Nature, always prodigal of herself, has at last brought forth, after an incubation of twice a thousand years, you, the first true offprints of the Universal Whole. By your harmonizing of various voices, and through your ears, she has whispered of herself, as she i...
Willoughby, David. "Chapter 11." The World of Music. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. 249-53. Print.
“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains”. Prominent, influential, relevant and most important of all as human as they come, Jean Jacques Rousseau was truthfully, brilliant. Rousseau was born in Geneva Switzerland to a watchmaker in 1712, lacking of a formal education his father taught him to read, exposed him to literature and he managed to educate himself while living with Madame Louise de Warens,in the kingdom of Sardinia, modern Italy. Jeans childhood was far from easy “His autobiographical Les Confessions (1783) offers a thorough account of his turbulent life in her household, where he spent eight years studying nature and music, and reading English, German, and French philosophers. He also pursued the study of mathematics and Latin and enjoyed the theater and opera” (Hager 1). After leaving de Warrens in 1744, Rousseau eventually made his way to Paris, where he befriended French philosopher Denis Diderot who actually invited him to contribute to the Encyclopedie a major work of the enlightenment period, which he did, Rousseau wrote articles on music and political theories. Then in 1750 he wrote A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts. Where he claimed Human beings were naturally good, he argued; it was only the corrupt institutions of civilization that led them to do evil. Rousseau continuously returned to that theme in his subsequent writings in fact he stated A new-born he thought was intrinsically perfect: all society could do was to limit his views and maim his mind. Hence, the more civilized, the worse. A savage was nearer perfection than a philosopher. Yet he was a philosopher but Rousseau's own view of philosophy and philosophers was firmly negati...
Sadie, Stanley. New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The. Vol. II New York: The MacMillan Company, 1928
TitleAuthor/ EditorPublisherDate James Galways’ Music in TimeWilliam MannMichael Beazley Publishers1982 The Concise Oxford History of MusicGerald AbrahamOxford University Press1979 Music in Western CivilizationPaul Henry LangW. W. Norton and Company1941 The Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Classical MusicRobert AinsleyCarlton Books Limited1995 The Cambridge Music GuideStanley SadieCambridge University Press1985 School text: Western European Orchestral MusicMary AllenHamilton Girls’ High School1999 History of MusicRoy BennettCambridge University Press1982 Classical Music for DummiesDavid PogueIDG Books Worldwide,Inc1997
Jean Baptiste Lully made significant contributions to French music. His initial compositions “ballets de cour” didn’t deviate from the Italian forms. (Straughan (a)) They were merely collections of dances and burlesque scenes. (Gregory) “A step in Lully’s progression from ballet to opera was the increased role of music in his ballets.
From the Early Renaissance to the High Renaissance, there was a movement from vocal music to a combination of vocal and instrumental music (Brown, 1976). There are seven categories of instrumental music: 1) vocal music played by instruments, 2) settings of pre-existing melodies, 3) variation sets, 4) ricercars, fantasias, and canzonas, 5) preludes, preambles, and toccatas for solo instruments, 6) dance music, and 7) songs composed specifically for lute and solo voice (Brown, 1976). Italy dominated the stage for instrumental music at this time, and it was not until the last decades of the sixteenth century that English instrumental music became popular (Brow...
Koenig, Karl. "Something About Ragtime." Jazz in Print (1859-1929): An Anthology of Early Source Readings in Jazz History. New York: Pendragon, 2002. 97-98. Print.
ABSTRACT: Humanity requires for its satisfaction Beauty and Good, that is, love, wisdom, and courage. Put differently, the necessity of order, equilibrium, and harmony. These values ground one of the most elevated planes of the spiritual life: music. Its moral force in the education of the mind, soul, and behavior of the human person has been emphasized by the ancient Greek philosophers. This important message exists as a pattern crossing the centuries. I will try to reveal the unity ¡¥ethics¡¦/ethike - ¡¥music¡¦/melos by using the semiotic organon.
When Mlle de Montpensier was exiled from Paris, Lully was released from her service and gained the attention of King Louis XIV. In February 1653 he danced in “Ballet de la nuit” with the King and less than a month later was appointed the King’s “composituer de la musique instrumentale de Roi.” Over the next ten years Lully gained control over all the royal family’s court music. This is when he began experimenting with performance practices and changing the basic stylistic features of orchestral music. Lully’s “petits violons” brought him international fame.