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Tag Archives: Querelle des Bouffons

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, revisited

05 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Music

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

commedia dell'arte, d'Alembert, Diderot, La Serva padrona, Pergolesi, Querelle des Bouffons, Rameau, Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater, by William-Adophe Bouguereau (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Stabat Mater, by William-Adophe Bouguereau* (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

*William-Adophe Bouguereau 

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710, in Jesi – 16 or 17 March 1736, in Pozzuoli), whose real name was Draghi, was an Italian composer, an excellent violinist and an organist.  His family had moved from Jesi to Pergola, hence the name Pergolesi.[i]

Pergolesi

Pergolesi died at the age of 26, probably of tuberculosis. But, between the time he started to study music, c. 1720, at the Conservatorio dei Poveri at Naples and his death, a mere sixteen years had elapsed.  Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) died at a young age, 35, as did Schubert (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828), who died at the age of 31.

In 1732, Pergolesi was appointed maestro de cappella to the prince of Stigliano, and, in 1734, he became deputy maestro de cappella, in Naples.

Sacred Music

Pergolesi was such a fine violinist and composer that, during his own life time, he was called the “divine,” by his followers.  For musicologists, he is, first and foremost, the composer of the Serva padrona (“The Maid turned Mistress”), an opera buffa, or comic opera, composed in 1733.  But if we exclude the circumstances that made his opera buffa and its composer famous, he is remembered mainly for his Stabat Mater, a sacred work he composed the year he died, in 1736.

The Stabat Mater was commissioned by the Confraternità dei Cavalieri di San Luigi di Palazzo, a group of pious and generous gentlemen.  However, by 1736, Pergolesi had also written a Mass in F and his long and very mature Magnificat in C major.  In Naples, he composed his Mass in D and his celebrated Stabat Mater.

Instrumental Music

Pergolesi also composed instrumental music: a violin sonata, a violin concerto, a concerto for flute, and other instrumental works.  But doubt lingers concerning the authorship of some of the instrumental music attributed to him.  Investigators are at work.

Operas

So, we now come to his operas.  In Naples, Pergolesi had written Lo frate’nnmmorato, an opera buffa (comic opera).  But he had also composed an opera seria (serious) entitled Il Prigioner superbo (The Proud Prisoner), a work which contained a two-act comedia buffa, La Serva padrona (The Maid turned Mistress).  It is this opera buffa that made him a celebrity, albeit posthumously.

La Serva padrona, an intermezzo, was in no way subversive  It had been composed to a libretto (the words) by Gennaro Antonio Federico who gleaned some of his material from a play by Jacopo Angello Nelli.  In fact, not only was it not subversive, but it had already been performed in Paris, on October 4th, 1746, without attracting much attention.

La Serva padrona and the “Querelle des Bouffons” (video, here and below)

But in 1752, circumstances had changed.  For one thing, the August 1st, 1752 performance of La Serva padrona (“The Servant turned Mistress”) took place at the most elegant venue in Paris: the Opera, or the Académie royale de musique.  Moreover, it was performed before an élite audience.  As a result, this one performance led to an unpredictable two-year quarrel (1752-1754) that opposed the most brilliant minds among the “lumières,” including d’Alembert, Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau  (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778).  But Rousseau is the person who threw the first stone, except that the “querelle” was a paper war.

Sense and Sensibility

The “Querelle des Bouffons,” or “Quarrel of the comic actors,” was indeed a paper war.  It took the form of an exchange of letters and pamphlets, totalling sixty-one documents, all written by the most erudite “philosophes” of the French Enlightenment, not to mention a bevy of salonniers and salonnières.  It was the event of the century, prior to the French Revolution.

—ooo—

Yet, it would not be altogether fair to give circumstances the leading role in the “querelle.”  Pergolesi’s Serva padrona is an opera buffa, but it had been composed by Pergolesi, the “divine,” and talent supersedes genre.  In other words, the performance of the Serva padrona was a catalyst in the “querelle,” but it is unlikely that a lesser opera buffa would have unleashed a fury.  No greater compliment was ever paid Pergolesi.  The Serva padrona was so delightful an opera buffa, that Geneva-born French encyclopédiste and musician Jean-Jacques Rousseau could use it to oppose French opera.

There had long been tension between Italian music and French music, then dominated by Jean-Philippe Rameau (25 September 1683 – 12 September 1764), the author of a Treatise on Harmony, published in 1722.  As you know from an earlier blog, this treatise remains authorative.  But although the “querelle ” could be considered as yet another battle in the war between French “ramistes,”  the name given supporters of Rameau, on the one hand, and lovers of Italian opera and commedia dell’arte, on the other hand, it may be best to suggest that it opposed reason and sentiment, or sense and sensibility.

The supremacy of reason had been disputed by Pascal, among other thinkers, but since the publication of Descartes‘s Discours de la méthode, in 1637, the fashion for sentiment had suffered. Although Voltaire (b. François-Marie Arouet), 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778, was extremely witty and entertaining, as a philosopher, he was an advocate of reason.  Be that as it may, Rousseau rather enjoyed shedding a tear or two at the opera, as did a substantial number of his companions involved in the “querelle.”

* * *

In short, because Pergolesi’s Serva padrona was exquisite in its genre, it was the perfect weapon in a war against “ramistes,” which means that if sentiment and the Italians won that particular battle, the “querelle” also constituted abundant praise of Pergolesi’s talent.  Without this weapon of choice, the Serva padrona, there may never have been a “Querelle des Bouffons” for sheer lack of ammunition.

three-gentlemen-and-pierrot6

Three Gentlemen and Pierrot

Claude Gillot (28 April 1673 – 4 May 1722)

YouTube allows one to listen to and to view the Serva padrona in its entirety, but Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater remains the centrepiece.  I hope you enjoy listening to some music composed by a forever young Pergolesi who died in poverty in a Franciscan monastery, at Pozzuoli, near Naples, aged 26.

* * *

(please click on the titles to hear the music)

  • The “Querelle des Bouffons” (comments in Italian about the commedia dell’arte)
  • Pergolesi – Pergolesi Concerto per Violino I Mov.mp4
  • Pergolesi – Pergolesi Concerto per Violino II.mp4 
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 1
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 2
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 3
  • Pergolesi – Laudate pueri Dominum (2)
  • Pergolesi – Salve Regina in C minor (1)
  • Pergolesi – Stabat Mater, Jaroussky & Gens
  • Pergolesi – Magnificat in C Major
  • Pergolesi – La Serva padrona -II

[i] “Giovanni Battista Pergolesi”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 20 Dec. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/451597/Giovanni-Battista-Pergolesi>.

“Giovanni Battista Pergolesi”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 06 déc. 2013.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/451597/Giovanni-Battista-Pergolesi>.

composer:  Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710 –16 or 17 March 1736
piece: Stabat Mater
performers: London Symphony Orchestra, 1985
Margaret Marshall, Soprano; Lucia Valentini Terrani, Contralto
conductor: Claudio Abbado
 

scene
© Micheline Walker
20 December 2011
5  December 2013 (2nd edition)
WordPress
 
Scène,
Claude Gillot

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J. J. Rousseau’s “Le Devin du village”

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Music

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

François Boucher, J'ai perdu tout mon bonheur, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, La Serva padrona, Le Devin du village, Pergolesi, Querelle des Bouffons, Song & Lyrics

 
Portrait_of_a_Young_Woman_in_Profile_with_Pearls_in_Her_Hair
 
Portrait of a Young Woman in Profile with Pearls in Her Hair, c. 1750
François Boucher (29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770)
(Photo credit: Sights Within) 
 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a political philosopher, one of the encyclopédistes, an educator, a novelist, and a composer.  He wrote the Encyclopédie‘s entry on “Music.”  As a musician, he was also the main figure, with the Baron Melchior von Grimm, in a “Quarrel” (“Querelle des Bouffons” or “War of the Comic Artists”), perhaps the most famous mêlée in the history of music, not to say eighteenth-century philosophy: sentiment over reason!  Not quite, but nearly so.  I have posted an article on Pergolesi and discussed this event.

The “Querelle des Bouffons” started after the second performance, in Paris, of a short intermezzo, La Serva padrona (The Servant Turned Mistress), composed by Pergolesi (4 January 1710 – 16 March 1736),  performed at the Royal Academy of Music, the Paris Opera, on 1 August 1752. Pergolesi’s intermezzo charmed the audience and everyone wrote a letter or pamphlet, some 61 documents, on the subject.  The many commentators were writing about the relative merits of French lyric tragedy, a serious genre, and Italian opera buffa, meant to entertain the audience during a pause (between acts).  The letters made it clear.  By and large, the audience wanted to be moved by music, moved to tears, in some cases.

220px-DevinVillage

Jean-Jacques Rousseau had started the quarrel and part of his arsenal was an operetta, or intermède, entitled Le Devin du village (The Village’s Soothsayer), first performed at Fontainebleau, on 18 October 1752, two months after the performance of the Serva padrona. However, as noted above, what was at the stake was “reason” versus “sentiment.”  Reason was not defeated, but sentiment gained considerable ground. Jean-Philippe Rameau was at the time the most prominent composer in France. His tragédie lyrique came under attack, but his 1722 Traité de l’harmonie, the theory of music, remains authoritative.

The quarrel lasted two years.  However, Le Devin du village, composed by Rousseau, was performed at court in 1753 and attracted audiences until 1830.  It was last performed in 1830, the day Hector Berlioz premiered his Symphonie fantastique, a masterfully orchestrated symphony.

There has been a revival of Rousseau’s Devin du village and, particularly, of the aria “J’ai perdu tout mon bonheur,” sung by Colette, when she thinks Colin is no longer in love with her.  It seems to have entered the standard repertoire.  Interestingly, Rousseau is the first composer to have written both the music and the libretto of Le Devin du village.

A Summary of the Plot, from Wikipedia

“Colin and Colette love one another, yet they suspect each other of being unfaithful — in Colin’s case, with the lady of the manor, and in Colette’s with a courtier. They each seek the advice and support of the village soothsayer in order to reinforce their love. After a series of deceptions, Colin and Colette reconcile and are happily married.” (See Le Devin du village, Wikipedia.)

head-of-a-woman-from-behind
 
Head of a Woman from Behind, c. 1740
François Boucher
(Photo credit: Wikipaintings)
 

“J’ai perdu tout mon bonheur,”an aria

This is a mostly literal translation.  Creating poetry was not my purpose.  I concentrated on making the French text clear and divided it using numbers. Rousseau was an exceptionally gifted and accomplished individual, but most musicologists do not consider Le Devin du village a masterpiece.  However, as mentioned above, “J’ai perdu tout mon bonheur” is performed more and more frequently and, from a historical point of view, Le Devin du village is an important intermède.

 “J’ai perdu tout mon bonheur”

Colette soupirant et s’essuyant les yeux de son tablier.
(Colette, sighing and drying her eyes with her apron.)
 
I.
  • J’ai perdu tout mon bonheur;  (I have lost all my happiness;) 
  • J’ai perdu mon serviteur;  (I have lost my servant;)
  • Colin me délaisse ! (Colin is staying away from me!)
  • Colin me délaisse !
  • J’ai perdu mon serviteur; (I have lost my servant;)
  • J’ai perdu tout mon bonheur; (I have lost all my happiness;)
  • Colin me délaisse ! (Colin is staying away from me!)
  • Colin me délaisse ! 
2.
  • Hélas il a pu changer ! (Alas, he was able to change!)
  • Je voudrais n’y plus songer: (I would like no longer to think about it;)
  • Hélas, hélas, (Alas)
  • Hélas,
  • Hélas, il a pu changer ! (Alas, he was able to change!)
  • Je voudrais n’y plus songer: (I would like no longer to think about it;) 
  • Hélas, Hélas
  • J’y songe sans cesse ! (I am forever thinking about it!)

  • J’y songe sans cesse ! 
3.
  • J’ai perdu mon serviteur;
  • J’ai perdu tout mon bonheur;
  • Colin me délaisse !
  • Colin me délaisse !
  • J’ai perdu mon serviteur;
  • J’ai perdu tout mon bonheur;
  • Colin me délaisse !
  • Colin me délaisse ! 
4./5.
  • Il m’aimait autrefois, et ce fut mon malheur. (He loved me in the past, and that was my misfortune.)
  • Mais quelle est donc celle qu’il me préfère ? (But who is the one he prefers to me?)
  • Elle est donc bien charmante ! Imprudente Bergère, (She must be very charming!  Careless Shepherdess,)
  • Ne crains-tu point les maux que j’éprouve en ce jour? (Don’t you fear the pain [ills] I feel today?)
  • Colin m’a pu changer, tu peux avoir ton tour. (Colin was able to replace me, you may have your turn.)
  • Que me sert d’y rêver sans cesse ? (Of what use is it to me to think about it always?)
  • Rien ne peut guérir mon amour, (Nothing can cure my love,)
  • Et tout augmente ma tristesse.  (And everything increases my sadness.) 
J’ai perdu mon serviteur ;
J’ai perdu tout mon bonheur ;
Colin me délaisse !
Colin me délaisse !
 
6.
  • Je veux le haïr … je le dois … (I want to hate him … I must ...)
  • Peut-être il m’aime encore … pourquoi me fuir sans cesse ? (Perhaps he still loves me … why is he always avoiding [fleeing from] me?)
  • Il me cherchait tant autrefois ! (He so sought me in the past!)
  • Le Devin du canton fait ici sa demeure ; (The township‘s soothsayer makes his home here)
  • Il sait tout ; il saura le sort de mon amour. (He knowns everything; he will know the fate of my love.)
  • Je le vois, et je veux m‘éclaircir en ce jour. (I see him, and I want matters cleared up for me today.)

RELATED ARTICLE: my personal favourite post, because of Pergolesi, dead at 26.

  • A Portrait of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (michelinewalker.com)
_________________________
Source:  Opera Today (about the performance below)
Gabriela Bürgler (soprano)
Cantus Firmus Consort & Cantus Firmus Kammerchor
Andreas Reize (conductor)
artwork: unidentifield
http://www.cantusfirmus-ensemble.com/
 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “J’ai perdu tout mon bonheur” 

Jean-Jacques_Rousseau_(painted_portrait)

 
© Micheline Walker
4 December 2013
WordPress
 
 
 
Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1753)
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Jean-Philippe Rameau’s “Les Indes galantes”

25 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Baron Friedrich Melchior von Grimm, France, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Molière, Querelle des Bouffons, Treatise on Harmony, Wikipedia

Baroque period instruments: a hurdy gurdy, a viola da gamba, a lute, a baroque violin, and baroque guitar.

Jean-Philippe Rameau (25 September, 1683, Dijon – 12 September 1764) is a colossal figure in the development of music.[i]  In 1722, he published a Treatise on Harmony (Traité de l’harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels) (Wikipedia).  Well, 290 years later, textbooks on harmony teach harmony as described by Jean-Philippe Rameau.  Once music students have passed their course(s) on harmony, they may stray from Rameau’s treatise, but even then, Rameau’s treatise remains the standard reference.

Rameau and the French Operatic Tradition

Until Rameau, Italian composers entertained the French.  Italian-born Lully (Giovanni Battista Lulli; 28 November 1632 – 22 March 1687) had been a favorite of Louis XIV.  He and Molière (1622-1673), born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, had collaborated in creating “divertissements” (entertainment) for the king who was immensely fond of ballet.  Allow me to quote the Wikipedia entry on Molière.

“Molière’s friendship with Jean-Baptiste Lully influenced him towards writing his Le Mariage forcé and La Princesse d’Élide (subtitled as Comédie galante mêlée de musique et d’entrées de ballet), written for royal “divertissements” at the Palace of Versailles.”

Yet, although Lully collaborated with Molière on comedies, he went on to create French lyric tragedy which Rameau and his contemporaries inherited.   However, there was dissatisfaction with respect to the French lyric tragedy, works in the “grand manner,” such as Les Indes galantes or gallantes. Galant is our keyword.  Bach’s sons, Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian, wrote musique galante and were more successful than their father.  In fact, Johann Sebastian was forgotten.

La Querelle des Bouffons (1752 -1754)

The matter culminated in the Querelle des Bouffons (“Quarrel of the Comic Actors”) which took place in Paris, France between 1752 and 1754.  The Querelle des Bouffons is usually considered as a paper war weighing the relative merits of French and Italian opera.  Wikipedia defines the Querelle des Bouffons as “a war of words between the defenders of the French operatic tradition and the champions of Italian music.”  But it may be more accurate to say that the French longed for music that brought tears to their eyes.  The reign of reason, dating back to Descartes’s Discourse on Method (1637), was being replaced by the reign of sentiment.

Despite its reference to buffoons, the Quarrel opposed the loftiest minds of the French enlightenment, including the Encyclopédistes: Denis Diderot (5 October 1713 – July 31, 1784), co-editor of the Encyclopédie, Jean le Rond d’Alembert, co-editor, with Diderot, of the Encyclopédie and a music theorist, (16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783), the Baron Friedrich Melchior von Grimm, a music critic and  journalist, French-German Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (8 December 1723 – 21 January 1789,  Geneva-born composer, essayist,  author Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778).

When Jean-Jacques Rousseau joined the Encyclopédistes, he championed feelings.  Where our Querelle is concerned, Jean-Jacques Rousseau fired the first salvo, but could not have done so had it not been for a performance of Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, or The Maid as Mistress. (See RELATED ARTICLE, below)

Rameau’s Les Indes galantes: the “noble Savage”

Yet, despite the criticism levelled at him, Rameau was an excellent composer and one who an opera-ballet featuring “Sauvages,” or Amerindians, Les Indes galantes.  In the eighteenth century, le Sauvage was a bon Sauvage.  This is how he is depicted by travellers to North America and, in particular, by a French military officer who served in New France from 1683 to 1693, the Baron de Lahontan (9 June 1666 – prior to 1716).  As described by Lahontan, in three works published at The Hague, in 1703, the Sauvage is morally superior to Europeans in general and the French in particular.  The age of the “Noble Savage” is the age of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who led the Querelle des Bouffons (1752 and 1754).

A Rondeau: Les Sauvages

The history of Les Indes galantes is particularly interesting in that Rameau drew his inspiration from three kinds of dances performed by Amerindians in the Théâtre Italien.  According to Wikipedia, “[o]n 25 November 1725, after French settlers of Illinois sent Chief Agapit Chicagou of the Metchigamea and five other chiefs to Paris, they met with Louis XV, and Chicagou had a letter read pledging allegiance to the crown; they later danced three kinds of dances in the Théâtre Italien, inspiring Rameau to compose his rondeau Les Sauvages.”  Changes have been made to Britannica, but the author of its former entry on Les Indes galantes stated that the Amerindians who travelled to France had motivated Rameau to compose his rondeau were from Louisiana, which makes sense.

Somewhat mysterious, however, is whether or not this rondeau, entitled Les Sauvages, is a separate piece of music or part of Les Indes galantes.  Well, having searched for a solo rondeau entitled Les Sauvages, the piece I discovered was part of the larger Opéra-Ballet.  If I have erred, kindly correct me.

An Opéra-Ballet: Les Indes galantes or Gallantes

Les Indes galantes is an opéra-ballet set to a libretto by Louis Fuzelier.  It is composed of a Prologue and four acts (entrées) and, as mentioned above, features Sauvages. I inserted an excerpt of Les Indes galantes opéra-ballet in Comments on the Quebec General Election & the News is an excerpt from Les Indes galantes. 

Les Indes galantes premiered in Paris at the Académie Royale de Musique et Danse, on 23 August 1735.  It was not a great success and it has a long history of revisions and revivals.  The 185th eighteenth-century performance of Rameau’s opéra-ballet was played for the last time in 1761.  However, by 1961 there had been 246 performances of Les Indes galantes and, in 2005,  “Les Indes galantes (Opus Arte) was given a fanciful reading by William Christie and Les Arts Florissants.”[ii]

So my next post features William Christie‘s[iii] “fanciful reading” of Les Indes galantes. I do not have the score of the opéra-ballet, William Christie’s  interpretation is not, in my opinion, detrimental to Rameau’s opéra-ballet, as Rameau himself  may have envisioned his work.

I must close here, but if you wish to take a peak at Les Indes galantes, my next blog constitutes a short and, in my opinion, delightfully-silly performance Les Indes galantes.

RELATED ARTICLE
A Portrait of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
https://michelinewalker.com/2011/12/20/a-portrait-of-giovanni-battista-pergolesi/
 
Photo credit: Wikipedia
____________________

[i] “Jean-Philippe Rameau.” http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/490604/Jean-Philippe-Rameau.

[ii] “Performing Arts: Year In Review 2005.”  http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1090579/Performing-Arts-Year-In-Review-2005

[iii] “William Lincoln Christie (born December 19, 1944 in Buffalo, New York) is an American-born French conductor and harpsichordist.  He is noted as a specialist in baroque repertoire and as the founder (1969) of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants.” (Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
25 September 2012
WordPress
45.408358 -71.934658

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A Portrait of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

20 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

≈ 496 Comments

Tags

commedia dell'arte, d'Alembert, Diderot, La Serva padrona, Pergolesi, Querelle des Bouffons, Rameau, Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater, by William-Adophe Bouguereau (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Stabat Mater, by William-Adophe Bouguereau* (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

*William-Adophe Bouguereau 

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710, in Jesi – 16 or 17 March 1736, in Pozzuoli), whose real name was Draghi, was an Italian composer, an excellent violinist and an organist.  His family had moved from Jesi to Pergola, hence the name Pergolesi.[i]

Pergolesi

Pergolesi died at the age of 26, probably of tuberculosis. But, between the time he started to study music, c. 1720, at the Conservatorio dei Poveri at Naples and his death, a mere sixteen years had elapsed.  Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) died at a young age, 35, as did Schubert (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828), who died at the age of 31.

In 1732, Pergolesi was appointed mastro de cappella to the prince of Stigliano, and, in 1734, he became deputy maestro de cappella, in Naples.

Sacred Music

Pergolesi was such a fine violinist and composer that, during his own life time, he was called the “divine,” by his followers.  For musicologists, he is, first and foremost, the composer of the Serva padrona (“The Maid turned Mistress”), an opera buffa, or comic opera, composed in 1733.  But if we exclude the circumstances that made his opera buffa and its composer famous, he is remembered mainly for his Stabat Mater, a sacred work he composed the year he died, in 1736.

The Stabat Mater was commissioned by the Confraternità dei Cavalieri di San Luigi di Palazzo, a group of pious and generous gentlemen.  However, by 1736, Pergolesi had also written a Mass in F and his long and very mature Magnificat in C major.  In Naples, he composed his Mass in D and his celebrated Stabat Mater.

Instrumental Music

Pergolesi also composed instrumental music: a violin sonata, a violin concerto, a concerto for flute, and other instrumental works.  But doubt lingers concerning the authorship of some of the instrumental music attributed to him.  Investigators are at work.

Operas

So, we now come to his operas.  In Naples, Pergolesi had written Lo frate’nnmmorato, an opera buffa (comic opera).  But he had also composed an opera seria (serious) entitled Il Prigioner superbo (The Proud Prisoner), a work which contained a two-act comedia buffa, La Serva padrona (The Maid turned Mistress).  It is this opera buffa that made him a celebrity, albeit posthumously.

La Serva padrona, an intermezzo, was in no way subversive  It had been composed to a libretto (the words) by Gennaro Antonio Federico who gleaned some of his material from a play by Jacopo Angello Nelli.  In fact, not only was it not subversive, but it had already been performed in Paris, on October 4th, 1746, without attracting much attention.

La Serva Padrona and the “Querelle des Bouffons” (video, here and below)

But in 1752, circumstances had changed.  For one thing, the August 1st, 1752 performance of La Serva padrona (“The Servant turned Mistress”) took place at the most elegant venue in Paris: the Opera, or the Académie royale de musique.  Moreover, it was performed before an élite audience.  As a result, this one performance led to an unpredictable two-year quarrel (1752-1754) that opposed the most brilliant minds among the “lumières,” including d’Alembert, Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau  (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778).  But Rousseau is the person who threw the first stone, except that the “querelle” was a paper war.

Sense and Sensibility

The “Querelle des Bouffons,” or “Quarrel of the comic actors,” was indeed a paper war.  It took the form of an exchange of letters and pamphlets, totalling sixty-one documents, all written by the most erudite “philosophes” of the French Enlightenment, not to mention a bevy of salonniers and salonnières.  It was the event of the century, prior to the French Revolution.

—ooo—

Yet, it would not be altogether fair to give circumstances the leading role in the “querelle.”  Pergolesi’s Serva padrona is an opera buffa, but it had been composed by Pergolesi, the “divine,” and talent supersedes genre.  In other words, the performance of the Serva padrona was a catalyst in the “querelle,” but it is unlikely that a lesser opera buffa would have unleashed a fury.  No greater compliment was ever paid Pergolesi.  The Serva padrona was so delightful an opera buffa, that Geneva-born French encyclopédiste and musician Jean-Jacques Rousseau could use it to oppose French opera.

There had long been tension between Italian music and French music, then dominated by Jean-Philippe Rameau, the author of a Treatise on Harmony, published in 1722.  As you know from an earlier blog, this treatise remains authorative.  But although the “querelle ” could be considered as yet another battle in the war between French “ramistes,” the name given supporters of Rameau, on the one hand, and lovers of Italian opera and commedia dell’arte, on the other hand, it may be best to suggest that it opposed reason and sentiment, or sense and sensibility.

The supremacy of reason had been disputed by Pascal, among other thinkers, but since the publication of Descartes‘s Discours de la méthode, in 1637, the fashion for sentiment had suffered. Although Voltaire (b. François-Marie Arouet), 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778, was extremely witty and entertaining, as a philosopher, he was an advocate of reason.  Be that as it may, Rousseau rather enjoyed shedding a tear or two at the opera, as did a substantial number of his companions involved in the “querelle.”

—ooo—

In short, because Pergolesi’s Serva padrona was exquisite in its genre, it was the perfect weapon in a war against “ramistes,” which means that if sentiment and the Italians won that particular battle, the “querelle” also constituted abundant praise of Pergolesi’s talent.  Without this weapon of choice, the Serva padrona, there may never have been a “Querelle des Bouffons” for sheer lack of ammunition.

Three Gentlemen and Pierrot, Claude Gillot

Claude Gillot (28 April 1673 – 4 May 1722)

YouTube allows one to listen to and to view the Serva padrona in its entirety, but Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater remains the centrepiece.  I hope you enjoy listening to some music composed by a forever young Pergolesi who died in poverty in a Franciscan monastery, at Pozzuoli, near Naples.

—ooo—

(please click on title to hear music)

  • The “Querelle des Bouffons” (comments in Italian about the commedia dell’arte)
  • Pergolesi – Violin Concerto in B Flat Major – Mov. 1/3
  • Pergolesi – Violin Concerto in B Flat Major – Mov. 2&3/3
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 1
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 2
  • Pergolesi – Konzert G-Dur für Flöte und Orchester 3
  • Pergolesi – Laudate pueri Dominum (2)
  • Pergolesi – Salve Regina in C minor (1)
  • Pergolesi – Stabat Mater, Jaroussky & Gens
  • Pergolesi – Magnificat in C Major
  • Pergolesi – La Serva padrona -II

[i] “Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia BritannicaOnline. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 20 Dec. 2011. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/451597/Giovanni-Battista-Pergolesi>.

composer:  Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710 –16 or 17 March 1736
piece: Stabat Mater
performers: London Symphony Orchestra, 1985
Margaret Marshall, Soprano; Lucia Valentini Terrani, Contralto
conductor: Claudio Abbado
 
scene
© Micheline Walker
20 December 2011
WordPress
 
Scène,
Claude Gillot
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