español | français Jacquet de la Guerre John Eliot Gardiner 10 CDs for a desert island : Ian Bostridge Venetain opera   52 - 51 - 50 - 49 - 48 - 47 - 46 - 45 - 44 - 43 - 42 - 41 - 40 - 39 - 38 - 37 - 36 - 35 - 34 - 33 - 32 - 31 - 30 - 29 - 28 - 27 - 26 - 25 - 24 - 23 - 22 - 21 - 20 - 19 - 18 - 17 - 16 - 15 - 14 - 13 - 12 - 11 - 10 - 09 - 08 - 07 - 06 - 05 - 04 - 03 - 02 - 01 - JACQUET DE LA GUERRE Women composers are still considered an unusual phenomenon, and the subject has always given rise to unanswered questions Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavessin At the age of twenty-two, Jacquet openly launched herself into the world of music with the publication of her Premier Livre de Pièces de Clavessin. The Mercure Galant announced the work’s publication and emphasized the fact that Louis XIV, to whom the volume was dedicated, “had received it with his usual goodness, and stated that he did not doubt that the works therein were perfectly beautiful”. Along with the works of Chambonnières, Lebègue and d’Anglebert, Jacquet’s Premier Livre is one of the few volumes of harpsichord works to have been published in seventeenth-century France. Her compositions, like d’Anglebert’s Pièces de Clavecin, are arranged in groups of dances. They are laid out in an order that is already nearly that of the classic French suite, and include an allemande, a courante, a gigue and a minuet, as well as occasional added dances (canaries, chaconnes and gavottes). Another original feature of the book is the fact that it contains both unmeasured preludes and a tocade (the French word for the Italian toccata), the sole example of such a piece in the seventeenth-century French repertory. Like Louis Couperin, who also excelled in composing preludes, Jacquin juxtaposed measured and unmeasured sections in her tocade. The piece is more fully developed than her preludes, and expands on the principle of opposing sections of differing character that typifies the toccatas of Frescobaldi and Froberger. This written-out improvisation bears testimony to the “marvellous talent” of Élisabeth Jacquet for “preluding and playing spontaneous fantasias; sometimes for an entire thirty minutes she would play a prelude and fantasia that contained the most varied melodies and chords, all in the most excellent taste, which charmed her listeners”. Céphale et Procris Accustomed to success from her earliest youth, Élisabeth Jacquet probably entertained high hopes for her tragédie lyrique Céphale et Procris, the first work of its kind to be presented by a woman to the Académie royale de musique. In his correspondence with Madame de Sévigné, Hilaire Rouillé du Coudray wrote , “I set great store by Madame de la Guerre’s new opera. I attended two rehearsals, and it will be very good”. The brothers Parfaict, however, noted in their Histoire de l’Académie royale, “If praises before the fact could assure the success of a work, no opera would have been its equal. The names of Duché (the librettist) and Mlle. de la Guerre were on everyone’s lips in Paris. People were in ecstasies when they heard the poetry, and woe to those who dared say it would be prudent to await the reaction of the public. But the great day arrived, and what a change of opinion! It was total, and the opera expired after its fifth or sixth performance”. The premiere took place on 15 March, 1694, and the score was published the same year. Its dedication to Louis XIV read, “Sire, the attention that, through your exceptional goodness, Your Majesty has deigned accord some of my musical compositions, and the approval with which you have honored them more than once, gave me the courage to undertake this work, the strength to create it, and the confidence to offer it to Your Majesty. If it has been my unhappy destiny not to have dedicated my life to his service, nor through my talents to have worked for his glory, I am still happy to have had the honor of cultivating these from my earliest days, during which I at least was able to contribute to his diversion during brief moments taken from his great and important occupations...” Watteau: The Rest, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Biography Work catalogue Discography Goldberg Articles ABOUT US | CONTRIBUTE   web map - home page - cover Legal warning Copyright 2003, Goldberg. info@goldberg-magazine.com