Louis de Caix d'Hervelois (1677-1759)
- Suite pour la Viole, avec la Basse chifrée en partition (1731)
Performers: Marie-Thérèsе Hеurtiеr (cello); Laurence Boulay (1925-2007, cembalo)
Further info: Louis de Caix d'Hervelois (1677-1759)
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French composer and viol player. There is no firm evidence that he was a
member of the de Caix family, but the fact that he played the same
instrument, published works in Lyons and named a piece La Marie-Anne de
Caix indicates that he might have been. He was probably the nephew of
Louis de Kaix, a chaplain at the Ste Chapelle in Paris originally from
Amiens; in 1697 Louis de Kaix was looking for a room where his nephew
could practise the viol. Caix d’Hervelois does not appear to have
received a court appointment although he dedicated his final volume of
pièces de viole to Louis XV’s daughter. By 1731 he was living opposite
St Eustache, in a clock maker’s house in the rue de Jour. Caix
d’Hervelois’ musical language strongly suggests that he was a pupil of
Marin Marais. His five books of pièces de viole are of great importance
in the repertory of French viol music. His first book (1708) reveals his
elegant French sense of melody, his polished understanding of harmony
and his advanced, idiomatic use of left-hand upper positions. His
sensitivity to contemporary Italian developments is shown in his liking
for mixing major and minor pieces with a common tonic within a suite and
also, from 1731, in his increasing use of da capo movements and his
penchant for writing three related pieces, such as the three airs Les
trois cousines (‘La prude’, ‘L’enjoüée’ and ‘La folichonne’) of 1748.
However, he never attempted to rival the technical advances of the
violin in the manner of Forqueray. Caix d’Hervelois has been claimed to be the first composer to publish
sonatas for the viol, in 1740; but the movements within these sonatas
are indistinguishable from those of his suites.
Furthermore, in the 1748
book the ‘sonates’ are part of a suite. From about 1720 there was a
vogue for duets for two equal instruments; Le Blanc declared that it was
‘the definitive ruling of the ladies that nothing in the world touches
two bass viols for a perfect rendering of the upper and lower lines’.
One piece each in Caix d’Hervelois’s collections of 1719 and 1731 is
‘pour jouer a deux violles’; these were evidently a success, and his IVe
livre (1740) is devoted entirely to viol duets. Pieces with keyboard
continuo reappear in the 1748 book, but the two sonatas in this volume
are duets; in addition there are a number of movements among the suites
that possess basses highly idiomatic to the viol (including chords),
which are unfigured and at times fingered. Ex.1 illustrates the exchange
of parts and characteristic use of parallel intervals in La Joly. In
general the top line is given the dominant role. Most of the pieces in
Caix d’Hervelois’s collections for pardessus de viole and his volumes
for flute are, as the composer freely admits, arrangements of his bass
viol compositions. It is interesting that he draws on individual pieces
and rearranges them, along with some fresh movements, into new suites
with a common tonic. His transcriptions for the pardessus were
undertaken with care; the excellent fingerings imply that he was an
accomplished player of the instrument.
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