Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (1705-1770)
- Symphonie (VI) en Sol majeur, Oeuvre XIVe (1748)
Performers: Ensеmblе Lе Biеn-Aimé
Painting: Anonymous - Gesellschaft mit jungem Paar
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French composer and violinist. He was brought up by the Count of
Rochechouart in Paris, where he began his violin studies. He later
studied in Italy with the violinist G.B. Somis. By 1729, Guillemain was
active in Lyons and soon after then he was appointed first violinist of
the Dijon Académie de Musique, where he became well established as
composer and performer. The Président à Mortier of the Dijon parliament
sent Guillemain to Italy at great expense and included him in his will.
In 1737 Guillemain became a musicien ordinaire to Louis XV and
eventually one of the most popular and highest-paid court musicians. It
was probably to give concerts that he went to Italy with the violinist
Jean-Pierre Guignon in the late 1730s. Guillemain performed in private
concerts before the king and queen and from 1747 to 1750 led the second
violins in the Marchioness de Pompadour's court orchestra. His court
triumph, however, came on 12 December 1748, with a performance of his
ballet-pantomime L'opérateur chinois, given at the marchioness's theatre
and again at the Comédie-Italienne on 11 January 1749. His works,
primarily the symphonies, were often performed at the Concert Spirituel
during the 1750s. Throughout his career at court, extravagant purchases
kept him in debt. It has generally been thought that Guillemain never
appeared in public as a soloist at the Concert Spirituel, possibly
because he was too nervous to play before a large audience. But evidence
shows that he may have been soloist in one of his own concertos at the
Concert Spirituel on the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament (18 May) in
1750. He drank heavily in his last years, and was hastily buried on the
day of his death; all this would seem to bear out the grim accounts of
his suicide.
All 18 of Guillemain's publications consist of instrumental music,
including works for unaccompanied violin, solo violin and keyboard,
unaccompanied violin duos, trio sonatas, quartets, concertos, trio
symphonies and divertissements for orchestral trio. The op.1 sonatas, in
a conservative four-movement scheme and with ornamental melodic lines,
make virtuoso demands on the violin: they abound in double and triple
stops and difficult string crossings and leaps as well as intricate
rapid passages and bowings. This technical display is also found in the
unaccompanied caprices of op.18. The 12 trio symphonies, opp.6 and 14,
are structurally of interest. They are in the Italian style and follow
the normal three-movement, fast–slow–fast scheme. Each of the fast
movements, however, displays a remarkably clear grasp of the
sonata-allegro principle for works written in the 1740s. Guillemain's
awareness of the various thematic functions, as well as the
differentiation between primary and secondary materials, is surprising.
His typical sonata-allegro procedure in the symphonies consists of a
brief exposition with the primary theme in the tonic and a modulation to
the dominant for the secondary material. The development section begins
with a restatement of the primary material in the dominant and
continues with episodic or developmental material, usually in the
relative minor. The recapitulation is generally exact with only
insignificant thematic reformulation. The symphonies are predominantly
galant in style. The trio setting is homophonic virtually throughout,
with the continuo often characterized by a perfunctory beat-marking
accompaniment. The thematic material is put together in a series of
independent, fragmented phrases, normally of two bars. Each unit is
articulated by contrasting galant instrumental figurations, creating a
mosaic-like additive procedure as opposed to a developmental one.
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