Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729)
- Suite des 'Cephale | Et | Procris |
Tragedie | Mise En Musique' (1694)
Performers: La Vοce Strumentale; Dmitry Sinkοvsky (conductor)
---
French harpsichordist and composer. She came from a family of master
masons and musicians. She emerged as a musical prodigy and made her
debut as a singer and harpsichordist at the court of Louis XIV,
apparently at quite a young age. At about age 15 she was taken into the
court as a musician and placed under the care of the king’s mistress,
Madame de Montespan. Jacquet left the regular service of the court in
1684 and that year married Marin de la Guerre, an accomplished Parisian
harpsichordist, organist, music teacher, and composer from a
well-established family of professional musicians. The fact that she
dedicated nearly all of her published works to the king, however,
indicates that she retained connections to the royal circle throughout
her career. With Marin she had one son who died at age 10, having shown
promise as a musician himself. Marin died in 1704. Jacquet de la
Guerre’s first published collection of compositions was the Pièces de
clavessin (1687; “Harpsichord Pieces”), noteworthy especially because
publication of harpsichord music was still rare in France in the 17th
century, even for male composers. The work consists entirely of sets of
dance pieces grouped by key, with each group preceded by an “unmeasured
prelude,” a genre notated mostly in whole notes to indicate that it does
not adhere to a strict metre and thus approximates improvisation.
Jacquet de la Guerre’s next published instrumental work, a two-volume
set that juxtaposed the French and Italian instrumental styles, did not
appear until 1707. The first part of the set, entitled Pièces de
clavecin qui peuvent se jouer sur le viollon (“Harpsichord Pieces That
May Be Played on the Violin”), again consists of dance pieces in the
French tradition. The other part, entitled Sonates pour le viollon et
pour le clavecin (“Sonatas for the Violin and for the Harpsichord”),
employs idiomatic string writing that shows influence from the Italian
instrumental style; these Italianate features include quick passagework,
harmonic sequences, and imitation between parts. As was typical in the
18th century, the accompanying harpsichordist played from only a bass
line, improvising the harmonies and melodic figures to suit the violin
line; this practice was called basso continuo. Jacquet de la Guerre is
known to have composed other sonatas for one or two violins and basso
continuo. Some of these may be dated to about 1695, while the
composition dates of the others remain unknown.
Cap comentari:
Publica un comentari a l'entrada