Jacques-Christophe Naudot (1690-1762)
- Concerto (I, en ré majeur) pour flûte-traversière, XIe Oeuvre (1735)
Performers: Neil McLaren (flute); Cambridge Baroque Camerata
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French composer, flautist and teacher. He is sometimes erroneously
referred to as Jean-Jacques. First heard of in 1719, when he was
identified as a ‘master of music’ in a marriage document, Naudot
published his first compositions in 1726. According to Quantz’s
autobiography, Naudot was among the flautists then active in Paris. He
was described by Walther (1732) as a ‘flourishing’ French flautist, and
in 1739 was one of three flautists (with Lucas and Michel Blavet) whose
‘rare talent’ for the flute caused the poet Denesle to dedicate his poem
Syrinx, ou L’origine de la flûte to them. Although it seems clear that
Naudot was well known in Paris as a player, it is not known where he
played; perhaps it was mainly in private salons, for the dedications to
many of his works show that he had a number of aristocratic and
bourgeois pupils and patrons. He may have taught the hurdy-gurdy and
musette as well as the flute. Naudot was a freemason, and on 7 May 1737
was elected ‘superintendent of music’ for the Coustos-Villeroy lodge; in
the same year he brought out the earliest collection of masonic songs
to appear in France. Between 1726 and 1742 he published a long line of
compositions, principally for the flute; thereafter they appeared less
regularly, and after 1752 he published no more. When he died in 1762, an
official document described him as a ‘master of flute and of music’.
Among Naudot’s compositions, of special importance are the flute
concertos of op.11, probably published between 1735 and 1737, which were
the second printed set of flute concertos to appear in all Europe
(preceded only by Vivaldi’s VI Concerti a flauto traverso, op.10). In
these concertos Naudot showed himself to be a master of the Italian
concerto and of a technically advanced flute style full of rapid scalic
runs and broken-chord figuration.
Naudot’s early solo sonatas for flute and continuo, generally in four
movements, already showed a leaning towards this style. By op.9 he had
developed a new type of moderate-tempo third movement, called ‘Aria’,
which was adopted by his contemporaries Boismortier and Blavet. In his
later flute works Naudot occasionally approached the galant style in his
slow movements, and his fast movements became more clearly phrased,
concise and lightly flowing. Most of his duet and trio sonatas are
lighter in vein than the solo works, except for the last trios (op.15),
three-movement works which contain elements of the Italian symphonic
style (just beginning to be heard in Paris) as well as skilfully worked
out fugues. Apart from his flute works, Naudot produced a set of
difficult sonatas for hurdy-gurdy and continuo (op.14) of which three
exploit double stops more thoroughly than any other composer’s works for
the instrument, a set of concertos designed principally for a solo
hurdy-gurdy or musette (op.17), dedicated to the hurdy-gurdy virtuoso
Danguy l’aîné, and a number of lightweight pieces for hurdy-gurdies or
musettes. He also published two books of simple pieces for two hunting
horns or trumpets and, in his collection of masonic songs, two marches
for hunting horns, flutes, oboes and continuo and his only known vocal
work, a ‘Duo pour les Francs-maçons’. Though Naudot wrote much music
that was frivolous, his best works were important in contributing to the
greater virtuosity the flute was gaining in French music in the 1730s
and in helping to strengthen the role of the Italian style and of the
solo concerto in French woodwind literature. They also comprise some of
the most rewarding pieces produced by the French flute school. His works
were reprinted many times and must have been well liked by the amateur
players of his day.
