Louis-Nicolas Clérambault
(1676-1749) - Bass Cantatas and Simphonies
Parisian. Organist to the King. of
the Royal Church of Saint-Cyr and the Parish Church of Saint-Sulpice, died in Paris on 26th October 1749 in the 72nd year of his life,
interred at Saint-Sulpice... He left Iwo sons who fill with distinction the positions he held as
organist.
Evrard Titon du Tillet. Vies des Musiciens et autres Joueurs
d'Instrument du règne de Louis le Grand (Lives of Musicians and
Instrumentalists of the Reign of Louis the Great)
The Abbé Ladvocat, scholar of
the first half of the eighteenth century, did not hesitate, in order to give
still further distinction to the character of Louis-Nicolas Clérambault and
increase the respect owed both the man and his art, to stress that the family
of this famous musician had been attached to the service of the King since
Louis XI (1423-1483) The declaration may rest on slender foundations but shows
clearly the great fame that the musician enjoyed. It is true, alI the same,
that the Clérambault family could pride itself on having been employed as
musicians in the royal service for many years Dominique Clérambault
(1644-1704), his father, played in the famous 24 Violins of the King,
the Bande des Vingt-quatre Violons also known as the Grande Bande. Having
taken over the position of Louis Bruslard in 1670, he kept it until 1681. While
this service does not go back to the fifteenth century, it establishes firmly
the background from which Louis- Nicolas Clérambault would benefit, rooted in
the best sources of French music in the seventeenth century. In fact the Grande
Bande played a large part in the development of virtuoso performance in France and was at the forefront of
contemporary music at the court of Louis XIV. It was there that the first idea
of the suite was conceived, stemming from the linked Airs de Ballet or
varied melodies that produced the celebrated form of the French overture. It
was there again that the form of the sonata developed, in 1704, a form that
would in turn lead to the birth of the symphony.
Strengthened by this innovative
spirit that inspired French music from the second half of the seventeenth
century onwards, even if the relative dullness of the end of the reign of Louis
XIV tended to fix certain traditions, but above ail strengthened by a
repertoire of forms and methods of performance in which he was brought up by
his violinist father, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault completed his musical training
with the organists Jean-Baptiste Moreau and André Raison. From the former he
acquired a severity of style, the origin of which may doubtless be found in the
connection of Jean-Baptiste Moreau to Saint-Cyr, founded by the very devout and
austere Madame de Maintenon. There he learned both the art of composing serious
vocal works inspired by the work of Racine, then directed towards Jansenism, as well as divertissements, intermèdes
and choruses from tragedies, intended for the great Jesuit colleges as well as
the Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr. With André Raison he found the contiuuatiou of
the tradition of Nivers, making use of all the wealth of colourful organ
registrations and the taste for rhythmic subtleties that Raison developed in
impressive improvisations. Finally, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault shared with Nivers
the organ of the royal establishment of Saint-Cyr, the organ that his master
Moreau had played since the foundation of the establishment in 1686 and to
which Nivers had succeeded. There he supervised the music lessons of the
boarders. He was given the officiai appointment at Saint-Sulpice in 1715,
succeeding Nivers, whom he had served as deputy for many years. Finally, he was
nominated as organist of the Jacobins of rue Saint Jacques in 1720. From 1697
his position had aIlowed him to publish Airs, then, in due course, a Livre
d'Orgue and a Livre de Clavecin, as weIl as sonatas and symphonies
that put him in the first rank of composers towards the end of the reign of
Louis XIV. His fame spread still further with the publication between 1710 and
1726 of his Livres de cantates.
Evrard Titon du TiIlet, music
chronicler of the Grand Siècle, bears witness to his brilliant career Clérambault
was known for the expert manner in which he played the organ; but what added
most to his reputation was his wonderful talent for cantatas. where he excelled;
he had the honour of performing them before Louis XIV, when His Majesty heard
them with pleasure; this prince had several cantata texts given the composer,
which he set to music, and which were performed in the apartment of Madame de Maintenon:
it is these that make up the third Book of his Co/lection. The King was
very satisfied with them and appointed him Superintendent of the Private
Concerts of Madame de Maintenon.
From then on his career was
launched, with Saint- Cyr and the most famous organs, the ear of the court...
then the Concert Spirituel. Established in 1725 in order to give concerts of musique
de chapelle on the days when the Académie Royale de Musique had time off by
reason of religious holidays, the Concert Spirituel from 1727 welcomed cantatas
in French suited !o the serious nature of the programmes proposed. The cantatas
of Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, which could hardly have been suspected of levity,
since they were regularly sung at Saint-Cyr, won great success. From 1728 Orphée,
Léandre et Héro and Lo musette were sung several times. The
following year Mademoiselle Antier of the Académie Royale de Musique won
acclaim when she performed, with her majestic voice, Alphée et Aréthuse and
Le Soleil vainqueur des nuages (The Sun, Conqueror of the Clouds), an
occasional piece written in 1721 for the recovery of the King's health. In
addition to this, every fortnight the composer gave in his house in the rue du Four
private concerts that attracted many music-lovers. It was there that the
master's sonatas, 'simphonies' and other instrumental compositions were tried
out.
If Clérarnbault's activity as a
composer slowed down in the last decades of his life, the brilliance of his
reputation did not grow any the less up !o the end of the century and his most
famous works continued !o be performed regularly in various public concerts.
The Cantatas
The Cantatas of Clérambault are
in five Books, each containing six or seven Cantatas, of which some are
for two and even three voices, with symphonies: apart from these five books,
there are some other Cantatas for particular occasions.
Evrard Titon du Tillet Vie des Musiciens
et autres Joueurs d'Instrument du règne de Louis le Grand
The cantata was a new
form. Its model, Italian in origin, the cantata, was introduced into France at the turn of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. Like the related form, the sonata, it was at
first the preoccupation of a clique of enthusiasts for Italian music, but it
soon became French, taking the form of a piece in which recitatives and varied
arias presented a brief dramatic situation. Borrowing at first from the
language of allegory and lively mime the cheerful imitations of Italian music,
this bardIy suited the needs of the court. Its success was elsewhere, in the
salons, rooms and celebrations of private people of means. The Grandes Nuits
de Sceaux devised to distract from bouts of insomnia the Duchesse du Maine
marked the height of the form.
With Louis-Nicolas Clérambault,
however, the cantata followed another path. Il drew sustenance from the grand
style of the theatre and acquired an element of heroic morality Contemporaries
were nol sparing of their praise. Orphée and Léandre et Héro were
quickly accepted as models of the new genre. The alternating structure is more
flexible, the daring harmonies and the real depth of feeling expressed in the
melody bestowed respectability on a form that up to that lime bad been purely
for entertainment The cantatas of Louis-Nicolas Clérambault are striking for their
expressive qualities but also for the rhythmic boldness borrowed from the
Italian. In the arias, such as that of the storm in Léandre et Héro, it
is more particularly of Vivaldi that one thinks, when the violence of the
elements and of passions are unloosed. Nevertheless the effect is so new that
the critic Daquin did not hesitate to declare that Louis-Nicolas Clérambault
bad found songs and expressions that belong only to him and make him
regarded as the only true model.
Sonatas
At the turn of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, sonata form, whether for one or several instruments,
was under the influence of Corelli (1653- 1713) and of Francois Couperin
(1668-1733), allying Italian lyricism with the spirit of France. The sonata has
a structure most often of four movements in which the melody is entrusted to
the upper part, with a lower accompanying part.
In the same way that he had
adopted the Italian cantata, to give it a French existence, Louisc Nicolas
Clerambault took an interest in the sonata. There he found a modern echo
of the old suites and gave the Italian model his own personal touch, without,
however, going as far as he had with the cantata and renewing it. The structure
of his compositions follows the Corellian model, varying the form from four to
six movements. Nevertheless the influence of Italian music is very widespread
and here again Clerambault's style, with its combinations of dance melodies,
comes near to the high style of 'French' writing.
A sign of lesser success may be
seen in the fact that many sonatas remained in manuscript. Designated on the
autographs as simphonia or sonata, they were given, in addition,
more literary titles, such as l'Abondance, la Fdicite, la Magnifique, l'Impromptu,
or enigmatic titles such as l'Anonima, It is particularly in these
sonatas that the very structured writing of Louis-Nicolas Clerambault comes to
the fore, testimony to his training as an organist, Sometimes the violin
melodies seem to wander over a meditative harmonic support; the style of
imitation, dear to French organists, that gives the melody the poetry of a line
drawing, imparts a particular inner feeling to the slow movements; the fugues
finally allow large-scale harmonic movements, always marked by their
flexibility, All these sonatas start with slow movements and finish with a
lively Allegro or a Gigue, Nevertheless, breaking this rule, the
single Chaconne movement of Simphonia V has, in its 230 bars over
a repeated bass, a less usual character, lively in feeling, approaching rather
writing for the keyboard, a brilliant demonstration of perfect technical
mastery and a deep understanding of composition. Yet the general mood of works
by Louis-Nicolas Clerambault is one of meditation, surprised, on occasion, by a
certain latent ironic amusement.
Jean-Yves Patte
English version' Keith Anderson
The Legends of Hercules and Polyphemus
Hercules (Heracles), the son of
Zeus and Alcmene, a legendary hero known, in particular for his Twelve Labours,
asked the centaur Nessus to carry his wife Deianira across a river, Nessus
assaulted her and was killed by Hercules, but as he died he gave her a shirt
soaked in his blood, telling her it was a love-charm. Hercules later fell in
love with lole Deianira then tried to win her husband's love again by sending
him the shirt of Nessus, believing it would bring Hercules back to her. The
poison on the shirt was released, when he wore it, and he was only able to find
relief from his agony by leaping onto a burning funeral pyre. Deianira later killed
herself, while Hercules became a god on Mount Oeta.
The Cyclops Polyphemus, a
one-eyed giant and a shepherd, was the son of the sea-god Poseidon and, in an
episode in Homer's Odyssey, holds Odysseus and his men prisoner in his
cave. Legend associated him with Acis, lover of the sea-nymph Galatea and rival
in love of Polyphemus, who killed him by hurling a rock at him. Acis was then
transformed into a river, after Galatea had escaped the attentions of Polyphemus
by diving into the adjacent sea. Polyphemus is the subject of a poem by Theocritus
and continues as a figure in the pastoral, as in Handel's Acis and Galatea.
K.A.