Joseph Bodin de
Boismortier (1689-1755)
Suites for Harpsichord
& Flute
Joseph Bodin de Boismortier was born at Thionville on 23rd December 1689
and died at Roissy-en-Brie on 28th October 1755. Natives of the borders of the
region of Berry, the Bodin family had settled in Thionville where the
composer's father, a former soldier, became a confectioner. Around 1691, the
family moved to Metz, where Boismortier was to have his musical education,
apparently under Joseph Valette de Montigny, an accomplished composer of
motets. In 1713 he followed his teacher to Perpignan, as tax collector for the
Royal Tobacco Company, an occupation remote from music. Seven years later he
married Marie Valette, a relation of his teacher, the daughter of a wealthy
goldsmith. He remained in Perpignan for some ten years, a period that brought
some musical activity, witnessed by two of his airs à boire (drinking-songs),
published in Paris by Ballard in 1721 and 1724.
On the recommendation of influential friends, Boismortier abandoned his
business and settled with his wife and daughter at the court of the Duchess of
Maine at Sceaux and later in Paris, where he was first granted the
privilege to print his compositions on 29th February 1724. This allowed him to
publish his transverse flute duets and French cantatas, composed in Perpignan,
marking the start of a successful and controversial career in the capital.
In his Essay on Ancient and Modern Music of 1780 the celebrated
theoretician Jean-Benjamin de La Borde gave a realistic portrait of the
composer:
"Boismortier appeared
at a time when only simple and easy music was in fashion. This competent
musician took only too much advantage of this tendency and devised, for the
many, airs and duets in great numbers which were performed on the flute, the
violins, oboes, bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies.
He so abused the ingenuousness of his numerous buyers that, in the end,
the following was said of him:
Happy is he, Boismortier, whose fertile quill Each month, without pain,
conceives a new air at will. Boismortier, for lack of a better answer to his
critics, would always answer: “I am earning money”.
Boismortier's achievement, however, is impressive, with 102 pieces, to
which one must add airs and grand motets, as well as a dictionary of harmony. He
also published practical manuals for the flute and the treble viol, while
composing for a wide variety of instruments and experimenting with varied
instrumentation. His sonatas for pardessus (descant viol) have recently
been rediscovered and published, in addition to works for musette and
hurdy-gurdy (vielle à roue), two fashionable pastoral instruments of the
period. The greater part of his compositions, however, were for the flute,
which, with the harpsichord, held an important place at the beginning of the
eighteenth century. At the same time he wrote a quantity of vocal music,
including drinking songs, large and small scale cantatas and motets, and,
naturally, opera-ballets, notably Les Voyages de l'Amour (The Travels of
Love) in 1736, Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse (‘Don Quixote at the
Duchess’) in 1743, Daphnis et Chloé in 1747, Daphné in 1748 and Les
quatre parties du monde (‘The Four Parts of the World’) in 1752. In 1753 he
withdrew from the musical scene, as a result of the Querelle des bouffons, the
dispute between proponents in France of French and Italian musical traditions.
He retired to a small property, La Gâtinellerie, at Roissy-en-Brie, where he
died in 1755.
Rediscovered a century
later and republished in editions that now appear dated, with their romantic
realisations of the basso continuo and adaptation to modem instruments,
the music of Boismortier is now treated with the modem respect for authenticity
and with due regard to the once despised rustic instruments, the musette and
the hurdy-gurdy. The continuous bagpipe drone of the musette and difficulties
of articulation and accent seemed to disqualify these instruments from serious
consideration. Strangely, however, commentators of the period never mention
these deficiencies, generally happy to agree with popular contemporary taste.
Composers such as Lully, Marais, Campra, Mouret, Rameau and Leclair had used
the musette in their operas, as well as the hurdy-gurdy in an instrumental
repertoire that included duos, sonatas, concerts and concertos. It seems that
modem critics may lack proper knowledge of the eighteenth century musette and
hurdy-gurdy, wrongly identifying them with the folk instruments still in use.
In fact the form of the baroque musette is quite different: elaborated for over
a century by dynasties of instrument-makers including Hotteterre and the
Chédevilles, it was designed to provide a full chromatic range of almost two
octaves, to phrase, articulate and embellish in the same way as the flute, the
violin and the harpsichord and finally to blend with all the other instruments.
The hurdy-gurdy, generally retaining its original form, acquires possibilities
of precision, a range of two chromatic octaves, speed, accuracy and a smoother
sound. Handsomely decorated, the hurdy-gurdy and the musette of the baroque
period further accentuate the division between educated society and the people
at large. Yet their technological sophistication has never managed completely
to erase their popular origins, with a repertoire that remains generally
cheerful or pastoral in character, while the presence of the drone is still
very effective.
The four Ballets de
village represent one of the major pieces of the repertoire for musette and
vielle and are perhaps among Boismortier's most successful three-part
compositions for these instruments. The composer was an expert in their
treatment and makes considerable use of them in a variety of works, responding
to the demands of a contemporary public that was technically limited but
passionately interested in music. By comparison with more accessible works for
the instruments, the Ballets de village belong to a group of more
ambitious compositions, although the pastoral aspect remains. In certain
collections of sonatas or suites, with continuo, Boismortier exploits the
virtuosity of the musette as in the two Divertissemens de campagne, Opus 49,
or of the vielle, as in the six Sonatas, Opus 72. He envisages music
that makes use of musettes, vielles, recorders, violins, oboes and flutes, with
the bass provided by the harpsichord, the theorbo supported by the cello, bass
viol or bassoon. The possible use of these instruments seems clearly implied by
the nature of the melody instrument specified by the composer. The potentially
varied instrumentation does not necessarily classify the Ballets de village as
among Boismortier's ambitious works. Other printed works of the period also
envisage varying ensembles, supported by a simple bass, with occasional short
trios breaking the simplicity of the composition. This first type of music was
mainly used as an opening to a suite, a symphony, or an Italian style concerto,
sometimes with great success. The continuous three-part writing of the Ballets
and the unusual lay-out of the movements are the first sign of a break with
usual practice.
The use of the terms seul
(solo) and tous (tutti) impart a French element to the Italian concerto
grosso, while the forms used are well known: rondeau, chaconne, fugue, varied
or two-part slow movement. Yet the use of these forms in such a context is
unusual, in a work that shows originality in its technical command and
continuity, while still retaining the cheerful and entertaining element
suggested in the title. In fact there is something paradoxical about this
music: although the term ballet is used, there are no references to
specific dances, even if the pesamment of the second ballet suggests the
rigaudon and if the concluding chacanne 'gaiement' recalls
initially the rhythm of a gigue.
The title of the Sérénade
ou Simphonie françoise, Opus 39, suggests something more serious, yet the
movements themselves refer to popular music, with a gavotte, entrée
rustique, villageoise and so on, curiously complemented by the Ouverture
or the strange Chœur imaginaire. There is no sign here of the musette
or the hurdy-gurdy, but only of serious instruments, flutes, violins and oboes.
This mingling of town and country, of the upper classes with the peasantry, of
a simple form of music with technical skill in composition might reflect the
advice of Boileau:
Prenez mieux votre
ton
Soyez simple avec
art,
Sublime sans
orgueil,
Agréable sans
fard.
(Cultivate a better
tone,
Be simple with skill,
Noble without pride,
Pleasant without
pretension)
Simplicity with skill
characterizes the music of the Ballets de village and the Sérénade and
the Symphonie Françoise. Written at a time when French and Italian music
met, these works deliberately choose a pleasing style without pretension, a
perfect synthesis of the tastes of the period.
Jean-Christophe Maillard