MHS 567 MHS 567
_ JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU (1683-1764) SIX CONCERTS IN SIX PARTS
(SIX CONCERTS EN SEXTUOR)
SIDE 1: 27:25
First Concert (c minor) 7:05
(1) La Coulicam 1:45 (2) La Viwri 2:53 (3) Le Vezinet 2:09
Second Concert (G Major) 12:00
(1) La Laborde 2:44 (2) La Boucon 2:58 (3) L’Agacante 1:35 (4)
Menuet
1 & 2 4:04
Third Concert (A Major) 9:20 (1) La La Popliniere 2:08 (2) La
Timide 4:04 (3)Tambourin 1 & 2 2:47
SIDE 22.27 -"14
Fourth Concert (B Flat Major) 7:12
(1) La Pantomime 3:20 (2)L’Indiscrete 1:00 (3) La Rameau
2:40
Fifth Concert (d minor) 7:17
(1) La Forqueray 1:56 (2) La Cupis 2:52 (3) La Marais 2:16
Sixth Concert (g minor) 12:45
(1) La Powle 3:55 (2) Menuet 1 & 2 3:20 (3) L’Enharmonique
2:22 (4)
L’Egyptienne 2:52
THE JEAN-FRANCOIS PAILLARD CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
The son of an organist, Jean-Philippe Rameau was born in Dijon
in 1683. His father originally intended Jean-Philippe for a career
in the law, but the boy’s extraordinary musical gifts caused
Rameau-pere to give up such thoughts and encourage his studies of
theory, organ, harpsichord, and violin. Young Rameau was later
enrolled in a Jesuit college, but, again evidently giving in again
to his son’s desires for a musical career, the elder Rameau sent
him to Italy. The young man, seemingly unimpressed with music and
the manner in which it was taught in that country, returned to
France in 1702 to employment as organist and theory instructor,
first in Avignon, then in Clermont Ferrand. Three years later, he
moved to Paris, where he quickly had published his first Livre de
pieces de clavecin (1706). But the big city ignored his music, and
he left for Dijon, there to take up the post of organist at the
Cathedral recently vacated by his father, and then, once again, to
Clermont-Ferrand, where he produced his famous theo- retical work,
the Treatise on Harmony, which he succeeded in having published in
Paris in 1722. The work stirred considerable controversy in the
capital, and it was largely as a result of this controversy (in
which the antagonistic elements seemingly out- numbered the
favorable) that Rameau’s name began to spread.
By 1724, Rameau, now firmly ensconced in Paris, published a
second Livre de pieces de clavecin, and this time the city heaped
the composer with praise and, perhaps more important, made him its
most popular teacher of theory and harpsichord. Before long he also
began to compose the first of many operas, including Les Indes
Galantes, Hippolyte et Aricie, Dardanus, Castor et Pol- lux, ben
were to bring him even greater renown and financial reward.
Yet the “average” listener, if he has any familiarity at all
with Rameau’s music, will probably know him chiefly as a composer
of charming keyboard pieces, many of which have long been favorites
with pianists, and now, due to the enormous resurgence of interest
in the instrument for which they were intended, with
harpsichordists. Cuthbert Girdlestone, in his admirable study of
the composer (Cassell & Co., London, 1957) has summed up the
situation in the following words:
Beside the impressive mass of mote than ninety acts of _
dramatic music, as well as motets and cantatas, Rameau’s fifty-odd
pieces for harpsichord and sixteen for trio are a slender legacy.
Yet it is only through them that he communi-
Jean-Francois PAILLARD, Conductor
cates to-day with the ordinary music lover. This numerically
insignificant part of his work, written before he acquired fame as
aM operatic composer, represents him in the eyes of the world even
more completely than the piano sonatas, which, up to half a century
ago, represented Mozart.
In his detailed analysis of this segment of the composer’s
output, the same writer reminds uus that French harpsichord music
of Rameau’s time consisted of two kinds: that derived from the
dance, which attempted to “evoke. . .a kind of vicarious pleasure
of the dance, and what may be called genre pieces, whose extra-
musical appeal consisted in calling to mind some external object ©
— person, thing, situation, event. The division was not hard and
fast; some dances had evocative names, and many genre pieces, even
when not called dances, were cast in obvious dance rhythms.” Rameau
was interested in both kinds, with the first Livre being devoted to
the “dance” pieces exclusively, while the Livres which followed
contained both, or perhaps more precisely, all three types, 1.e.,
with the genre pieces in dance rhythms as the third.
The sixteen pieces for trio referred to by Girdlestone are the
movements of the Pieces de clavecin en concert for harpsichord,
flute or violin, and cello (or second violin), dating from 1741.
This work, consisting of five Concerts was later arranged for six-
part string orchestra (or simply six strings: three violins, viola,
cello and double bass or second cello). To these five Concerts was
later added a sixth, made up of transcriptions of five of Rameau’s
solo harpsichord pieces. This new version was titled, simply, Six
Concerts transcrits ensextuor. Girdlestone’s failure to mention the
Six Concerts is readily explained by the fact that it has never
been ascertained whether they were actually arranged by Raraeau.
The works wete published after his death.
The titles of the movements, some of them extraordinarily
cryptic, have been the subject of considerable head-scratching on
the part of musicologists. I make no claims to being any sort of
authority on these titles. It has, however, been my pleasure to
con- sult numerous sources for at least concensus answers to some
of the riddles and the following are the explanations which crop up
with greatest frequency:
PREMIER CONCERT (c minor): 1. Le Coulicam — A certain Pere Du
Cercau, in a book on Persia, discusses one of that coun- try’s
hero-kings, one Kouli-Khan, or Coulicam. This may be Rameau’s
exotic evocation of that figure. 2. L¢ Livri —. This may —
be a tonal reminiscene of Rameau’s visits to the Seine-et-Marne
village of Livri (or Livry), or an homage to Louis Sanguin, Comte
de Livry, a courtier and famous contemporary patron of the arts.
3..La Vezinet—Another reference to a French village: interesting-
ly, this is the only one of the pieces using the masculine article.
Why? I cannot answer.
DEUXIEME CONCERT (G major): 1. La Laborde — Most researchers
have regarded this as a tribute to one of two famous Labordes: one,
the wife of Jean-Joseph, Louis XV’s banker, the other,
Jean-Benjamin, a composer and musical theorist of the time. Taking
their researches a bit further, they might have discovered that the
former was sixteen and the latter seven years old at the time of
the Concerts’ composition. 2. La Boucon — Mlle. Boucon, a famous
harpsichordist of the time, may have been a pupil of Rameau. 3.
L’Agacante (“The Irritating One”) — Rameau must
_ have encountered many of these during his lifetime. 4. Deux
Menuets — Two minuets; period. TROISIEME CONCERT (A major): 1. La
La Popliniere —
Alexandre-Jean-Joseph Le Riche de la Popliniere was indisputably
among the most open-handed patrons of the arts of Rameau’s time,
with Rameau among the chief recipients of his generosity. Mme. de
la Popliniere was also one of Rameau’s most gifted harpsichord
pupils. 2. La Timide (See 2eme Concert, No. 3). 3. Tambourins I
& II — a popular dance form. QUATRIEME CONCERT (B flat major):
1. La Pantomime —
perhaps the evocation of a pantomimic dance in an Opera. 2.
L’Indiscrete — possibly another character study. 3. La Rameau —
Supposed by many to be a portrait. of Rameau’s wife, the singer and
harpsichordist Marie-Louise Mangot. CINQUIEME CONCERT (D minor):
No. 1. La Forqueray,
No. 2. La Cupis, No. 3. La Marais — Michel Forqueray, Francois
Cupis de Camargo, Marin Marais (and his son, Roland) were all
composers of the time with whom Rameau might have been friendly.
_SEXIEME CONCERT (G minor): No. 1. La Poule—Rameau’s highly
amusing, onomatopoetic evocation of the barnyard. 2. Deux Menuets.
3. L’Enharmonique — a study in chromaticism. 4, L’Egyptienne —
brings the Six Concerts full circle, that is, the work concludes as
it began, with an evocation of the Orient, one > of the pet
enthusiasms of Rameau’s France.
; Herbert GLASS Licensed by Erato Records of France
_THE MUSICAL HERITAGE SOCIETY, INC. 1991 Broadway, New York
10023 -
