Jean-Philippe Branch

Jean-Philippe Branch (* Dijon, September 25th 1683   -   † Paris, September 12th 1764) was a Compositeur French and theorist of the music.

Lyric work of Branch forms most of its musical contribution and marks the apogee of the classicism French, whose guns were opposed with force to those of the Musique Italy nne until late during the 18th century. In this field, the most famous creation of the type-setter is without question the Opéra-ballet the gallant Indies (1735). This part of its production remained curiously forgotten during nearly two centuries, but profits today from a movement of redécouverte. Its works for Harpsichord, on the other hand, were always present at the repertory: the Tambourine , the Maintenance of the Muses , the Recall of the Birds , the Hen , inter alia known parts, were played 19th century (with the piano) with equal of those of Bach, Couperin or Scarlatti.

Branch is generally regarded the largest French musician before the 19th century, and as the first theorist of the traditional harmony : its treaties of harmony, in spite of certain imperfections, always have the appearance of a reference.

Biography

In a general way, the life of Branch is known little about, especially the first part, the forty years which precede its final installation in Paris towards 1722. The man is secret and even his wife does not know anything of her obscure years, from where scarcity of the biographical elements one has.

Birth and childhood in Dijon

Seventh child of a family which counts eleven of them (5 girls and 6 boys), the child is baptized on September 25th, 1683, day even of his birth. His/her mother, Claudine de Martinécourt, girl of notary, are resulting from the minor nobility. His/her father, Jean Branch, are organist with Saint-Etienne, and of 1690 to 1709 with the parish church Notre-Dame of Dijon; he is the first musician of the family. Formed with the music by this one, Jean-Philippe knows his note S before even of knowing to read. Raise with the college Jesuit of Godrans, it does not remain there a long time: intelligent and sharp, nothing interests it apart from the music. These bâclées general studies and quickly stopped feel thereafter in a defective written expression. His/her father would like that he became magistrate: itself decides to be a musician. His/her younger brother, Claude Rameau, precociously gifted for the music ends up following to him also this occupation - with much less success.

Wandering youth

To eighteen years, his/her father sends it in Italy to perfect his musical education there: he does not go further Milan and still does not know one anything of this short stay: a few months later, it is of return in France. Besides he acknowledges later to regret not to have remained longer in Italy, where “he could have improved his taste”.

Until the forty years age, its life is made ceaseless removals and rather badly known: after its return in France it would have belonged to a troop of travelling musicians, like Violon ist, would have remained with Montpellier. In January 1702, one finds it temporary organist with the cathedral of Avignon (in waiting of the new holder, Jean Gilles). As of May which follows, it obtains for six years a post of organist to the cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand.

First stay in Paris

The contract does not go in its term, since Rameau is with Paris in 1706 as the title page of its first book of harpsichord proves it, designating it as “organist of the Jésuite S of the street Saint-Jacob and the Fathers of Mercy”. According to any probability, at that time, he attends Louis Marchand, having rented an apartment close to the vault of Cordeliers whose this last is titular organist. Moreover Marchand was previously - in 1703 - organist of the Jesuits of the street Saint-Jacob and Rameau is thus its successor there. Lastly, the Book of parts of harpsichord , first work of Branch, testifies to the influence of its elder. In September 1706, it postulates with the function of organist of the church vacant Holy-Marie-Madeleine-in-the-City left by François d' Agincourt which is called with the cathedral of Rouen. Chosen by the jury, he refuses finally the station which is allotted to Louis-Antoine Dornel. He is probably still in Paris in July 1708. It is notable that, after having exerted the functions of organist during most of its career, it does not let any part for this instrument.

Return in Province

In 1709, Rameau goes back to Dijon to take there, on March 27th, the succession of his/her father, with the organ of the parish church Notre-Dame. There too, the contract is six years but does not go in its term. In July 1713, Rameau is with Lyon, as organist of the church of the Jacobins. It makes a short stay in Dijon at the time of died of his father in December 1714, the marriage of his/her brother Claude in January 1715 attends and turns over to with it to Lyon. However, it goes back to Clermont-Ferrand as of April, provided with one new agreement to the cathedral, for one duration of twenty-nine years. It remains there in fact eight years, during which its motets and its first cantatas as gathered are probably made up the ideas which give place to the publication in 1722 of sound Traité harmony reduced to its natural principles . The cover of the work designates it as “organist of the cathedral of Clermont”. This Basic Treaty, which poses Rameau as erudite musician, it reflects on it in fact since its youth. It causes many echoes in the scientific circles and musical, in France and beyond the borders.

Final installation in Paris

Branch is of return to Paris, this time in a final way, 1722 or at the latest at the beginning of 1723, under conditions remained obscure. One does not know where he lives first of all: it publishes in 1724 its second book of parts of harpsichord which does not carry the address of the type-setter. What is certain, it is that its musical activity turns to the Foire and that it will collaborate with Alexis Piron, Dijonese poet bench for some time in Paris which writes comic comedies or operas for the fairs of Saint-Germain (of February to Palm Sunday) and the St. Lawrence (of at the end of July with the Assumption). He thus writes music, of which there remain almost nothing, for Endriague (1723), the Removal of Harlequin (1726), the Dress of dissension (1726). When he becomes an established type-setter and celebrates, Rameau still composes of the music for these popular spectacles: Races of Temple (1734), Gardens of Hymen (1744) and the Prosecutor deceived without the knowledge (about 1758). It is for the Comedy Italian that he writes a part which becomes famous, the Savages , at the time of the exhibition of authentic Indian “savages” of North America (written for the harpsichord and published in its third book in 1728, this rythmée dance will be then included in the last act of the the gallant Indies, whose action proceeds in a forest of Louisiana). It is besides with the fair that it meets Louis Fuzelier which becomes the librettist about it. February 25th, 1726, he marries in the church of Saint-Germain the Resident of Auxerre the young person Marie-Louise Mangot who is nineteen years old (itself in has forty-two). The wife is of a family of Lyons musicians; she is a good musician and singer, takes part in the interpretation of certain works of her husband and will give him two wire and two girls. In spite of the difference in age and the difficult character of the musician, it seems that the household carried out a happy life. Its first wire, Claude-François is baptized on August 8th, 1727 in this same church of Saint-Germain the Resident of Auxerre. The godfather is his brother, Claude, with whom it preserves throughout his life of very good relationships.

During these first Parisian years, Rameau continues its searchs and its activities for editor with the publication of the Nouveau system of theoretical music (1726), which comes to supplement the treaty of 1722. Whereas this one was the fruit of Cartesian and mathematical reflections, the new book makes an important place with the considerations of physical nature, Rameau having taken knowledge of work of the scientist acoustics expert Joseph Sauveur which supports and confirms on the experimental level its own former theoretical considerations.

For this same period, it composes its last cantata: the faithful Shepherd (1727), publishes his third and the last delivers harpsichord (1728), contributes without success to the post of organist of the Saint-Paul church. It is Louis-Claude Daquin which is preferred to him. He finally thinks of being made a name with the opera house by seeking a librettist likely to collaborate with him.

Antoine Houdar of the Mound could have been this librettist. Established poet, it is success since many years in his collaboration with André Campra, Andre-Cardinal Destouches, Marin Marais. Branch addresses to him, on October 25th, 1727, a letter remained famous by which it tries to put forward to him its qualities of type-setter suitable to accurately translate in its music what the librettist expresses in his text. Houdar of the Mound does not answer, seems it, with the offer. However it preserves this letter which one finds in his papers after his death. But he probably considers that Rameau (then old of forty-four years), if he has a reputation of scientist theorist, did not still produce any musical composition of scale: a beggar among others, or a scientist who could only be tedious? How to guess that this abstracted, not very sociable, dry and breakable theorist, without stable job, already old, which did not almost compose anything at one time when one composes young person, quickly and much, will become a few years later the official musician of the kingdom, the “god of the dance”, the uncontested glory of the French music?

With the service of Pouplinière

It is according to any probability via Piron that Rameau enters in relation to the farmer general Alexandre the Rich person of Pouplinière, one of the richest men of France, art lover which maintains around him a coterie artists of which it will form soon part. The circumstances of the meeting between Rameau and its patron are not known, even if it is supposed that this one must take place before the exile of Pouplinière in Provence following a gallant adventure, exile which must last of 1727 to 1731. Piron is Dijonese as Rameau which provided him the music of some parts for the Fair; he worked as a secretary of Pierre Durey d' Harnoncourt, then receiver of finances in Dijon. However this last is close friend and companion of pleasures of Pouplinière: it presented Piron to him and this one undoubtedly speaks to him about Branch that its music and especially its treaties start to leave anonymity.

This meeting determines the life of Branch for more than twenty years and will enable him to come into contact with several of its future librettists, including Voltaire like his future “animal-black” in the person of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the philosopher who pricks himself to want to show again some to him as regards music. With regard to Voltaire, it first of all has a rather negative opinion of Branch, which it judges pedant, meticulous person to the extreme and, for all to say, tedious. However, it is not long in being subjugated by its music and, to greet its double talent of scientist theorist and type-setter of high flight, the nickname of “Euclide - Orphée invents to him”.

One supposes that, since 1731, Rameau directs the private orchestra, of very great quality, financed by Pouplinière. It preserves this station (where will succeed Stamitz to him then Gossec) during 22 years. He is also professor of harpsichord of Therese Deshayes, the mistress of Pouplinière as from 1737 and which ends up marrying it in 1740. Madam of Pouplinière is of a family of artists, good musician itself, and of a taste surer than her husband. She appears like one of best allied of Branch before her separation of with her husband, in 1748 - one like the other being extremely unsteady.

In 1732, the Branch have a second child, Marie-Louise, who is baptized on November 15th.

Branch animates in music the festivals given by Pouplinière in its private mansions, street Neuve of the Small-Fields, then starting from 1739, rue de Richelieu; but also those organized by some of the friends of the farmer-general, for example in 1733 for the marriage of the girl of the financier Samuel Bernard, Good Happiness, with Mathieu-François Mole: he holds with this occasion the organ of the church Saint-Eustace, the keyboards having been lent him by his holder and receives: 1200 pounds of the banking rich person for his service. 1733: Branch is fifty years old. Theorist made famous for his treaties on the harmony, it is also a musician of talent appreciated with the organ, the harpsichord, the violin, the direction of orchestra. However, its work of type-setter is limited to some Motet S and Cantate S and to three collections of parts of Clavecin whose two last are noticed for their innovative aspect. At that time, its contemporaries appreciably of the same age, Vivaldi - five years its elder, which will die in 1741, Telemann, Bach, Haendel, already composed the essence of a very important work. Branch presents a very particular case in the history of the Baroque music: this “type-setter beginning” quinquagénaire has an accomplished trade which did not appear yet on its ground of predilection, the lyric scene, where it eclipses soon all his contemporaries.

Finally success: Hippolyte and Aricie

The abbot Simon-Joseph Pellegrin (religious suspended '' has divinis '' by the archbishop of Paris to be itself too much invested in the theater world) attends the house of Pouplinière. It become acquainted with Branch there whereas it already wrote, since 1714, several booklets of operas or opera ballets. It will provide him that of a Tragédie in music, Hippolyte and Aricie , which installs from the start the type-setter with the firmament of the lyric scene in France. On this booklet, whose action is inspired freely by the Phèdre of Jean Racine and beyond, of the tragedies of Sénèque and Euripide, Rameau implements the reflections of almost a whole life as for returned by the music of all the theatrical situations, passions and the human feelings, as it tried to put forward it, in vain, in Houdar of the Mound. Of course, Hippolyte and Aricie also sacrifice to the particular requirements of the tragedy in music which gives a important role to the choruses, dances and with the effects of machinery. Paradoxically, the part associates a very erudite and modern music with the shape of lyric spectacle which knew its great hours at the end of the previous century but that one then regards as out of date.

The part is assembled into private to Pouplinière as of spring 1733. After the repetitions with the royal Academy of music as from July, the first representation takes place the October. The part disconcerts first of all but finally, it is a triumph. In conformity with the tradition of Lully as for the structure (a prolog and five acts), it exceeds all musicalement that had been done before in this field. The old type-setter Andre Campra, who attends the representation estimates besides that there is “enough music in this opera to make ten of them” , adding that “this man (Branch) would eclipse them all” . Branch must however work over again the initial version, because the singers do not manage to interpret some of its airs correctly, and in particular the “second trio of Parques” whose rhythmic and harmonic audacity is amazing for the time. The part, therefore, does not leave anybody indifferent: Branch is encensé at the same time by those which charm the beauty, the science and the originality of its music and criticized by the nostalgic ones of the style of Lully, which proclaims that one cants the true French music with the profit of an Italianism of bad quality. The opposition of the two camps is all the more astonishing as, all its life, Rameau profess with regard to Lully an unconditional respect which does not leave besides surprise. With 32 representations in 1733, this work definitively installs Rameau in the first place of the French music; it will be taken again three times at the royal Academy of living of the type-setter.

First lyric career (1733-1739)

During the seven years of 1733 to 1739, Rameau gives all the measurement of its genius and seems to want to catch up with the time wasted by composing its emblématiques works: three lyric tragedies (after Hippolyte and Aricie , Beaver and Pollux in 1737 then Dardanus in 1739) and two opera ballets ( the gallant Indies in 1735 and Festivals of Hébé in 1739). What does not prevent it from continuing its theoretical work: in 1737 its treaty on the harmonic Génération takes again and develops the preceding treaties. The talk, intended for the members of the Academy of Science, begin with the statement from twelve proposals and the description of seven experiments by which he intends to show that his theory is founded in right because coming from nature, expensive topic to the intellectuals of the Age of Enlightenment.

Since 1733, Branch and Voltaire plan to collaborate on a crowned opera entitled Samson : the Pellegrin abbot was his greater success in 1732 with a Jephté put in music by Montéclair, thus opening what appears a new way. Voltaire pains to compose his booklet: the religious vein is not really his; the hitches occur with its exile of 1734; Branch itself, enthusiastic at the beginning, is wearied to wait and does not seem any more very justified; however partial repetitions take place. However, the mixture of the kinds, between the biblical account and the opera which calls the gallant intrigues, is not taste of all, in particular of the religious authorities. In 1736, the censure prohibits the work, which will never be finished nor, of course, represented. The booklet was not lost but was published by Voltaire a few years later; the music of Branch is probably re-used in other works, without one being able to identify it.

What also imports since 1735 see the birth of a new masterpiece, the opera ballet the gallant Indies , probably the most known scenic work, the top of the kind, in a prolog and four entries, on a booklet of Louis Fuzelier. The first attempt of Branch in the field of the tragedy in music was a master stroke: it is the same in that, lighter, of the opera ballet developped at the point by André Campra in 1697 with the Carnival of Venice and gallant Europe . The similarity of the titles does not leave room to any surprise: Branch exploits the same vein with success but research a little more exoticism in of the very approximate Indies which are in fact in Turkey, in Perse, with the Peru or at the Indiens of North America. The thin intrigue of these small dramas is especially used to introduce a “large spectacle” where the sumptuous costumes, the decorations, the machineries, and especially the dance hold a crucial role. the gallant Indies symbolize the carefree time, refined, dedicated to the pleasures and the galantery of Louis XV and his court. Work is created with the royal Academy of music on August 23rd, 1735 and is an increasing success. It includes/understands a prolog and two entries. To the third representation, the entry of the Flowers is added, then quickly altered following criticisms concerning the booklet - from which the intrigue is particularly drawn by the hair; the fourth entry the Savages is finally added on March 10th, 1736: Branch re-uses there the dance of the Indians of America which it composed several years then transcribed before in part of harpsichord in its third book. The gallant Indies are taken again, entirely or partially of many times of living of the type-setter.

Now celebrates, it can open, in its residence, a class of composition.

October 24th, 1737 is created the second lyric tragedy, Castor and Pollux on a booklet of Nice-Bernard, also met to him at Pouplinière. General opinion, the booklet telling the adventures of the divine twins in love with the same woman is one of best than treated the type-setter (even if the talent of Nice-Bernard does not deserve the dithyrambic appreciation of Voltaire in his connection). Work profits from an admirable music though less daring than that of Hippolyte and Aricie - Branch writes besides never again of comparable airs, in boldness, with the second trio of Parques or the monumental air of Thésée “Powerful Master of the floods”. But work ends in an extraordinary entertainment, the Fête of the Universe , after the heroes are installed with the stay of the Immortal ones.

Back-to-back in 1739, it is the creation of the Fêtes of Hébé (second opera ballet) on a booklet of Montdorge, on May 25th and of Dardanus (third lyric tragedy) on a booklet of Charles-Antoine Leclerc of Bruère, on November 19th. If the music of Branch is increasingly more sumptuous, the booklets are done increasingly poor: they must be quickly altered in order to in hiding the defects more shouting.

the Festivals of Hébé are an immediate success but the Pellegrin abbot is called to improve the booklet (particularly the second entry) after some representations. The third entry ( the Dance ) is particularly appreciated with its pastoral character envoûtant - Branch re-uses there, by orchestrating it, the famous Tambourin of the second book of harpsichord which contrasts with one of the most admirable haversacks than it composed, in turn played, sung and in chorus.

As for Dardanus , perhaps musicalement richest from works of Branch, the part is initially badly received by the public, because of improbability of the booklet and the naivety of certain scenes: modified after some representations, the opera is almost rewritten, in its last three acts, for a recovery in 1744: it is almost about a different work.

Seven years of silence

After these a few years when it produces masterpiece after masterpiece, Rameau disappears mysteriously for six years from the lyric scene and even almost from the music scene, with share a new version of Dardanus in 1744.

The reason of this sudden silence is not known (perhaps a dissension with the authorities of the Royal Academy of Music); probably Rameau is devoted it to its function of leader of Pouplinière. Undoubtedly it already gave up any function of organist (certainly at the latest in 1738 for the church Holy-Cross of Bretonnerie). No theoretical writing either; only remain of these a few years the Pièces of harpsichord in concert , single production of Branch in the field of the chamber music, exits probably in the concerts organized in the farmer-general.

Its third child, Alexandre, are born in 1740. Its godfather is Pouplinière but the child dies before 1745. The last girl, Marie-Alexandrine is born in 1744. As from this same year, Branch and its family have an apartment in the palate of the farmer general street of Richelieu; they have it during twelve years, by probably preserving their apartment of the street Saint-Honore. They spend also every summer to the castle of Passy bought by Pouplinière; Branch holds the organ to with it.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, arrived at Paris in 1741, is introduced at Pouplinière by a cousin of Madam of Pouplinière in 1744 or 1745. Although admiror of Branch it is received without sympathy and with a certain contempt by this one and it also puts at back the housewife, better support of the type-setter. Rousseau is very proud of its invention of a quantified system intended to note the music, much simpler according to him than the traditional system of the range. Branch is not long in refuting it, for practical reasons that the inventor is obliged to admit. Having attended in the farmer-general the representation of an opera, the gallant Muses , of which Rousseau is presented in the form of an author, Rameau shows it plagiarism, having detected between various parts of the work of the inequalities of musical quality. Animosity born enters the two men of this first contact does nothing but grow in the years to come.

Second lyric career

Branch reappears on the lyric scene in 1745 and goes, this year, almost to monopolize it with five new works. the Princess of Navarre , comedy-ballet whose booklet is due to Voltaire, is represented in Versailles on February 23rd at the time of the marriage of the Dauphin. Foundation , comic opera of a new style, is created in Versailles on March 31st; in the comic register, it is the masterpiece of Branch which even bought the rights of the booklet as well as possible to be able to adapt it to its needs. the Festivals of Polymnie , opera ballet, is created in Paris on October 12th. the Temple of Glory , opera ballet whose booklet is again of Voltaire, is represented in Versailles on November 27th. Lastly, the Festivals of Ramire , act of ballet, is represented in Versailles on December 22nd.

Branch becomes the official musician of the court: it is named Compositeur of the Cabinet of the King in May, and receives a pension of 2000 pounds.

the Festivals of Ramire is a work of pure entertainment which must re-use the music of the Princess of Navarre on a minimal booklet written by Voltaire. Branch being occupied with the Temple of Glory , Jean-Jacques Rousseau, poor musician in spite of his claims is in charge of the musical adaptation but does not manage to complete the work in time; Branch, passably irritated, is thus seen obliged to do it itself at the price humiliation of Rousseau; this new incident degrades a little more of the very turned sour relations already.

After the “fireworks” of 1745, the rate/rhythm of production of the type-setter then will slow down, but Rameau will produce for the scene, in a more or less regular way, until the end of its life, and without giving up its theoretical research nor, soon, its polemical activities and lampoonists: thus, it composes in 1747 the Festivals of Hymen and the Love and, this same year, its last work for the harpsichord, an isolated part, Dauphine the ; in 1748, pastoral the Zaïs , the act of ballet Pygmalion , the opera ballet Surprises of the Love ; in 1749, pastoral the Naïs , and the lyric tragedy Zoroastre where it innovates by removing the prolog which is replaced by a simple opening; finally in 1751, the act of ballet the Garland and pastoral the Acanthus and Céphise .

It is probably for this period that it comes into contact with D' Alembert, which is interested by the scientific approach of its art by the musician. He encourages Rameau to have the result of his work to the Academy of Science: in 1750, perhaps helped of Diderot, this one publishes its treaty entitled Démonstration of the principle of the harmony , which one regards as best written of all his theoretical works. D' Alembert speaks in praise of Branch, will write into 1752 the Éléments of theoretical and practical music according to the principles of Mr. Rameau and improves in its favor of the articles of the Encyclopedia written by Rousseau. But their ways diverge a few years later when the philosopher-mathematician becomes aware of the mistakes of the thought of Branch concerning the relationship between pure sciences and applied sciences. For the time being, Rameau seeks also the approval of its work by the largest mathematicians, which will be the occasion of exchanges of letters with Jean Bernoulli and Léonard Euler.

In 1748, Pouplinière and his wife separate: Branch loses in its most faithful patron allied. It approaches the seventy years: its extraordinary activity which leaves little place to competition in magpie more one and plays certainly a part in the attacks that it undergoes during famous Querelle of the Buffoons. But the age returned attached it neither more flexible, nor less to its ideas…

To include/understand the supervening of the Quarrel of the Buffoons, it should be remembered that about 1750, France is, musicalement speaking, very isolated from the rest of Europe which is acquired for a long time with the supremacy of the Italian music. In Germany, in Austria, in England, in the Netherlands, in the Iberian peninsula, the Italian music swept or at least is comparable the local traditions. Only France still has the appearance of a bastion resistant to this hegemony. The symbol of this resistance is the tragedy in music of Lully - now symbolized by the old Branch - however that the attraction of the Italian music is felt for a long time in practice instrumental music. Antagonism born between Branch and Rousseau - doubled personal enmity of completely opposite musical matter designs - personalizes also this confrontation which will give place to a true verbal, epistolary outburst even physical between the “Corner of the King” (holding them of the French tradition) and the “Corner of the Queen” (those of the Italian music).

The quarrel of the Buffoons

At the beginning of the year 1752, Frederic Nickel silver Grimm, journalist and critical German installed in Paris, had éreinté the French style in its Lettre on Omphale following the resumption of this lyric tragedy made up at the beginning of the century by Andre-Cardinal Destouches, proclaiming the superiority of the Italian dramatic music. Branch was not aimed by this lampoon, Grimm having besides at that time a high opinion of Branch as a musician.

August 1st, 1752, an Italian itinerant troop settles with the royal Academy of music to give to it representations of intermezzos and comic operas. They begin with the representation of Serva padrona ( the Main Maidservant ) of Pergolèse. Same work had already been given to Paris in 1746, but without drawing the attention less world. This time, it is a scandal which starts: the intrusion in the temple of the French music of these “buffoons” divides Parisian musical intelligentsia into two clans. Between partisans of the lyric tragedy, royal representing French style, and sympathizers of opera-puffs out, truculent defender of the Italian music, is born a true quarrel lampoonist which will animate the musical circles, literary, philosophical of the French capital until 1754.

In fact, the Quarrel of the Buffoons, started under a musical pretext is, well beyond, the confrontation of two esthetic, cultural ideals and, with final, policies definitively incompatible: the classicism, associated with the image of the absolute capacity of Louis XIV, opposed to the spirit of the Lights. The music if refined (so erudite, therefore produced of a disputed culture) of Branch is put “in the same bag” as the theatrical parts which are used to him of mould and argument, with their implements of mythology, marvellous, of machines to which the philosophers want to oppose simplicity, the naturalness, the spontaneousness of opera-puffs out Italian which a music characterizes giving the primacy to the melody.

Precisely, all that has written Rameau for thirty years defines the harmony as the principle, the nature even of the music; how to imagine the reconciliation of the scientist musician, sure of his ideas, proud, obstinate and quarreller with a Rousseau, amateur as regards music, which it mistakes since the beginning and which is allowed to contradict its theories? Its vindication also goes to the Encyclopedia since it is Rousseau which Diderot charged with writing the articles on the music. The corner of the queen gathers Encyclopédistes, with Rousseau, Grimm, Diderot, of Holbach, later of Alembert; criticisms are focused on Rameau, principal representing corner of the king. One exchanges a considerable number of make out, of the articles (more than sixty), most virulent coming from Grimm ( the minor prophets of Boehmischbroda ) and of Rousseau ( Lettre on the French music where he denies even with French the possibility of being put in music) and Branch is not remainder ( Observation on our instinct for the music ), which will continue to launch its features well after the Quarrel will have calmed down: errors on the music in the Encyclopedia (1755), Continuation of the errors (1756), Answer to editors of the Encyclopedia (1757). There is even a duel between Ballot of Sauvot, librettist and admiror of the type-setter and the Italian castrato Caffarelli, which it wounds. The Quarrel ends up dying out, but the lyric tragedy and the related forms received such blows that their time is finished.

Only Branch, which will keep until the end all its prestige of official type-setter of the court, will still dare to write durably in this exceeded style from now on. And its vein is not dried up: in 1753, it composes pastoral heroic the Daphnis and Églé , a new lyric tragedy ( Linus ), pastoral the Lysis and Délie - these two last compositions are not represented and their music is lost - as well as the Acte of ballet the Sybarites . In 1754 two acts of ballet are still made up: Birth of Osiris (to celebrate the birth of the future Louis XVI) and Anacréon as well as a new version of Beaver and Pollux .

Last years

In 1753, Pouplinière takes as mistress a musician intrigante, Jeanne-Therese Goermans, girl of the factor of harpsichords Jacques Goermans. That which is made call Madam de Saint-Aubin is married with a profiteur who pushes it in the arms of the financial rich person. It makes the vacuum around it however that Pouplinière engages Stamitz: it is the rupture with Rameau which besides does not need more the financial support of his/her former friend and guard.

Branch continues its activities of theorist and type-setter until his death. He lives with his wife and his two children in his large apartment of the street of the Good-Children from where he leaves, each day, lost in its thoughts, to go for its solitary walk in the gardens very close to the Palais Royal or Tileries. He meets there sometimes the young person Chabanon who writes later his funeral praise and which collects some of its rare disillusioned confidences there:

“ Of day in day I acquire taste, but I do not have any more genius… ” and still “ imagination is worn in my old head, and one is not wise when one wants to work at this age with arts which are entirely of imagination… ”.

However, Rameau - which is anobli in spring 1764 - guard all its head and composes, with more than eighty years its last tragedy in music, Boréades , work of a great innovation but of an innovation which is not any more in the direction that the music takes then. The repetitions start at the beginning of the summer 1764 but the part will not be represented: Branch dies of a “putrid fever” on September 12th, 1764. Boréades will await more than two centuries their triumphal creation with Aix-en-Provence in 1982.

One buries the large musician as of the following day with the church Saint-Eustace. Several ceremonies of homage take place, in the days which follow, in Paris, Orleans, Marseilles, Dijon, Rouen. Funeral praises will be published by Mercure de France, and will be written by Chabanon and Maret; its continuous incidental music, like that of Lully, to be carried out until the end of the Old Mode, then disappears from the repertory during more than one century.

Personality of Branch

Just as its biography is vague and compartmental, the personal life and family of Branch is of an almost complete opacity: in this musician and theorist of genious, all disappears behind musical work and theoretical. Still the music of Branch, sometimes so gracious and involving, is it in perfect opposition with the appearance of the man and what one knows of his character, described in a way caricatural and perhaps outraged by Diderot in the nephew of Branch . All its life it was interested only in the music, with passion and, sometimes, transport even aggressiveness; this one occupied all its thoughts; Philippe Beaussant speaks about monomaniaque. It is Piron which explains why “ All its heart and its spirit were in its harpsichord; when it had closed it, there was nobody any more with the home ”.

With the physique, Rameau was large and especially very thin: the sketches that one has some, in particular one of Carmontelle who shows it in front of his harpsichord, depict us a kind of prop to the interminable legs. It had “a large voice”. Its elocution was difficult, following the example its written expression which forever be fluid.

The man was at the same time secret, solitary, bougon, imbu of itself (besides to more trust as a theorist that musician) and breakable with his contradictors, carrying himself easily. One pains to imagine it evolving/moving in the middle of the beautiful spirits - whose Voltaire, with which it had a certain physical resemblance - which attended the residence of Pouplinière: its music was its best ambassadress in the absence of more fashionable qualities. Its “enemies” - to include/understand: those which did not share its ideas as regards music or acoustic theory - amplified its defects, for example its supposed avarice. In fact, it seems that its concern of the economy is the consequence of an obscure long career, with the tiny and dubious incomes, more than one character trait because he could be generous: it is known that it helped its Jean-François nephew come to Paris, his young Dijonese colleague Claude Balbastre also “assembled” in Paris, equipped well his Marie-Louise daughter in 1750 when she entered in religion in the Visitandines, paid in a very specific way a pension with one of his sisters become crippled. Abundance of cash had come to him on late, with the success of its lyric works and the attribution of a pension by the king (a few months before his death, it was even anobli and made knight in the Ordre of Saint-Michel). But it therefore had not changed a way of life it, preserving its worn the nap off clothing, its single pair of shoes, its decayed furniture; with its death, in the apartment of ten parts which it occupied street of the Good-Children with his wife and her son, it had at its disposal only one harpsichord with one keyboard, in bad condition; but one found in his business a bag containing 1691 louis of gold.

A character trait which one finds besides among other members of his family is a certain instability: it was fixed at Paris towards the forty years age after a phase of wandering and to have held of many stations in varied cities: Avignon, perhaps Montpellier, Clermont-Ferrand, Paris, Dijon, Lyon, again Clermont-Ferrand then Paris. Even in the capital, it often changed residence, in turn street of the Small-Fields (1726), street of the Two-Balls (1727), street of Richelieu (1731), street of the Cantor (1732), street of the Good-Children (1733), street Saint-Thomas of Louvre (1744), street Saint-Honore (1745), street of Richelieu at Pouplinière (1746), finally again street of the Good-Children (1752). The cause of these successive removals is not known.

Its family

With his wife Marie-Louise Mangot, Rameau has four children:
  1. Claude, born in 1727. His/her father buys to him a load of manservant of the king; he Marie in 1772 and has a son in 1773.
  2. Marie-Louise, born in 1732, which enters in religion at the Visitandines to Montargis in 1751 (the father equips it liberally but does not attend the ceremony).
  3. Alexandre, born in 1740 and died before 1745.
  4. Marie-Alexandrine, born in 1744 (Branch is then 61 years old). It Marie in 1764, two months after the death of his/her father, with François de Gaultier, from where descent.
After the death of Branch his wife leaves the apartment of the street of the Good-Children in Paris and will live with Andrésy in her son-in-law; she dies there in 1785.

The first names of the last two children are a homage to the Alexandre farmer-general of Pouplinière, patron of Branch thanks to which this one could begin its career of lyric type-setter.

Jean-Philippe has a young brother, Claude also musician (much less famous). This last has two wire, musicians like him but with the existence of “failures”: Jean-François Branch which inspires with Diderot the matter of its book the Nephew of Branch and Lazare Rameau.

The art of Branch

The music of Branch is characterized by the exceptional science of this type-setter who wants to be before any theorist of his Article It however does not address himself only to the intelligence and Rameau knew to implement its intention ideally when he affirms “ I seek to hide art by art even ”.

The paradox of this music, it is that it is new, in the implementation of processes before non-existent, but which it concretizes in out of date forms; Branch appears revolutionist in Lullystes diverted by the complex harmony which it deploys, and reactionary with the philosophers who evaluate only his container and cannot or do not want to listen to it. Besides the incomprehension which it undergoes on behalf of its contemporaries prevents it from renewing certain boldnesses such as the second trio of Parques Hippolyte and Aricie , which it must withdraw after the first representations because the singers do not manage to interpret it correctly. Thus, the largest harmonist of its time is ignored while at the same time the harmony - the “vertical” aspect of the music - the step takes definitively on the counterpoint, which represents its “horizontal” aspect.

One can only bring closer the destinies to Branch and Bach, the two giants of the musical science of the 18th century, that this one isolates from all their colleagues, when all the remainder separates them. For this reason, the year 1722 which see appearing the Traité simultaneously Harmony and the first cycle of the Clavier well Tempéré is very symbolic system. The French musicians of the end of the 19th century were not mistaken there, in full Germanic hegemony musical, when they transfer in Branch the only French musician of force to being compared with Bach, which allowed the progressive redécouverte of its work.

Musical work

The musical production of Branch includes/understands four units distinct from very unequal importance: some cantatas, some motets with great chorus, of the parts of harpsichord soloist or in concert, finally the lyric music to which it practically devotes in an exclusive way the thirty last years of his career.

Like the majority of its contemporaries, it re-uses often certain particularly successful or appreciated airs, but never without adapting them way meticulous person: they are not simple transcriptions. In addition, one does not announce loans to other musicians, at most of influences at the beginning of his career. These transfers are numerous: one finds in the Festivals of Hébé , the Maintenance of the Muses , the Haversack and the Tambourine drawn from the book of harpsichord of 1724 and one air drawn from the cantata from the Faithful Shepherd; or another Tambourine passes successively from Castor and Pollux to the Pièces in concert then to the second version of Dardanus ; other examples abound.

Motets

Branch was during more than forty years professional organist to the service of religious, parochial or conventual institutions: for as much its production in terms of sacred music is more reduced - without speaking about the work of organ, non-existent.

Obviously, it was not its ground of predilection, at most an appreciable livelihood. The rare religious compositions of this genious musician are however remarkable and are compared favorably with those of the specialists in the kind.

Works which can be to him allotted with certainty or almost are four:

  • Deus noster refugium (about 1713-1715);
  • Quam dilecta (about 1713-1715); at once
  • In convertendo (undoubtedly before 1720) and adopted by several musicians of reputation such Bernier, Montéclair, Campra, Clérambault…

The cantatas are for Rameau the first contact with the lyric music, requiring average tiny rooms and thus accessible to a still unknown musician. The musicologists can only calculate their dates and circumstances of composition, and their librettists remain unknown.

The cantatas allotted with certainty to Rameau which reached us are six (the dates are estimates):

  • North wind and Orithie (between 1715 and 1720);
  • Thétis (even period). Some parts particularly hold the attention, the such opening of Zaïs depicting the unravelling of original chaos, that of Pygmalion suggesting the blows of hammer of the sculptor on his graver, or the imposing conclusive chaconnes of the gallant Indies or Dardanus;
dance tunes: the danced interludes, obligatory even within the framework of the tragedy, make it possible Rameau to give free course to its inimitable direction of the rate/rhythm, the melody and choreography, recognized by all its contemporaries just as by the dancers. It is per tens that this “erudite” musician, always concerned about its next treaty, connects gavottes paradoxically, minuets, loures, rigadoons, passepieds, tambourines, haversacks… According to its biographer Cuthbert Girdlestone: “ the enormous superiority of all that touches with choreography at Rameau yet was not underlined enough. ”, opinion shared by German scholar H.W von Walthershausen, thus expressing itself in 1922 about the dances of Zoroastre: “ Rameau was the largest type-setter of ballets of all times. The genius of its work rests on the one hand on its perfect artistic impregnation by the popular types of dances, on the other hand on the permanence of alive confrontation with the constraints of the choreographic realization which avoids to him any distance between the body expression and the spirit of the pure music. ”
  • choruses: the padre Martini, scholar musicographe and correspondent of Branch affirmed that “the French are excellent in the choruses”, thinking obviously of this last. Large Master of the harmony, Rameau intends himself to compose of the sumptuous choruses, which they monodic, polyphonic, are intersected with instrumental interventions soloists or and whatever the feelings or passions of which he entrusts the expression to them.
  • airs: rarer than in the Italian opera, Rameau however offers of them many remarkable examples and always of a marked originality. Some force admiration like the airs of Télaïre “Sad finishes” ( Castor and Pollux ), of Iphise “O dreadful day”, of Dardanus “Places disastrous”, the invocations of Huascar in the gallant Indies , the final arietta of Pygmalion “the love which reigns”, etc
  • récitatifs finally, much closer to the arioso than of the recitativo secco , to which the type-setter takes as much care than to the remainder to respect the French prosody scrupulously and to implement his harmonic science in order to return the effects of passion and feelings.

    During the first part of its lyric career (1733-1739) Branch writes its big bosses of work intended for the royal Academy of music: three tragedies in music and two opera ballets which compose still today the funds of its repertory. After the interruption of 1740 to 1744, he becomes official musician of the court and composes primarily in the register of the parts of entertainment informing dominating with the dance, the sensuality, a pastoral character idealized before returning, at the end of his life, the great theatrical compositions in a renewed style ( Paladins , Boréades ).

    NB: Famous the Anthem at the Night , given to the honor by the film the Chorus-singers , is not Branch. It is about an adaptation for choruses realized by Joseph Noyon and E. Sciortino of a chorus of priestesses present in Act 1 of Hippolyte and Aricie .

    Librettists of Branch

    Contrary to Lully which collaborated narrowly with Philippe Quinault for the majority of its lyric works, Rameau only very seldom worked with the same librettist. It was very demanding, of bad character and could not maintain long collaborations with its various librettists, except for Louis de Cahusac.

    Many are the specialists in Branch who consider it regrettable that collaboration with Houdar of the Mound could not take place or that the project of Samson in collaboration with Voltaire did not succeed, because Rameau could work only with writers of second order. It became acquainted with the majority of them at Pouplinière, with the Société of the Vault or in the count de Livry, all places where were held of merry meetings of beautiful spirits.

    None of them could produce text which is with the height of its music; the intrigues are often alambiquées and of a disconcerting naivety and/or an improbability - but it was the law of kind and probably also what makes part of its charm, versification was not the best, and Branch had, more once, to make modify the booklets and to rewrite the music after the first representations to correct the most criticized defects: what is worth us both poured Castor and Pollux (1737 and 1754) and especially, of Dardanus (1739 and 1744). For curiosity, it is necessary to note that of Platée of which Rameau bought the rights to Jacques Autreau in order to be able to adapt it to its own way.

    Theoretical work

    The theory of the harmony

    The musical theory worked out by Rameau worried it throughout its career, one could say his life: the ideas presented in its Traité harmony reduced to its natural principles published in 1722 whereas he is still organist of the cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand, which posed it in larger theorist of its time are already in the course of maturation many years before its departure of this city.

    Of course, the old ones, since the Greeks and while passing through musicians or scientists such as Zarlino, Descartes, Mersenne, Kircher, Huyghens which it does not fail to quote, had established the link between the mathematical proportions and the sounds generated by the vibrating cords or the sound pipes. But the conclusions that they had drawn some remained, as for the application to the music, elementary and had led only to concepts and an expansion of rules sullied with empiricism. Systematic spirit, Branch, following Descartes of which it read the Discourse on Method and the Compendium musicae , wants to be released from the principle of authority and if it cannot be freed from presupposed, it is animated by the will to make music, not only one art, which it was already, but a deductive science with the image of mathematics. Do not affirm it:

    Its first approach (developed in the treaty of 1722) is thus purely mathematical; it leaves the principle that “ the cord is with the cord what the sound is with the sound ” - i.e., in the same way that a given cord contains a cord of half-length twice, in the same way the serious sound produces by the first “twice contains” the acuter sound produced by the second. One feels the presupposed unconscious one of such an idea (which means the verb precisely “to contain”?), however conclusions that it from of car will confirm it in this way, more especially as, before 1726, it takes note of work of Joseph Sauveur on the harmonic sounds which come to corroborate them in a providential way. Indeed, this author shows that when a vibrating cord or a sound pipe - a “sound body” - emits a sound, it as emits, though in a way much weaker, his third and fifth harmonics, as the musicians call diatonic twelfth and seventeenth degrees. To suppose that the smoothness of hearing does not make it possible to identify them distinctly, a very simple physical device makes it possible to visualize the effect - important detail for Sauveur who was deaf. It is the irruption of physics in the field which mathematics and the musicians shared before.

    Armed with this fact of experiment and the principle of the equivalence of the octaves (“ which are only counterparts ”) Branch draws the conclusion from it from the “natural” character from the major triad then, by an analogy which appears obvious although physically unfounded, that of the minor triad. From this discovery will be born the concepts of fundamental Basse, of consonances and dissonances, inversion of the agreements like their reasoned nomenclature, of modulation which found the tonal Harmonie traditional. After only the practical matters concerning the Tempérament, the rules of the composition come, the melody, the principles of accompaniment. All this appears essential in Rameau because, proceeded before of musician, the harmony becomes natural principle: it is the quintessence of the music; as of the emission of a sound, the harmony is present; the melody, on the contrary, is born only after, and the successive intervals will have to conform to the initiated harmony and dictation by the low fundamental one (the “compass of the ear”). The psychophysiological aspect is not, indeed and far from it, absent from the theory of Branch: it is particularly developed in the “Observations on our instinct for the music and its principle”, opuscule which it publishes in 1754 in indirect answer to the Lettre on the French music of Rousseau. The natural character of the harmony, materialized by the low fundamental one, is such as it marks in an unconscious way our instinct for the music:

    Branch is due more than to anything else, with its theory: it multiplies the treaties, maintains during more than thirty years of many polemics on this subject: with Montéclair about 1729, the father Manor house - initially friendly with which it ends up being scrambled about 1736, with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Encyclopédistes, with Alembert finally, initially one of its faithful partisans, and it seeks in its epistolary contacts the recognition of its work by the most famous mathematicians (Bernoulli, Euler) and the musicians more the scholars, in particular the padre Martini. No passage summarizes all perhaps better than Rameau car of the resonance of the sound body, than these enthusiastic lines extracted the Démonstration of the principle of the harmony :

    Treaties

    The works in which Rameau exposes its theory of the music are primarily four: but its participation in the reflections of scientific, esthetic or philosophical nature of its time led it to write many of other writings in the form of works, letters, lampoons etc which one can quote:
    • Essay on the various methods of accompaniment , Paris (1732)
    • Observations on our instinct for the music and its principle , Paris (1754)
    • Errors on the music in the Encyclopedia , Paris (1755)
    • Code of music practices , Paris (1760)

    Lapse of memory and revival

    Works of Branch are represented almost until the end of the Ancien Mode. All were not published, but of many manuscripts, autographs or not, are gathered by Jacques Joseph Marie Decroix to which the heirs will make gift with the National library funds exceptional thus gathered.

    The Quarrel of the Buffoons remains famous, with the attacks undergone by Rameau because of the partisans of opera-puffs out Italian. It is known less, on the other hand, that certain foreign musicians trained with the Italian tradition see in the music of Branch, towards the end of its life, a possible model for the reform of the Opera seriated. Thus Tommaso Traetta composes two operas which are directly inspired by it, Ippolito ED Aricia (1759) and I Tintaridi (according to Castor and Pollux , 1760) after having translated their booklets. Traetta was advised by the count Francesco Algarotti, one of the burning partisans of a reform of the opera seriated according to the French model; it will have a very important influence on that to which one generally allots the title of reformer of the opera, Christoph Willibald Gluck. Three “reformed” Italian operas of this last ( Orfeo ED Euridice , Alceste and Paride ED Elena ) prove that he knows the work of Branch; for example, it is noted that the Orfeo and the first version of Castor and Pollux , going back to 1737, begin both with the scene of the funeral of one of the principal characters, who must return to the life in the continuation of the action. Several of the reforms asserted in the foreword of Alceste are already practiced by Rameau: it uses the récitatif one accompanied; the opening of its last compositions is connected to the action which will follow. Also, when Gluck arrives in 1774 to Paris where it will compose six French operas, one can consider that it continues the tradition of Branch. However, if the popularity of Gluck is prolonged after the French revolution, it is not the case for Rameau. At the end of the 18th century, its works disappear from the repertory for very many years.

    During most of the 19th century, the music of Branch remains forgotten and been unaware of however that its name preserves all its prestige. Hector Berlioz studies Castor and Pollux ; it admires there in particular the air of Télaïre “Sad finishes”, but “where the modern listener easily identifies the common points with the music of Branch, itself is a clear aware of the ditch which separates them”. One does not play any more the music of Branch, or perhaps some fragments, some parts of harpsichord (with the piano generally). The musician is however not forgotten: he is selected so that its statue is one of the four which decorates the large hall of the Opera of Paris designed in 1861 by Charles Garnier; in 1880, Dijon also pays to him homage by the inauguration of a statue.

    In an unexpected way, it is the French defeat at the time of the war of 1870 which makes it possible the music of Branch to re-appear of the last one: the humiliation felt on this occasion leads certain musicians to seek in the national heritage of the French type-setters of size to measure itself with the Germanic type-setters whose hegemony is then complete in Europe: Branch is regarded as of the same force than its contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach and one starts to re-study his work whose one finds the sources gathered by Decroix.

    It is as from years 1890 that the movement accelerates a little, with the foundation of the Schola Cantorum intended to promote the French music then, in 1895, Charles Bordes, Vincent d' Indy and Camille Saint-Saëns undertakes the edition of complete works, project which will not go at its end but leads in 1918 to the edition of 18 volumes. Paul Dukas, in 1903, composes its Variations, Interlude and Finale on a topic of Branch for the pianist Edouard Risler. It is with the whole beginning of the 20th century that one assists, for the first time, with the resumption in concert of complete works: in June 1903, the Garland , charming work and without too much claim, is interpreted in Schola Cantorum. One of the listeners is Claude Debussy which is filled with enthusiasm and exclaims: “Branch Lives, in low Gluck”. The Opéra of Paris follows in 1908 with Hippolyte and Aricie : it is a semi-failure; work attracting only one restricted public, knows only some representations. Beaver and Pollux - which was not represented any more there since 1784 - are selected in 1918 for the reopening of the Opera after the war, but the interest of the public for the music of Branch increases slowly, and accelerates really only as from the years 1950 (1952: resumption of the the gallant Indies with the Opera, 1956: Foundation with the Festival of Aix-en-Provence, 1957: the gallant Indies are selected for the reopening of the royal opera in Versailles). Jean Malignon, in his book written at the end of the Years 1950, testifies to what nobody, at that time, knows Rameau to have heard of them the compositions Essentielle S.

    Since then, the work of Branch profits with full with the return in favor of the old Musique. The major part of its lyric work, formerly considered unplayable (like many operas of its time), now has a Discographie of quality by most prestigious the baroques units. All its philosopher's stones were taken again, and always enjoy a great success, in particular the gallant Indies . Lastly, the first ( sic ) representation of its last lyric Tragedy, Boréades , even took place in 1982 with the Festival of Aix-en-Provence (the repetitions had been stopped by the death of the type-setter in 1764).

    Quotations

    of Branch

    • “I seek to even hide art by art”
    • “the true music is the language of the heart”
    • “It is with the heart that the music must speak”

    on Branch

    • “When it composed, it was in enthusiasm” Hugues Maret
    • “His/her daughter and his wife has to only die when they want; provided that the bells of the parish, that one will sound for them, continue to resound the twelfth and the seventeenth, all will be well. ” Diderot in the Nephew of Branch
    • “That, say to me; I will not take your uncle for example; it is a hard man; it is brutal; it is without humanity; it is miserly. He is bad father, bad husband; bad uncle…” Diderot in the Nephew of Branch
    • “the need to include/understand - so rare in the artists - is innate at Rameau. This is not there to satisfy that it wrote a Treaty of the harmony, where it claims to restore the rights of the reason and wants to make reign in the music the order and the clearness of the geometry… it does not doubt a moment of the truth of the old dogma of Pythagoriciens… the whole music must be reduced with a combination of numbers; it is arithmetic sound, like optics is the geometry of the light. It is seen that it reproduces the terms of them, but it traces there the way by which all the modern harmony will pass; and itself”. Claude Debussy

    Appendices

    Sources

    • Branch , Jean Malignon, the Threshold, Paris, 1960. ISBN 2-02-000238-8 Testimony one time which redécouvre Rameau…
    • Rameau of A to Z , Philippe Beaussant, Fayard, Paris, 1983. ISBN 2-213-01277-6 All on Branch and its work in the shape of a dictionary.
    • : NB: It in fact a collective work of 23 musicologists under the direction of Philippe Beaussant, from where a certain lack of homogeneity even some inconsistencies (cf dating of the motets)
    • the traditional French music , Jean-François Paillard, PUF coll “Which do I know is? ”, Paris, 1964
    • Jean-Philippe Branch, his life and work , Cuthbert Girdlestone, Dover Publications, 1969. ISBN 0-486-26200-6 the work of Girdlestone is regarded as most complete and best documented on this generally ignored type-setter.

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