Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T18:00:00.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Confusion of Diverse Voices: Musical and Social Polyphony in Seventeenth-Century French Opera

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2020

Ellen R. Welch
Ellen R. Welch*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay explores how two early modern French writers considered choral music in opera as a figure for society. Pierre Corneille, in his musical tragedy “Andromède,” and scientist and critic Claude Perrault, in several texts about music and acoustics, made subtle apologies for the polyphonic choral song condemned by many contemporaries as unintelligible. Beyond defending the aesthetic value of choral music, Corneille and Perrault associated multi-part song with collective vocalizations offstage, in the real world. Their instructions on how to appreciate choral interludes in opera also served, therefore, to train listeners to attend to the polyphony of society.

Type
Articles
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 73 , Issue 2 , Summer 2020 , pp. 567 - 594
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by the Renaissance Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Earlier versions of this essay were presented to the University of Virginia French Department and the Early Modern French Salon at Columbia University. I thank the insightful and attentive audiences at those events as well as Renaissance Quarterly's anonymous readers for their helpful feedback.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adorno, Theodor. Essays on Music. Ed. Leppert, Richard D.. Trans. Gillespie, Susan H.. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Akiyama, Nobuko. “Corneille et ses pièces à machine.” Dix-septième siècle 248 (2010): 403–17.10.3917/dss.103.0403CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, Dennis, and Sadie, Stanley. “Lully, Jean-Baptiste.” In The Oxford Companion to Music, ed. Latham, Alison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011: https://doi.org/10.1093/acref/9780199579037.001.0001, s.v. “Lully.”Google Scholar
Attali, Jacques. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Trans. Massumi, Brian. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. MS Français 25350, 1–42. Claude Perrault. “Sçavoir si la musique à plusieurs parties a esté connüe et mise en usage par les Anciens.” N.d.Google Scholar
Biet, Christian. “A ‘Senecan’ Theatre of Cruelty: Audience, Citizens, and Chorus in Late-Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth-Century French Dramas.” In Choruses, Ancient and Modern, ed. Billings, Joshua, Budelmann, Felix, and Macintosh, Fiona, 189–202. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199670574.003.0012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloechl, Olivia. Opera and the Political Imaginary in Old Regime France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.10.7208/chicago/9780226522890.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolduc, Benoît. Andromède au rocher: Fortune théâtrale d'une image en France et en Italie, 1587–1712. Florence: Olschki, 2002.Google Scholar
Bonnet, Jacques, and Bourdelot-Bonnet, Pierre. Histoire de la musique, et de ses effets, depuis son origine jusquä present. Paris: J. Cochart, 1715.Google Scholar
Calhoun, Alison. “Corneille's Andromède and Opera: Practice before Theory.” Cahiers du dix-septième 16.1 (2015): 1–17.Google Scholar
Cambert, Robert. Les peines et les plaisirs de l'amour, pastorale. Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1672.Google Scholar
Cohen, Mitchell. The Politics of Opera: A History from Monteverdi to Mozart. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corneille, Pierre. Andromède, tragédie représentée avec les machines sur le Theatre Royal de Bourbon. Rouen: Laurens Maurry, 1651.Google Scholar
Corneille, Pierre. Œuvres complètes. Ed. Georges Couton. 3 vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1980.Google Scholar
Cornette, Joël, ed. Mémoires de Louis XIV. Paris: Tallandier, 2007.Google Scholar
Couton, Georges. Corneille et la Fronde: Théâtre et politique il y a trois siècles. Paris: G. Bussac, 1951.Google Scholar
Cowart, Georgia. The Triumph of Pleasure: Louis XIV and the Politics of Spectacle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Dartois-Lapeyre, Françoise. “Le chant en langue étrangère et régionale dans l'opéra aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles.” In Le chant, acteur de l'histoire, ed. Quéniart, Jean, 101–26. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 1999.Google Scholar
d'Assoucy, Charles Coypeau. Airs à quatre parties du Sieur Dassoucy. 4 vols. Paris: Robert Ballard, 1653.Google Scholar
d'Aubignac, François Hédelin abbé. La pratique du théâtre: Œuvre tres-necessaire a tous ceux qui veulent s'appliquer a la composition des poëmes dramatiques. Paris: Antoine Sommaville, 1657.Google Scholar
Delmas, Christian, ed. Andromède, tragédie. Paris: Droz, 1974.Google Scholar
Dill, Charles. “Ideological Noises: Opera Criticism in Early Eighteenth-Century France.” In Operatic Migrations: Transforming Works and Crossing Boundaries, ed. Marvin, Roberta Montemorra and Thomas, Downing, 65–84. Farnham: Ashgate, 2006.Google Scholar
Erlmann, Veit. Reason and Resonance: A History of Modern Aurality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Freitas, Roger. Portrait of a Castrato: Politics, Patronage, and Music in the Life of Atto Melani. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Harris, Joseph. Inventing the Spectator: Subjectivity and the Theatrical Experience in Early Modern France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198701613.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris-Warrick, Rebecca. “Lully's On-Stage Societies.” In Opera and Society in Italy and France from Monteverdi to Bourdieu, ed. Fulcher, Jane, Johnson, Victoria, and Ertman, Thomas, 53–71. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.10.1017/CBO9780511481734.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris-Warrick, Rebecca. Dance and Drama in French Baroque Opera: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.10.1017/CBO9781316481080CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Home-Cook, George. Theatre and Aural Attention: Stretching Ourselves. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.10.1057/9781137393692CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isherwood, Robert. Music in the Service of the King: France in the Seventeenth Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Johnson, James. Listening in Paris: A Cultural History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jondorf, Gillian. French Renaissance Tragedy: The Dramatic Word. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.10.1017/CBO9780511470370CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kintzler, Catherine. “Representations of le peuple in French Opera, 1673–1764.” In Opera and Society in Italy and France from Monteverdi to Bourdieu, ed. Fulcher, Jane, Johnson, Victoria, and Ertman, Thomas, 72–86. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.10.1017/CBO9780511481734.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koch, Erec. The Aesthetic Body: Passion, Sensibility, and Corporeality in Seventeenth-Century France. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2008.Google Scholar
La Fontaine, Jean. “Epitre à Niert Sur l'Opéra.” In Œuvres Complètes, ed. Marty-Leveaux, Charles, 5:109. Paris: Paul Daffis, 1877.Google Scholar
La Gorce, Jérôme. L'opéra à Paris au temps de Louis XIV: Histoire d'un théâtre. Paris: Desjonquères, 1992.Google Scholar
La Taille, Jean. L'Art de la tragédie (1572). Ed. Barataud, Christian. Paris: Euredit, 2007.Google Scholar
Loraux, Nicole. The Mourning Voice: An Essay on Greek Tragedy. Trans. Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Lough, John. Paris Theatre Audiences in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. London: Oxford University Press, 1957.Google Scholar
Naudeix, Laura. Dramaturgie de la tragédie en musique (1673–1764). Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004.Google Scholar
Norman, Buford. “The Exile of Reasons: Representation of Emotions in the Tragédie Lyrique.” Ars Lyrica 7 (1993): 65–74.Google Scholar
Palisca, Claude. Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Parrott, David. “Art, Ceremony, and Performance: Cardinal Mazarin and Cultural Patronage at the Court of Louis XIV.” In Ballet de La Nuit: Rothschild B1/16/6, ed. Burden, Michael and Thorp, Jennifer, 9–18. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Perrault, Claude. Essais de physique, ou Recueil de plusieurs traités touchant les choses naturelles, par M. Perrault. 4 vols. Paris: J.-B. Coignard, 1680.Google Scholar
Perrault, Claude. Du bruit et, De la musique des Anciens, Extrait des Œvres diverses de physique et de mécanique (Tome 2), et, Préface manuscrite du traité de la musique de Claude Perrault (Bibl. Nat. Manuscr. Fr. 25,350). Ed. Lesure, François. Geneva: Minkoff, 2003.Google Scholar
Saint-Evremond, Charles Le Marquetel de Saint-Denis de. Œuvres meslées. 12 vols. Paris: Claude Barbin, 1684.Google Scholar
Scaliger, Julius Caesar. Poeticies Libri Septum. Lyon: Antonium Vincentium, 1561.Google Scholar
Schenbeck, Lyn. “Musique mesurée: Music of Elegance and Simplicity.” Choral Journal 37.3 (1996): 17–20.Google Scholar
Sébastiani, Florence. “La musique dans l’Andromède de Pierre Corneille: L'usage, le goût, et la raison.” Littératures Classiques 21 (1994): 195–205.10.3406/licla.1994.1783CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sykes, Ingrid. Society, Culture, and the Auditory Imagination in Modern France: The Humanity of Hearing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.10.1057/9781137455352CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szendy, Peter. Listen: A History of Our Ears. Trans. Charlotte Mandell. New York: Fordham University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Thomas, Downing. Aesthetics of Opera in the Ancien Régime, 1647–1785. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, Jean. L'Art poétique de Vauquelin de la Fresnaye (1605). Ed. Georges Pellissier. Paris: Garnier Frères, 1885.Google Scholar
Vignes, Jean. “Jean-Antoine de Baïf et Claude Le Jeune: Histoire et enjeux d'une collaboration.” Revue de musicologie 89.2 (2003): 267–95.Google Scholar
Visentin, Hélène. “Le théâtre à machines: Succès majeur pour un genre mineur.” Littératures Classiques 51 (2004): 205–22.10.3406/licla.2004.2009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, D. P. “The Aims of Baïf's Académie de musique et de poésie.” Journal of Renaissance and Baroque Music 1.2 (1946): 91–100.Google Scholar
Weber, William. “La musique ancienne in the Waning of the Ancien Régime.” Journal of Modern History 56.1 (1984): 58–88.10.1086/242620CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, William. “Did People Listen in the Eighteenth Century?” Early Music 25.4 (1997): 678–91.10.1093/em/25.4.678CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Caroline. Music and Drama in the Tragédie en musique, 1673–1715: Jean-Baptiste Lully and His Successors. New York: Garland, 1996.Google Scholar
Wood, Caroline, and Sadler, Graham, eds. French Baroque Opera: A Reader. Farnham: Ashgate, 2000.Google Scholar
Yates, Frances. The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century. London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1947.Google Scholar