Philippe II d’Orléans’s ‘ chanteurs italiens ’ , the Italian cantata and the goûts-réunis under Louis XIV

Early Music, Vol. xxxv, No. 2 © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. doi:10.1093/em/cam010, available online at www.em.oxfordjournals.org

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In the evening at the princesse de Conty’s, there was very lovely music of beautiful French voices and the chanteurs italiens of M. the duke of Orléans, who had brought this entire ensemble.

Journal of the Marquis de Dangeau, 1 Feb. 1705

T he fate of Italian music under Louis XIV is a tale well rehearsed: after virtual banishment from

public view, its seemingly sudden re-emergence toward the end of the king’s reign and its impact on native composers became a central point of conten-tion in French musical life of the period. Despite the familiarity of this story, there is still much that remains unclear about the influence of the Italian style in late 17th- and early 18th-century France, and about its significance in French music. We know rel-atively little, for example, about the vocal music that sparked the search for a goûts-réunis and the grand debate it set off.

The picture of the role of Italian music in this period remains incomplete: research in this area has tended to focus on famous composers, particu-larly Marc-Antoine Charpentier, François Couperin, Michel-Richard de Lalande and André Campra. This focus has even informed work on Parisian insti-tutions that cultivated Italian music, and the best known of these not coincidentally maintained con-nections to one or more composers. These institu-tions include the circle of the abbé Mathieu at the church of Saint-André-des-Arts (which played a role in Lalande’s formation), the Jesuit church and Collège Louis-le-Grand (where Charpentier, Lalande and Campra all worked at various times), and the court of the exiled Jacobite kings at Saint-Germain-en-Laye (which employed Innocenzo Fede, and apparently cultivated Couperin and Lalande). The Jacobite court, Edward Corp and Jean Lionnet

Don Fader

Philippe II d’Orléans’s ‘ chanteurs italiens ’ , the Italian

cantata and the goûts-réunis under Louis XIV

have shown, had contacts in Italy and was respon-sible for the importation of the latest Italian music, including sonatas by Corelli and, around 1703, can-tatas in the modern style of Alessandro Scarlatti. 1

The court of Philippe II, duc d’Orléans, although certainly acknowledged as playing a role in the rebirth of interest in Italian music, has received less attention than it deserves, because there remains lit-tle trace of Orléans’s employment of, or commissions from the composers named above (with the excep-tion of Charpentier). The place of the duc d’Orléans is immediately obvious, however, when one looks at the goûts-réunis not as a series of developments by Famous French Composers but as a broader musi-cal phenomenon. The narrative of this phenomenon in secular music goes something like this: the early to mid-1690s saw the imitation of Italian sonatas by François Couperin, Sébastien de Brossard and Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, along with the publication of collections of Italian airs, and the inclusion of sin-gle Italian arias in operatic divertissements , but these were largely isolated events in the activities of a musi-cal culture focused on the tradition of Lullian opera and still largely resistant to new foreign influences. In the first decade of the next century, however, not only was the debate concerning the two styles in full swing, but there were also frequent performances of contemporary Italian works, especially the solo sona-tas of Corelli and cantatas by Giovanni Bononcini. The same years saw the explosion of native French production in the new Italian genres. In 1704 François Duval and Michele Mascitti published the first solo sonatas in imitation of Corelli. Two years later, in 1706, three composers — Nicolas Bernier, Jean-Baptiste Morin and Jean-Baptiste Stuck — brought out the first French cantata prints. It can be no

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coincidence that every one of these publications was dedicated to, sponsored or encouraged by Philippe d’Orléans. 2

The nephew of Louis XIV and later Regent for Louis XV, Philippe II d’Orléans (1674 – 1722) (see illus.1 ) became infamous for his drunken parties, but he was also a passionate amateur of the arts and sciences. Deprived by Louis XIV of opportunities to prove his mettle in military or political life, the duke took to demonstrating his capacities — and his oppo-sition to the cultural politics of the king — through his artistic endeavours. Philippe’s interest in Italian music was certainly stimulated by composition les-sons with Charpentier, which took place sometime before 1698, culminating in the joint composition of an opera, Philomèle (now lost). Orléans not only encouraged his musicians to combine Italian and French musical traits, but experimented himself with the Italian style in two tragédies en musique : Penthée (1703) and La Suite d’Armide (1704).

As part of his experiments, Philippe both imported the Roman/Neapolitan music that became fashionable during the period, but assembled a pre-viously unknown ensemble of top Italian-trained musicians capable of composing and performing it. This ensemble consisted of two violinists (Giovanni Antonio Guido ( c. 1675 – after 1728) and Jean-Baptiste Anet fils (1676 – 1755)), two castratos (Pasqualino Tie-poli ( c. 1670 – 1742), soprano, and Pasqualino Betti (late 1600s – 1752), alto) and a bass instrumentalist (Joseph Marchand (1673 – 1747), basse de violon , and eventually Jean-Baptiste ( ‘ Battistin ’ ) Stuck (1680 – 1755), cello). This group made possible the per-formance of the latest Italian music, both imported from Italy and composed by Guido and Stuck in the Roman/Neapolitan style. The ensemble not only increased French appreciation for this style by presenting performances of cantatas, but also con-tributed to an understanding of the compositional techniques that became models for composers of French cantates . Indeed, the group was active from 1703 to 1705, during the very period in which the can-tate was probably being developed. Since the musi-cians involved in the composition of early cantates (including Stuck) were all connected to Orléans, the ensemble no doubt played a part in their experiments, and thus also in the development of a goûts-réunis .

The Italian ensemble

The first Italian-trained musician to be employed by Philippe II d’Orléans was Jean-Baptiste Anet II, who, according to several accounts, studied with Corelli himself. Anet grew up in the service of the Orléans because his father, Jean-Baptiste I, played in the family’s violin band from the early 1670s until at least 1701. Indeed, according to a pay record from 1696, Anet père served Philippe II personally. 3 Michel Corrette recounts that the young prince's curiosity about Corelli’s new op.5 solo sonatas led him to seek their performance, but he was unable to find violin-ists capable of multiple-stopping, and resorted to having the works sung by three singers:

At this time [around the turn of the century], Corelli published his fifth opus, a masterpiece of the art. The late Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans, later the regent of the kingdom, being extremely curi-ous about music, wanted to hear these sonatas, but could not find at that point any violinists in Paris capable of playing chords [ joüer par accords ]. He was obliged to have them sung by three voices. However, this sterility of the violin did not last long. Many worked night and day to learn these sonatas, so that after several years there appeared three violinists who performed them: Chatillon, who was also an organist, [François] Duval and Baptiste [Anet]. 4

It seems reasonable to assume that Orléans’s interest in Italian violin sonatas would have led him to encourage a talented young violinist in his house-hold to seek instruction with Corelli, whose own patron, Pietro Ottoboni, would play an important role in the recruitment of the chanteurs italiens .

Anet was already making a name for himself in 1701, the year Corelli's solo sonatas appeared in print. On 23 October of that year the Mercure galant describes him playing Italian music before the king, accompanied by Antoine Forqueray and François Couperin:

In his chamber after his supper, the king heard an exquisite con-cert of Italian airs played by Forqueray on the viol, Couperin on the harpsichord, and the young Baptiste [Anet], who serves the duc d’Orléans, on the violin. The King appeared surprised by the excellence of the latter, whom he had not yet heard. 5

By all accounts, Anet’s playing created a stir in the French musical scene that the arrival of other Italian violinists did nothing to dispel. Michel Corrette named Anet as one of the first to reverse the ‘ steril-ity of the violin ’ in France, and an article in the Mer-cure of 1738 reports that Anet ‘ appeared … here as a prodigy and was found with reason superior to all the Italians who had come to Paris ’ . 6

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early music may 2007 239

1 Philippe II d’Orléans (Anonymous engraving (collection of the author), after an anonymous portrait now in the Musée

National du Château et des Trianons, Versailles)

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Sometime after Anet’s introduction at court Orléans hired a native Italian, Giovanni Antonio Guido. Guido left his post as violinist at the Royal Chapel in Naples on 6 January 1702, and had arrived in France by October of 1703, when the Mercure galant described him as one of two ‘ excellent violin-ists ’ employed by the duc d’Orléans:

In the evening during dinner, which was attended by the [exiled] queen of England, there was a concert of Italian music per-formed by two illustrious musicians from Rome named Pasqua-lini, who were accompanied by Antonio [Guido] and Baptiste [Anet], excellent violinists in the service of Monseigneur the duc d'Orléans, and also by [Joseph] Marchand of the King’s Music, who is outstanding on the basse de violon . 7

Guido’s abilities as an ‘ excellent violinist ’ are readily evident in his motets and cantatas, which employ the multiple-stopping about which the duke was so curious.

The membership of the group’s continuo sec-tion is less clear, perhaps because it was in flux. The 1703 description in the Mercure does not mention the presence of a keyboardist, and indicates that the bass player was Joseph Marchand. Although there is no record of Orléans’s employment of Marchand, who was a member of the royal music for most of his life, the two appear to have remained in close con-tact: not only had Marchand’s father been a mem-ber of the Orléans’s violin band, just as Anet’s had, but Philippe acted as godfather to his child only two months after the concert described above. 8 Besides a personal relationship with Marchand, Orléans had another reason for choosing him as bass player for the new ensemble: his familiarity with the Ital-ian style. In 1707 Marchand published his Suites de pièces mêlées de sonates pour le violon , whose sonata movements employ many of the same techniques as Corelli’s solo sonatas. 9

Marchand was eventually replaced by the young Italian cellist, Jean-Baptiste Stuck. Very little is known about Stuck’s movements before his arrival in France. His title-pages list him as a Florentine, but he was in fact born in Livorno to German par-ents. 10 Like Guido, he had Neapolitan connections: he collaborated with Albinoni on the opera Rodrigo in Allegri staged in Naples in December of 1702, and the libretto refers to him as ‘ virtuoso della Contessa di Lemos ’ , but nothing further is known about his activities until his arrival in France. His reputa-tion had been established by 1705, when Le Cerf

de la Viéville reports what he calls ‘ a competition ’ between Stuck and Marchand staged for the Dauphin, undoubtedly by Philippe d’Orléans, who was one of the most influential members of the Dauphin’s court cabale . 11 Having evidently outshone his French rival, Stuck — like Anet — went on to serve Philippe for the next several years and was frequently credited for the rise in status of his instrument. 12

In Anet, Guido and Stuck, therefore, Orléans acquired an ensemble of string players who brought the technique of their instruments to the highest point of development. With Guido and Stuck, Orléans like-wise achieved a core of composers capable of writing music in the latest Italian vein. Stuck not only wrote cantatas in both Italian and French, as did Guido, but during this period had the honour of receiving two commissions to compose tragédies en musique for the Académie Royale de Musique, in 1709 and 1711.

Orléans’s curiosity about recent developments in Italy was not slaked by his cultivation of instru-mentalists. In 1703 he acquired two well-known cas-tratos from Rome, the ‘ Pasqualini ’ mentioned in the Mercure report above: Pasqualino Tiepoli and Pasqualino Betti. 13 Tiepoli, a soprano who had been serving Pietro Ottoboni, the Pamphili family and the Cappella Pontificia, received Ottoboni’s permission on 21 April 1703 for a leave ‘ in order to enter the serv-ice of the duc d’Orléans ’ , according to the records of the Papal chapel. The same documents demon-strate that Tiepoli’s stay lasted for about two years, since they note that he returned from France and resumed his service on 17 July 1705. Pasqualino Betti was a renowned alto who sang for various churches in Rome, for Ottoboni, as well as for the Pamphili and Ruspoli families. During Handel’s stay in Rome Betti performed the part of Saint Cleofe in the com-poser’s La resurezzione and sang the cantata Il duello amoroso with Margherita Durastante. 14

The two castratos had arrived in France by 10 May 1703, when the Mercure galant reported their singing at a fête held at Orléans’s country château:

During the visit that H.R.H. made to Saint-Cloud, the company was diverted by an excellent music, in which nothing failed, nei-ther voices nor instruments. Two musicians of the pope sang before H.R.H. and charmed the entire court, which was often enlarged by numerous groups who came to pass the days at Saint-Cloud. His Royal Highness was present at the procession for the feast of the blessed sacrament … very lovely motets were sung in the chapel of the château. 15

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By 1703, therefore, the duke had assembled an Italian ensemble of two singers (the Pasqualini), at least two violinists (Anet and Guido) and a bass string player. Orléans also combined his Italian ensemble with native musicians for larger projects. The marquis de Dangeau reports a concert given on 1 February 1705 by an ensemble ‘ brought ’ by the duke, which consisted of both French singers and the chanteurs italiens : In the evening at the princesse de Conty’s, there was very lovely music of beautiful French voices and the Italian singers of M. le duc d’Orléans, who had brought this entire ensemble. 16

Thus, although Orléans’s Italian ensemble existed for only about two years during the stay of the Pasqualini — from late spring of 1703 to the summer of 1705 — its performances as probably the only group of musicians trained in the latest Italian style clearly attracted the attention of the royal court, as well as the duke’s guests and the press.

The repertory of the ensemble

The ensemble’s repertory must have included a large staple of music imported from Italy, but there remains neither a list of works performed by the group, nor any pieces specifically recorded as having been composed for it. Its repertoire can be partially reconstructed by interpolating two different sets of sources: descriptions of performances ( table 1 ), and the extant Italian compositions of its members ( table 2 ). Both sets of sources point to a repertory consisting of works most associated with Italy during the period: chamber motets and cantatas. 17

That Orléans’s Italian ensemble did in fact per-form music by its members is established by re -ports of a concert given for Louis XIV at Sceaux on 11 September 1704, where the Mercure and the marquis de Dangeau mention the performance of an Italian ‘ entertainment ’ — probably a cantata — composed by Antonio Guido to a text by the duc de Nevers:

His majesty went to promenade in the gardens, and on his return was treated to music composed by Antonio [Guido], an Italian musician who is in the service of the duc d’Orléans. The words to this concert were by Monsieur the duc de Nevers. 18

According to Dangeau, this entertainment consisted of Italian music performed by the musicians of the duc d’Orléans:

At nine o’clock, the king heard Italian music sung by the musi-cians of the duc d’Orléans. M. le duc de Nevers had written the words. The king was very content with it; afterwards there was a short instrumental concert. 19

Although neither report is specific about the work performed, it may well have been one of Gui-do’s Italian compositions, which have been pre-served in manuscript D 11588 of the Conservatoire collection at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (see table 2 ).

This manuscript collection includes a total of six works attributed to Guido: three Italian can-tatas, two single arias for soprano, and a duetto for soprano and alto, which are all found at the end of the manuscript. The other contents of the col-lection are individual arias, many of Roman or Neapolitan origin. The only works besides Guido’s that carry attributions are by Scarlatti, but the col-lection also contains ten arias taken from Giovanni Bononcini’s opera Camilla . The manuscript cannot be dated with certainty, but its contents were prob-ably assembled during the first years of the century, since Camilla premièred in Naples in 1696, and had important revivals at Rome in 1698 and Milan in 1702. The opera was well known in France by 1702, and François Raguenet, who saw the 1698 Roman production, praised a particular aria from it in his Parallèle , evidently presuming that the music was familiar to his French readers. 20 The contents of the collection date from after 1702, as the arias from Camilla stem from the Milanese production of that year. 21 Guido’s works, which unlike the rest of the

Table 1 Documented performances by the Italian ensemble

Date Location Performers Repertory

10 May 1703 Saint-Cloud Pasqualini, et al. ?, motets 15 Oct 1703 Fontainebleau Pasqualini/Anet/Guido/Marchand Italian music, motets 11 Sep 1704 Sceaux ‘ musicans of the duc d’Orléans ’ Guido, Italian ‘ divertissement ’ 1 Feb 1705 Hôtel de Conty ‘ Italian and French singers of the duc

d’Orléans ’ ?

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Table 2 Italian vocal music by Orléans’s composers

Folio Title/Incipit Key Scoring Form *

Antonio Guido, Italian cantatas and arias, F-Pc Ms. d 11588 113 r La Partenza d S, bc RARARA 118 v Lontananza e gelosia g S, vn, bc RARARAr 127 r Il Rossignuolo a S, vn, bc RARA 135 v Va per ferirmi il seno (duetto) A S, A, bc A 138 v Farfaletta senza core D S, vn, bc A 141 r Di quel piacer ch'io sento G S, vn, bc A

Battistin Stuck, Italian cantatas, F-Pn Rés. 1451 † 59 r Gia s'avanza à poco a poco E S, bc ARARA 66 r Sorgea sul verde D S, bc RARA 71 r Tirsi caro ben mio C S, bc RARA 75 v Pur ti connobbi al fi ne C S, vc, bc RaRARA 84 r Filli che nel mio petto a S, bc RARA

Battistin Stuck, Italian cantata, Cantates françoises , iv (Paris, 1714) Venne o Dori B S, A, 2 vn, vc/bc RARARARA

* Key: R = recitative; r = recit. with signifi cant arioso element; A = da capo aria; a = through-composed aria. † Stuck also composed at least three Italian arias for inclusion in operas performed at the Académie Royale de Musique in 1708 – 9, which presumably had no connection to Orléans’s chanteurs italiens .

manuscript's contents, include whole cantatas rather than individual arias, were evidently a later addition, written in a different hand.

With the exception of ‘ Venne o Dori ’ , Stuck’s Italian cantatas are preserved in the manuscript Rés. 1451 of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. This manu-script also probably dates from the first years of the century, and in fact may well stem from Orléans’s inner circle itself. Not only does it mix cantatas in French and Italian, but it includes an early version of a French cantata by another Orléans musician, Jean-Baptiste Morin, thus placing its date before the appearance of his first cantate print in 1706. 22

Although it is impossible to be certain whether Guido’s and Stuck’s Italian cantatas were composed specifically for Orléans’s ensemble, the scoring could easily have been handled by the group’s member-ship. Many of the works require the standard com-plement of soprano voice and continuo, although two of the three cantatas by Guido have an obbligato violin part. Two pieces in the repertory are almost certainly intended for the Pasqualini, because they are scored for the unusual combination of soprano and alto voices. Guido’s florid duet ‘ Và per fer-irmi il seno ’ ( ex.1 ) could well have been written to show off the virtuosity of the two castratos. Stuck likewise penned a lengthy cantata ‘ Venne o Dori ’ ,

whose scoring — soprano and alto voices with two violins and continuo, including cello — matches the ensemble’s make-up exactly, assuming that Tiepoli sang the female role, which was standard practice in Rome.

Given the origins of the ensemble’s members, it is not surprising that its repertory would be based largely upon contemporary Roman and Neapolitan works. It is precisely this repertory — particularly the cantatas of Bononcini — that became popular with and widely available to French enthusiasts of Italian music during the period of the ensemble’s activity. Bononcini’s renown is clearly evident in the pamphlet war between François Raguenet and Laurent Le Cerf de la Viéville during the years 1704 – 6. According to Raguenet, Bononcini was a particular favourite of the French because ‘ all the masters in France cite him as a model of le gracieux , and he is the only one that they cite in this genre ’ . 23 Le Cerf de la Viéville likewise underlined the increasing influ-ence of Bononcini’s music in the process of com-piling his Comparaison de la musique françoise et italienne . He states that during his initial composi-tion of the Comparaison in 1704 he had heard only isolated airs said to have been composed by Bononcini, but by the time of his 1706 ‘ Eclaircissement sur Buononcini ’ , he had heard ‘ a large number of entire

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Ex.1 Antonio Guido, ‘ Và per ferirmi il seno ’ (Bibliothèque Nationale, Conservatoire Ms. D 11588, ff.135 v – 136 r )

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cantatas ’ by the composer, and criticizes several of them in detail. 24 In Raguenet’s 1705 rebuttal to the Comparaison , he reported that more than 200 can-tatas and entire operas by Bononcini were known in Paris. Given Bononcini’s popularity, the availability of his music, and Orléans’s connection to Ottoboni (who was a patron both of Corelli and Bononcini), it is not surprising that Bononcini’s style served as an important model for compositions by members of the ensemble.

Indeed, the cantatas by Stuck and Guido seem to have been written with Bononcini in mind, although Stuck holds more to Bononcinian characteristics than Guido. Stuck’s instrumentation, for example, stays closer to the combination of solo soprano voice and continuo favoured by Italian composers of the period. Stuck, a cellist like Bononcini, made occa-sional use of cello obbligatos similar to those of his countryman, which appear in the outer movements of ‘ Pur ti connobbi ’ .

The texts chosen by Stuck and Guido are largely of the pastoral type utilized by Roman composers under the influence of the Arcadian Academy in the 1690s, where Bononcini was one of the favoured composers. 25 Guido’s ‘ Partenza ’ , for example, sets the complaints of a Fileno, who must leave his Dorina behind; ‘ Il rossignuolo ’ presents a lover who fancies himself a caged songbird forced to sing of his longing for freedom to please others. The top-ics of Stuck’s cantatas are likewise overwhelmingly pastoral: the speaker in ‘ Gia s’avanza à poco a poco ’ addresses his shepherdess, Amaryllis, while ‘ Filli che nel mio petto ’ is the reply of a jilted male lover to his Phyllis. ‘ Sorgea sul verde ’ and ‘ Tirsi caro ben mio ’ both tell the tale of Clori and Tirsi.

The style of the two composers ’ Italian canta-tas, too, points to Rome and Naples. They typically consist of two or three arias alternating with recita-tives (see table 2 ) in what came to be the standard Italian manner of the early 18th century. The two composers ’ arias share a striking number of traits with those of Bononcini, although Guido’s tend to be lengthier. With a few exceptions, they are written in da capo form with a middle section in a contrast-ing, typically 3rd-related tonality. The aria forms are dominated by the so-called ‘ devise technique ’ popular with French composers of Italian arias such as Campra, as well as with the first generation

of French cantate composers, including Stuck him-self. Unlike Campra, whose mottos tend to be short and pithy, Stuck and Guido seem to have followed Bononcini in their frequent use of an extended high-tessitura continuo introduction comprised of several melodic segments, which return in ritor-nello fashion.

One such introduction, from the second aria of Bononcini’s cantata ‘ Luci, siete pur quelle ’ dem-onstrates his typical procedure ( ex.2 ). It divides into three sections: the motto (bar 1 – 2; taken up by the singer in bars 6 – 7), a busy middle portion that often has an element of sequence (bars 3 – 4) and a cadence (bars 4 – 5). A similar design can be found in ex.3 , the second aria of ‘ Amo, peno, giosco ’ . 26 The only difference between the two introductions is the character of the middle section, which in the case of ex.3 repeats the motto rather than being sequential. Bononcini’s ‘ devise ’ is common to both examples: the voice sings the motto, breaking off after the first line (bars 6 – 7 of ex.2 , ‘ Nò, che non è bastante ’ ), interrupted by a return of the continuo introduction, which completes the musical phrase. The singer then begins the melody again, this time continuing on to the second poetic line (bars 10 – 15, ‘ a trionfar d'un petto una beltà ’ ), completing the thought. At this point a number of musical strate-gies are possible; exx.2 and 3 present two different possibilities . In ex.2 the singer largely uses the same melodic material as the continuo introduction (here a sequence), while in ex.3 the voice presents a new melody, presumably because a further repeat of the motto would be dull. Both arias demonstrate a com-mon occurrence: the return of the continuo intro-duction in the home key after a modulation in the vocal solo section, creating a sudden switch back to the tonic.

That Stuck and Guido followed this model quite closely is clear in many of their ‘ devise ’ -based arias. Stuck’s ‘ Se non sa ’ , the second aria of ‘ Pur ti con-nobbi ’ ( ex.4 ) follows Bononcini in many respects. It begins with a tripartite high-tessitura introduction and uses the ‘ devise ’ in a similar manner to the two Bononcini arias above. The introduction divides into three sections: motto (bar 1 – bar 2, beat 1), spun-out material (bar 2 – bar 4, beat 1) and cadence (bar 4). The only difference between Stuck’s use of the ‘ devise ’ and Bononcini’s is that Stuck shortens the

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Ex.2 Bononcini, Cantata Luci, siete pur quelle , second aria (Oxford, Bodleian Ms. d20, p.38)

Ex.3 Bononcini, Cantata Amo, peno, gioisco, second aria (Oxford, Bodleian Ms. d20, p.59)

continuo passage after the voice’s motto ( ‘ Se nonsa più farsi intendere ’ ) . After the voice repeats the motto in bar 7, it completes the thought as in Bononcini’s arias by singing the second poetic line ( ‘ mia pupilla sventurata ’ ) to the spun-out material of the introduction. Stuck’s use of the introduc-

tion as an internal ritornello (bars 11 – 12) is similar to Bononcini’s in that he often truncates it consid-erably, offering the singer merely a short breath-ing space. Like Stuck’s French cantatas, which have been discussed by David Tunley, the introductions tend to return on the tonic rather than confirming

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modulations made during the vocal solo sections, as in ex.4 . Although Tunley finds this anticlimactic, it is a common trait in arias by Bononcini, as exx.2 and 3 demonstrate, and in some of Guido’s as well. 27

Guido’s arias follow a similar pattern, as can be seen from the three-section high-tessitura con-tinuo introduction to the duetto ‘ Và per ferirmi il seno ’ ( ex.1 ). Guido used the ‘ devise ’ for his sicili-ana lament ‘ Nella Rosa ’ ( ex.5 ), with some variation made necessary by the addition of the violin obbli-gato. In this case, the extended violin melody of the ritornello has the familiar tripartite structure: motto (bar 1 – bar 2, beat 1), modulatory section (bar 2, beat 2 – bar 5, beat 1), and return modulation with cadence (bar 5, beat 2 – bar 7). The voice then executes the ‘ devise ’ by singing the motto, inter-rupted by the third section of the introduction. Recommencing with the motto, the voice completes

the phrase with new material that modulates to the relative major.

The ensemble and the goûts-réunis

The answer to the question of how French com-posers and the French musical public came to be influenced by Bononcini’s cantatas involved not only the importation of the music itself, but also of musicians capable of performing it convincingly. In this, the court of Philippe d’Orléans was unique among French musical institutions of the period in bo asting an entire ensemble of such musicians. Although the members of Orléans’s ensemble were certainly not the only Italian musicians in France during this period, they were alone in represent-ing an active group of virtuosos trained in the latest styles. This is particularly the case with the Pasqua-lini; the only other castratos in France — those of the Royal Chapel — seem not to have played a highly

Ex.4 J. B. Stuck, Cantata Pur ti connobbi, second aria (Bibliothèque Nationale Rés. 1451, f.75v)

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Ex.5 G. A. Guido, Cantata Lontananza, e gelosia, third aria (Bibliothèque Nationale, Conservatoire Ms. D 11588, ff.124r–v)

visible role in inspiring new compositions or in the development of French enthusiasm for Italian style, at least in the realm of secular music. 28

Orléans’s composers were likewise among the only Italians in France fluent in the latest cantata style. While Innocenzo Fede was still working at Saint- Germain-en-Laye his music reflected mid-17th- century currents rather than the new style of Bononcini. Stuck and Guido, on the other hand, both composed in the new idiom. Stuck, in partic-ular, was renowned for his music in both styles. He

was called upon to compose Italian arias for revivals of Pascal Colasse’s Thetis et Pelée and Lully’s Roland in 1708 and 1709, and his arias were evidently highly regarded because they were issued in a special edi-tion during the run of the operas. Stuck’s French cantatas and operas likewise earned him a mention in Titon du Tillet’s Le Parnasse françois , the French Parnassus to which great Gallic artists were raised as demi-gods (inclusion therein was thus very high praise indeed for a mere Italian). 29 Although less renowned than Stuck, Guido was the author of a

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body of instrumental music, a collection of motets and at least two French cantatas. The first, La pomme d’or , is found, dated 1710, in a collection belonging to the Brussels Royal Conservatory. The second, Tircis et Climene , is lost. 30 In modelling Italian cantatas on

those of Bononcini and transferring their experience to the realm of the cantate , Stuck and Guido thus not only played an important part in the French accept-ance of Italian music but also in the movement towards a gouts-réunis .

My thanks to Lowell Lindgren for his advice on Bononcini sources, to Graham Sadler for his comments on a draft of this article, and to John Nádas and Virginia Lamothe for their assistance with the translation of the Italian cantata texts. All other translations are mine.

1 M. Le Moël, ‘ Un foyer d’italianisme à la fi n du XVII e siècle: Nicolas Mathieu, curé de Saint André des Arts ’ , Recher-ches sur la musique française classique , iii (1962), pp.43 – 8; H. Prunières, ‘ Paolo Lorenzani à la cour de France ’ , Revue musicale , iii (1922), pp.97 – 120; R. W. Lowe, Marc-Antoine Charpentier et l’opéra de collège (Paris, 1966); J. Lion-net, ‘ Innocenzo Fede et la musique à la cour des Jacobites à Saint-Germain-en-Laye ’ , Revue de la Bibliothèque Nation-ale , xlvi (1992), pp.14 – 18; E. T. Corp, ‘ The Exiled court of James II and James III: A Centre of Italian music in France, 1689 – 1712 ’ , Journal of the Royal Musical Association, cxx (1995), pp.216 – 31; E. T. Corp, ‘ François Couperin and the Stuart court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1691 – 1712: a new interpretation ’ , Early music , xxviii (2000), pp.445 – 53.

2 On Orléans’s patronage and musical activities, see D. Fader, Musical thought and patronage of the Italian style at the court of Philippe II, duc d’Orléans (1674 – 1723) (PhD diss., Stanford U., 2000), and J.-P. Montagnier, Un mécène-musicien: Philippe d’Orléans, régent (1674 – 1723) (Bourg-la-Reine, 1996). Although a number of scholars have assigned the date of Bernier’s fi rst book of cantatas to 1703 based on his privilège , ongoing research indicates that it in fact appeared in 1706.

3 M. Antoine, ‘ Note sur les violonistes Anet ’ , Recherches sur la musique clas-sique française , ii (1961 – 2), pp.81 – 93; Archives Nationales mc lii , 115: ‘ He

will be due on next Christmas day, the sum of 300 livres ; that is, 200 livres for his wages and per diem as offi cer of the music of His Royal Highness [Philippe I d’Orléans], and 100 livres by Monsieur le duc de Chartres [Philippe II d’Orléans], the total during the last six months of the present year, 1696 ’ ; Fader, Musical thought and patronage , pp.224 – 6.

4 Michel Corrette, Le maître de clavecin pour l’accompagnement, méthode théorique et pratique (Paris, 1753), preface. See P. Walls, ‘ “ Sonade, que me veux tu? ” : reconstructing French iden-tity in the wake of Corelli’s op.5 ’ , Early music, xxxii (2004), pp.27 – 47.

5 Mercure galant (Nov 1701), p.206.

6 Mercure de France (Aug 1738), p.1730.

7 Mercure galant (Oct/Nov 1703), p.209; G. Olivieri, ‘ “ Si suona à Napoli! ” : i rapporti fra Napoli e Parigi e i primordi della sonata in Francia ’ , Studi musicali , xxxv (1996), pp.409 – 27. Évrard Titon du Tillet ( Le Parnasse françois (Paris, 1754), p.756) mentions Guido as ‘ at-tached ’ to the duke, and Guido’s 1707 privilège qualifi es him as ‘ musicien du duc d’Orléans ’ ; see M. Brenet [M. Bo-billier], ‘ La librairie musicale en France de 1653 à 1790, d’après les registres de privilèges ’ , Sammelbände der Interna-tionale Musikgesellschaft , viii (1907), pp.401 – 66, at p.421.

8 État civil de Versailles, Notre-Dame, Baptêmes, 1703, ii, f.87; L. de La Lauren-cie, L ’ école française de violon de Lully à Viotti: études d'histoire et d’esthétique (Paris, 1922), i, pp.159 – 61; Fader, Musi-cal thought and patronage , pp.224 – 6.

9 Suites de pièces mêlées de sonates pour le violon et la basse qui ont étées exécutez plu-sieurs fois devant Sa Majesté (Paris, 1707).

10 B. Porot, ‘ Les airs contrastés: un procédé d ’ écriture dans le premier Livre de cantates de Jean-Baptiste Stuck, mu-sicien du duc d’Orléans ’ , Topographie du plaisir sous le Régence , ed. R. Mortier and H. Hasquin, Études sur le XVIII e Siècle, xxvi (Brussels, 1998), pp.153 – 68.

11 Archives Nationales, Minutier Cen-tral LIII , 342; Jean Laurent Le Cerf de la Viéville, Comparaison de la musique italienne et de la musique françoise (Brussels, 1704), ii, p.351: ‘ It is said … that Monseigneur, whom all France knows is extremely sensible [ un esprit extrémement droit ], having wanted to hear Batistin and Marchand of the King’s music play the basse de violon , highly preferred the Frenchman to the Italian, in spite of the machina-tions and insinuations of those who presented him. ’ On the Dauphin's role in the musical life of the era, see Fader, ‘ The “ Cabale du Dauphin ” , Campra and Italian comedy: the courtly politics of French musical patronage around 1700 ’ , Music and letters , lxxxvi (2005), pp.380 – 413.

12 Ancelet, Observations sur la musique, les musiciens, et les instrumens (Am-sterdam, 1757), p.24; Michel Corrette, Méthode théorique et pratique pour apprendre en peu de tems le violoncelle (Paris, 1741), p.1.

13 They were still referred to as the ‘ Pasqualini ’ after their return to Rome, according to a travel account, Anon., Voiage historique et politique de Suisse, d'Italie et d'Allemagne (Frankfurt, 1736 – 43), quoted in U. Kirkendale, ‘ Orgelspiel im Lateran und andere Erinnerungen an Händel: Ein un-beachteter Bericht in “ Voiage his-torique ” von 1737 ’ , Die Musikforschung , xli (1988), pp.1 – 9, at p.3: ‘ I had the occa-sion to see [Handel] at the home of the

Recorder-player and musicologist Don Fader devotes his research to a broad spectrum of issues relating to the Italian style in 17th- and 18th-century France. He is currently a member of the musicology faculty of the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. [email protected]

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famous musicians of the Pope named Pasqualini. As they had been for a long time in Paris in the service of the duke of Orléans, they were charmed when they encountered Frenchmen, and did them many good turns. They even came to me to eat soup à la françoise . ’

14 ‘ Narrazione istorica dell’origine, progresse e privilegi della Pontifi cia Cappella con la serie degli antichi maestri … col Catalogo dei Cantori della mesesima … ’ (1749), quoted in E. Celani, ‘ I Cantori della Cappella Pontifi cia nei secoli xvi – xviii ’ , Rivista musicale italiana , xvi (1909), pp.55 – 111, at p.72. S. La Via, ‘ Il Cardinale Ot-toboni e la musica: Nuovi documenti (1700 – 1740), nuove letture e ipotesi ’ , Intorno a Locatelli: studi in occasione del tricentenario della nascita di Pietro Antonio Locatelli (1695 – 1764) (Lucca, 1995), i, pp.469 – 70. H. J. Marx, ‘ Händel in Rom — seine Beziehung zu Benedetto Card. Pamphilj ’ , Händel Jahrbuch , xxix (1983), pp.109, 114. Händel Handbuch , ed. W. and M. Eisen, iv (Kassel, 1985), pp.34, 38. My thanks to the late Jean Lionnet for sharing with me details concerning Betti from his researches in Roman archives.

15 Mercure (Jun 1703), pp.350 – 54.

16 Philippe de Courcillon, marquis de Dangeau, Journal du Marquis de Dangeau avec les additions inédites du Duc de Saint-Simon, ed. E. Soulié, L. Dussieux et al. (Paris, 1856), entry of 1 Feb 1705.

17 Guido was the author of a collection of chamber motets, Mottetti ad una e più voci con sinfonia (Paris, 1707), whose dedication to Philippe d’Orléans indicates that the duke had heard them ‘ with pleasure ’ , and whose style is simi-lar in many ways to his cantatas, but is outside the scope of the present essay.

18 Mercure (Oct 1704), p.397.

19 Dangeau, Journal , 1 Sep 1704. Although Dangeau does not mention the Pasqua-lini, nor any of the musicians involved, it seems unlikely that Orléans would stage a concert of Italian vocal music without involving his chanteurs italiens .

20 L. Lindgren, ‘ I trionfi di Camilla ’ , Studi musicali , vi (1977), pp.89 – 159,

at p.137. François Raguenet, Parallèle des Italiens et des Français en ce qui regarde la musique et les opéra (Paris, 1702), pp.48 – 50: ‘ Thus whether arias are of a lively character or a tender character, whether they are impetuous or languishing, the Italians surpass the French; but, above and beyond that, they do something that neither the French nor the other nations know and never have known how to do: they sometimes unite, in a surprising man-ner, tenderness with vivacity, as one can see in the famous aria Mai non si vidde ancor più belle fedelta, etc, which is the sweetest and most tender in the world, and yet the sinfonia is nevertheless the most lively and biting that could be heard. ’

21 L. Lindgren, A bibliographic scrutiny of dramatic works set by Giovanni and his brother Antonio Maria Bononcini (PhD diss., Harvard U., 1972), p.706.

22 F. Turellier, ‘ Des cantates anonymes attribuables à Jean-Baptiste Morin (1677 – 1745) dans le Manuscrit F.Pc. Rés 1451: cantates de Mancin[i] ’ , Ostinato rigore: revue internationale d ’ études mu-sicales , viii – ix ( Les musiciens au temps de Louis XIV ) (1997), pp.329 – 39.

23 François Raguenet, Défense du Paral-lèle des Italiens et des François (Paris, 1705) , pp.43 – 4: ‘ As for Buononcini [Le Cerf's spelling], from whom we have more than two hundred cantatas in Paris, and even whole operas, M. le Chavalier [Le Cerf's mouthpiece] could not fail more completely, as there is no Music Master in Italy in whose works there are so few of these biting and diffi cult passages [ endroits picquans et recherchez ] that M. le Chevalier com-pares to spices, as there are in the works of Buononcini . All the French Masters cite him as a model for le gracieux , and it is him alone that they cite in this genre. There is no such unimportant French musician [ si petit Musicien François ] who does not know him in this way, and does not know that this is his character. ’

24 Le Cerf, Comparaison , iii, p.39. Cantatas by Bononcini and Scarlatti were brought to France through numerous channels: see J. Lionnet,

‘ Les copies de musique italienne et leur diffusion ’ , Le concert des Muses: promenade musicale dans le baroque français , ed. J. Lionnet (Versailles, 1997), p.92. 25 H. J. Marx, ‘ Die Musik am Hofe Pietro Kardinal Ottobonis unter Arcangelo Corelli ’ , Analecta musicologica , v (1968), pp.114, 123. In his introduction to Cantatas by Giovanni Bononcini, 1670 – 1747 , The Italian Cantata, x (New York, 1985), n.2, Lowell Lindgren points out that: ‘ In his Comentari … intorno alla sua Istoria della volgar poesia (Rome, 1702), i, p.241, Giovanni M. Crescimbeni (the custode of the Arcadian Academy) identifi ed three “ modern ” cantata composers with Rome: Bononcini, Carlo Cesarini, and Filippo Amadei. ’

26 Both arias appear in facsimile in Cantatas by Giovanni Bononcini, ed. Lindgren, pp.38 – 9, 59 – 60. Although the precise dates of composition of these pieces are not certain, they were probably written in the 1690s.

27 D. Tunley, The French Baroque can-tata (Oxford, 2/1997), p.99.

28 Notable exceptions are some of the récits in Lalande’s grands motets and Couperin’s 1704 versets written for Antonio Paccini and Hiacinte Mazza. See L. Sawkins, ‘ For and against the order of nature: who sang the soprano? ’ , Early music , xv (1987), pp.315 – 24; P. Barbier, La maison des italiens: les castrats à Versailles (Paris, 1998), pp.114 – 15.

29 Airs nouveaux de la composition de messieurs Campra, et Batistin, Chantez par melles. Poussin, et Dun pendant les representations de Thetis et Pelée (Paris, 1709); see J. Anthony, ‘ Air and aria added to French opera ’ , Revue de musicologie, lxxvii/2 (1991), pp.199 – 219. Évrard Titon du Tillet, Le Parnasse françois (Paris, 1743), p.755.

30 J. Bachelier, Recueil de cantates: con-tenant toutes celles qui se chantent dans les concerts: pour l’usage des amateurs de la musique et de la poësie (The Hague, 1728), index.

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Philippe II d’Orléans’s ‘ chanteurs italiens ’ , the Italian cantata and the goûts-réunis under Louis XIV