Joseph Bodin de Boismortier
Encyclopedia
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
of instrumental music, cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
s, opéra-ballet
Opéra-ballet
Opéra-ballet was a popular genre of French Baroque opera, "that grew out of the ballets à entrées of the early seventeeth century". It differed from the more elevated tragédie en musique as practised by Jean-Baptiste Lully in several ways...
s, and vocal music. Boismortier was one of the first composers to have no patrons: having obtained a royal license for engraving music in 1724, he made enormous sums of money by publishing his music for sale to the public.
Biography
The Boismortier family moved from the composer's birthplace in ThionvilleThionville
Thionville , is a commune in the Moselle department in Lorraine in north-eastern France. The city is located on the left bank of the river Moselle, opposite its suburb Yutz.-Demographics:...
(in Lorraine
Moselle
Moselle is a department in the east of France named after the river Moselle.- History :Moselle is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
) to the town of Metz
Metz
Metz is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place...
where he received his musical education from Joseph Valette de Montigny, a well-known composer of motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
s. The Boismortier family then followed Montigny and moved to Perpignan
Perpignan
-Sport:Perpignan is a rugby stronghold: their rugby union side, USA Perpignan, is a regular competitor in the Heineken Cup and seven times champion of the Top 14 , while their rugby league side plays in the engage Super League under the name Catalans Dragons.-Culture:Since 2004, every year in the...
in 1713 where Boismortier found employment in the Royal Tobacco Control. Boismortier married Marie Valette, the daughter of a rich goldsmith and a relative of his teacher Montigny.
In 1724 Boismortier and his wife moved to Paris where he began a prodigious composition career, writing for many instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
s and voices
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
. He was prolific: his first works appeared in Paris in 1724, and by 1747 he had published more than 100 works in various vocal and instrumental combinations. His music, particularly for the voice, was extremely popular and made him wealthy without the aid of patrons. He died in Roissy-en-Brie
Roissy-en-Brie
Roissy-en-Brie is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France and is located in the eastern suburbs of Paris, from the center.-History:In 1810 Roissy-en-Brie annexed the neighboring commune of Pontcarré...
.
Boismortier was the first French composer to use the Italian concerto
Concerto
A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...
form, in his six concertos for five flutes op. 15. (1727). He also wrote the first French solo concerto for any instrument, a concerto for cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
, viol
Viol
The viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Renaissance vihuela, a plucked instrument that preceded the...
, or bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
(1729). Much of his music is for the flute, for which he also wrote an instruction method (now lost). His op. 91 for harpsichord obbligato and flute derives from Rameau's Pieces de clavecin en concerts and is dedicated to the flutist Michel Blavet. A notable piece of Boismortier's that is still often performed is the Deuxieme serenade ou simphonie. The violinist Jean-Marie Leclair
Jean-Marie Leclair
Jean-Marie Leclair l'aîné, also known as Jean-Marie Leclair the Elder, was a Baroque violinist and composer. He is considered to have founded the French violin school...
the elder (1697-1764) cultivated both solo and trio genres with charm although with less profundity. Boismortier and Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
both lived during the Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
era of Louis XV and upheld the French tradition, composing music of beauty and sophistication that was widely appreciated by the French musical public.
A quotation
The music theorist Jean-Benjamin de la Borde wrote in his (Essay on ancient and modern music) in 1780 about Boismortier: (Happy be Boismortier whose fertile pen can give birth without pain to a new piece of music every month.)To such criticism, it is said that Boismortier would simply answer: "I'm earning money."
Principal works
- Les quatre saisons, cantataCantataA cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
s (1724) - Six concertos for five flutes op. 15. (1727)
- Concerto for cello, viol, or bassoon (1729)
- Les voyages de l'amour, opera ballet (1736)
- Don Quichotte chez la DuchesseDon Quichotte chez la DuchesseDon Quichotte chez la Duchesse is a "comic ballet" by the French baroque composer Joseph Bodin de Boismortier...
, comic balletBallet (music)Ballet as a music form progressed from simply a complement to dance, to a concrete compositional form that often had as much value as the dance that went along with it. The dance form, originating in France during the 17th century, began as a theatrical dance. It was not until the 19th century that...
(1743) - Daphnis et Chloé, pastoralePastorale héroïquePastorale héroïque was a type of ballet héroïque, a form of the opéra-ballet genre of French Baroque opera. The first work to bear the name was Jean-Baptiste Lully's final completed opera Acis et Galatée , although musical works on pastoral themes had already appeared on the French stage...
(1747) - Cinquante-neuvieme oeuvre de M.Boismortier, contenant quatre suites de pieces de clavecin for harpsichordHarpsichordA harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
- Daphné, tragédie lyrique (unperformed) (1748)
- Les quatre parties du monde (1752)
- Les gentillesses, cantatilles (short cantatas)
- Numerous concerti and sonataSonataSonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...
s
Selected discography
Hervé NiquetHervé Niquet
Hervé Niquet is a French conductor, harpsichordist, tenor, and the director of Le Concert Spirituel, specializing in French Baroque music.-Biography:...
has a made a substantial number of recordings of Boismortier's works:
- Ballets de Villages (2000) performed by Le Concert Spirituel under the direction of Hervé Niquet (Naxos 554295)
- Motets avec Symphonies (1991) performed by Le Concert Spirituel under the direction of Hervé Niquet (Accord 476 2509)
- Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse (1997) performed by Le Concert Spirituel under the direction of Hervé Niquet (Naxos 8.553647)
- Daphnis & Chloe (2002) performed by Le Concert Spirituel under the direction of Hervé Niquet (Glossa GCD 921605)
- Sonates Pour Basses (2005) performed by Le Concert Spirituel under the direction of Hervé Niquet (Glossa GCD 921609)
- French Music for Two Harpsichords (2000) played Hervé Niquet and Luc Beauséjour (Analekta 23079)
Other recordings include:
- Sonates à deux flûtes traversières sans basse (2001) played by Stéphan Perreau and Benjamin Gaspon (Pierre Verany PV 700023)
- Sonatas for flute and harpsichord, op. 91 (1994) played by Rebecca Stuhr-Rommereim and John Stuhr-Rommereim (Centaur CRC 2265)
- Joseph Bodin de Boismortier: Six Suites, Op. 35 for Unaccompanied Flute (2008) played by Rebecca Stuhr (Lebende Music)
- Les Maisons de Plaisance (1999) played by Wieland Kuijken and Sigiswald KuijkenSigiswald KuijkenSigiswald Kuijken is a Belgian violinist, violist, and conductor known for playing on authentic instruments.-Biography:Kuijken was born in Dilbeek, near Brussels. He was a member of the Alarius Ensemble of Brussels between 1964 and 1972 and formed La Petite Bande in 1972...
(Accent ACC 99132 D)
External links
- Flute duett (Kantoreiarchiv)
- Article on Boismortier by Stéphan Perreau on the Eventail Baroque Dance Company site Le magazine de l'opéra baroque Amadeusonline Almanach