Suitte d'un Goût Étranger
Encyclopedia
"Suitte d'un Goût Étranger" is a composition by Marin Marais
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and continuo, and which also included the pieces for three viols, which Marais referred to in the Avertissement as 'a completely new departure in France.' The first suites in Livre IV are charming and simple and closely resemble Livre III, where Marais had endeavored to present pieces of an easy and accessible nature for the less proficient players. However, these suites are followed immediately by the Suitte d'un Goût Étranger, which is infamous for its technical and musical demands.
and Jean-Féry Rebel
--with virtuosic chamber music, as opposed to his earlier works which mimic the older generation of French Baroque composers. In any case, the Suitte d'un Goût Étranger with all of its garish flair and supreme elegance, might be viewed as a culmination in French Baroque chamber music.
Marin Marais
Marin Marais was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for 6 months. He was hired as a musician in 1676 to the royal court of Versailles...
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Origins
The Suite in a Strange Style was included in Marin Marais's Livre IV of pieces for violViol
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...
and continuo, and which also included the pieces for three viols, which Marais referred to in the Avertissement as 'a completely new departure in France.' The first suites in Livre IV are charming and simple and closely resemble Livre III, where Marais had endeavored to present pieces of an easy and accessible nature for the less proficient players. However, these suites are followed immediately by the Suitte d'un Goût Étranger, which is infamous for its technical and musical demands.
Style
The suite is remarkable in many aspects. For one, in it Marais did away with conventional forms and structures and instead presented the public with a collection of what are essentially pièces de charactère, a clear departure from his previous suites which were built around the typical dance forms preferred and upheld by his contemporaries. In addition to this formal and structural iconoclasm, the suite is filled with music that is supremely virtuosic, descriptive, and adventurous—both melodically and harmonically. One might expect that, in an effort to 'fill in' Livre IV, Marais inserted some especially difficult or highly-favored pieces that he had been saving, and put them all into their own suite. It might also be postulated that Marais was responding to the French penchant for highly descriptive, exotic, and colorful orchestral music—a tradition upheld by the likes of Jean-Philippe RameauJean-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...
and Jean-Féry Rebel
Jean-Féry Rebel
Jean-Féry Rebel was an innovative French Baroque composer and violinist.-Biography:Rebel , a son of the singer Jean Rebel, a tenor in Louis XIV's private chapel, was a child violin prodigy. He became, at the age of eight, one of his father's most famous musical offspring. Later, he was a student...
--with virtuosic chamber music, as opposed to his earlier works which mimic the older generation of French Baroque composers. In any case, the Suitte d'un Goût Étranger with all of its garish flair and supreme elegance, might be viewed as a culmination in French Baroque chamber music.
Contents
- 1. Marche Tartare (March of the Tartars)
- 2. Allemande
- 3. Sarabande
- 4. La Tartarine (The Tartar Girl)
- 5. Double
- 6. Gavotte
- 7. Feste Champêtre (Rustic Festival)
- 8. Gigue la Fleselle
- 9. Rondeau le Bijou (The Jewel)
- 10. Le Tourbillon (The Tornado)
- 11. L'Uniforme (The Uniform)
- 12. Suitte
- 13. Suitte
- 14. L'Ameriquaine (The Native American Girl)
- 15. Allemande (Sujet) & Gigue (Basse)--contained in one piece, the soloist plays an Allemande before switching parts with the continuo, transforming it into a Gigue.
- 16. Allemande L'Asmatique (The Asthmatic)
- 17. La Tourneuse (The Turner)
- 18. Muzette
- 19. Caprice ou Sonate
- 20. Le Labyrinthe (The Labyrinth)
- 21. La Sauterelle (The Grasshopper)
- 22. La Fougade
- 23. Allemande La Bizare
- 24. La Minaudière
- 25. Allemande La Singulière
- 26. L'Arabesque
- 27. Allemande La Superbe
- 28. La Rêveuse (The Dreaming Girl)
- 29. Marche
- 30. Gigue
- 31. Pièce Luthée (Piece in a luteLuteLute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
style) - 32. Gigue La Caustique (The Caustic)
- 33. Le Badinage (The Conversation)