Paris Conservatoire Research Articles

Aesthetic and Interpretive Approaches in French Music for Saxophone. Robert Planel – Prelude et Saltarella

Although he knows the saxophone thanks to the leadership of the orchestra, P. Boulez won't write for sax players because the instrument evokes too much variety and jazz, and at the Conservatory he will not be close to the sax players of the "marginal" class (to use his words) of Professor M. Mule. However, the Paris Conservatoire is an undeniable cradle of composition in terms of works including the saxophone. The number of composers who liked this instrument, students in the classes of Nadia Boulanger, mainly, but also of Olivier Messiaen, Darius Milhaud, Paul Dukas and Andre Jolivet, is impressive, so it is clear how important their influence is and the number of works dedicated to saxophone.

Etienne Ozi – «a great bassonist of incredible talent»

Statement of the problem. Etienne Ozi stands out as a bassoonist due to his significant creative achievements in various spheres of his multifaceted activities. As a bassoonist soloist, he successfully debuted in the “Concerts Spirituels” and for more than two decades was actively performed in front of Parisians in the best halls of the capital. An equally significant achievement of Ozі as a teacher was the preparation of the first instructional manual for the specialists “Nouvelle méthode de basson adoptue par le Conservatoire” (1803), which remained the main official publication of the Paris Conservatory for many years. The composer’s work also became an important part of the bassoon repertoire, which was actively used by him and his students in performing and teaching activities. Despite the importance of E. Ozi’s contribution to all spheres of bassoon art, the artist’s multifaceted creative activity still has not been properly assessed by modern researchers and requires a more detailed study. Recent research and publications. Among the works of domestic scientists, there are hardly any publications dedicated to E. Ozi’s creative activity. An outstanding Ukrainian musician, teacher and scientist V. M. Apatsky (2017) in his fundamental reference publication «Bassoon from A to Z» covers only individual episodes of the musician’s biography. The figure of the French artist is considered more deeply by foreign researchers, among which it is necessary to single out the dissertation and monograph of H. E. Griswold «Etienne Ozi (1754–1813): Bassoonist, Teacher, and Composer» (1979), in which E. Ozi’s work is revealed in sufficient detail. However, over the forty-year period of its existence, a certain updating of historical materials took place, which requires clarification and correction of some facts. Among the latest publications, which in one way or another highlight E. Ozi’s work, it is worth mentioning O. Tiffou’s monograph «The French Bassoon in the 19th Century. Theory and Repertoire» (2022) and Á. D. Moreno’s thesis «Bassoon Playing in Perspective. Character and Performance Practice from 1800 to 1850» (2013). In each of the studies, the authors partly consider individual aspects of the musician’s creative work according to the chosen research direction. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the study is to identify the main directions of Etienne Ozi’s performance and his role in the process of formation of the French bassoon school of the late 18th – early 19th centuries. The scientific novelty of the paper is determined by disclosing little-known facts of E. Ozi’s performance and his contribution to the formation of the French bassoon school. The study of E. Ozi’s performance required the use of a number of methods, such as historical to reveal the ideological and socio-economic factors of influence of the French Revolution on the development of musical art; historiography analyses to study and interpret musical and critical sources of the 18th century, chronological one to determine the time sequence of E. Ozi’s main concert performances; contextual and biographical approaches to highlight important stages of the artist’s creative work. Research results. The process of becoming Ozi as a performer is related to military brass bands, which, due to the lack of special musical educational institutions in France in the 18th century, remained the only place, where it was possible to learn to play wind instruments. Then, successful bassoon lessons under the leadership of the outstanding German bassoonist G. V. Ritter opened him the door to the concert stage. From 1779, he became an active performer-soloist of the prestigious “Concerts Spirituels” in the royal palaces. After the French Revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy, E. Ozi continued a successful performing and teaching career in the Paris Conservatory, the orchestras of the Théâtre Italien, Théâtre Feydeau and Théâtre de la République et des Arts. An important achievement of the talented musician was a convincing victory in the competition of nominees for the post of soloist of the Grand Opéra Théâtre, which allowed him to take the most prestigious place for a bassoonist in France. Conclusion. E. Ozi is one of the first French musicians who presented the bassoon as a solo instrument and created a multi-genre concert repertoire for it. Regular performances at the most prestigious halls of Paris allowed him to confidently occupy a leading positions not only among the French, but also European bassoonists. Active performing activity of E. Ozi and his fruitful teaching practice at the Paris Conservatory had a crucial influence on the development of European bassoon art of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Formation of Basson Classes at the Paris Conservatory

The object of the study was the origins and initial period of the formation of bassoon classes at the Paris Conservatory. The author analyzed the early stages of the training process involved in the French bassoon school. The role of maîtrise and military bands in the instruction of bassoon performers before the beginning of the revolutionary events in 1789 was revealed. The study exposed the influence of the church music-educational system on the professionalization of secular instrumental and vocal performance, as well as its importance in the creative development of prominent French bassoonists who were formed in the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries. The author investigated the essence of the ideological and political factors of the French Revolution in the creation of a new democratic system that began to exist in professional musical education, which guaranteed its accessibility to the general population and free education on a competitive basis. The article provides a chronology of the beginning and development of bassoon classes on the path of professionalization of performance on wind instruments at the National Guard Music School, the National Institute of Music and the Paris Conservatory. The peculiarities of the implementation of the competitive system of professional training of instrumentalists, as well as the formation of didactic materials to ensure the educational process at the Paris Conservatory became the basis for further artistic education. This fact was carefully analyzed and became the basis for the conclusions of the article. The innovative guide of E. Ozi "School of Playing the Bassoon", was regarded as one of the first complete instructional materials for the bassoon. It was officially approved as a study guide for mastering the instrument, became a powerful impetus for the development of the conservatory students’ performance skills. The author emphasized and defined the role of E. Ozi in the creation of bassoon classes at the Paris Conservatory, as well as in the founding of the French performing school. It has been proven that an important factor in the development of French bassoon performance in the second half of the 18th century was the inclusion of the bassoon in the training programs of metris and its use in church ensembles to accompany choral singing during divine services

From Servant to Savant: Musical Privilege, Property, and the French Revolution

During the Reign of Terror, the rhetoric of liberation served as cover for conquest. When it came to artistic masterworks belonging to ‘tyrannical’ regimes, revolutionary freedom justified confiscation. The painter Jacques Luc Barbier was one of many who provided a justification. Such masterpieces, Barbier said of paintings by Rubens, were ‘sullied by traces of servitude’ and in need of liberation. The revolutionary Temporary Arts Commission commissioned a convoy to retrieve other paintings, manuscripts and musical scores duly liberated by French troops in Belgium. Soldiers returned from Piedmont to great acclaim with works they had ‘conquered’ on foreign soil. Napoleon continued the plunder across Italy with similar confiscations, first authorized by the Directory and later justified as a fitting reward for spreading civilization. The role of music and musicians in this appropriation is a major theme of Rebecca Dowd Geoffroy-Schwinden’s From Servant to Savant: Musical Privilege, Property, and the French Revolution. ‘[M]usical “works” and composers’, she writes, ‘became cantered in a modern system of musical production destined to support nationalist, imperialist, and colonialist endeavors’. The examples she produces are telling. French musicians eagerly endorsed taking scores, manuscripts and instruments from other countries by force. Luigi Cherubini, the Italian-born Inspector of the new Paris Conservatory, imagined the core of its library coming from Italian cities. The ‘enemy’s contributions’, he wrote to the Director of Public Instruction, were ‘too important to be neglected’. The new musical order, writes Geoffroy-Schwinden, was complicit in an imperial project that would eventually encircle the globe.

Reading Queer Continuums in Gymnopédie No. 3: A Conversation with Satie, and Cage, and Me (and You)

ABSTRACT After three family members’ deaths, expulsion from the Paris Conservatoire for perceived lack of talent, and escaping compulsory military service via deliberate bronchitis infection, Erik Satie returned to Montmartre and soon composed the Trois Gymnopédies (1888). Gymnopédie no. 1's famously liminal simplicity is now culturally ubiquitous. This article speaks to the lacuna between Satie's nebulous queerness and his favoured term ‘gymnopédie’ by unveiling a somatic gesture in the oft-forgotten Gymnopédie no. 3 where the player's hands interlace to sustain overlapped chord voicings. To read this gesture as a form of touch that queers classical technique, I contextualise the suite's affects in Satie's grief-laden biographical moment, and analyse Gymnopédie no. 3's somatic device via traditional music analysis. I examine John Cage's sonic pedagogies developed during his 1948 Black Mountain College lectures to show how Cage's paradigm of embodiment was derived from Satie's methodological treatment of embodied experience. Finally, I include a transdisciplinary somatic interpretation of Gymnopédie no. 3 to contrast customary music analysis. As a practice of perverse presentism, I seek to write within historical tenuity surrounding Satie's queer positionality and the Gymnopédies, necessitating queer pedagogies that visit this question without engaging the critical tendency to essentialise queerness as transhistorical fact.

Ondes Martenot: repertoire and performers

The article is devoted to the history of performance on a rare instrument of the Waves of Martenot. Its history of creation, repertoire and performance capabilities have not yet become the subject of a separate study, while at the Paris Conservatory there is still a class of Waves of Martenot, and the repertoire is periodically replenished. In connection with these facts, the coverage of the features of a musical instrument seems to be a very relevant topic. For the analysis, the main material was the works specially written for the Waves of Martenot, which can be used to determine the specifics of a particular version of the instrument that determined its technical capabilities, as well as various interviews of performers on the Waves of Martenot. The conclusion of the study is the discovery of new opportunities for enriching the timbre due to the established repertoire and the circle of performers on the instrument, as well as a special stylistic pluralism and sound imaging capabilities that determined the specifics of the instrument and at the same time its concert and cinematic fate, where it is widely used both in academic, film music, and in rock bands. The object of the study is the electromusical instrument Martino Waves, which became widespread in performing practice and composer's work of the 20th century. The subject of the research is the existing performing repertoire of Waves Martenot and performing practice. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that this is the first study in Russian about this music instrument. The applied methodology is based on a comparative analysis of various versions of the Martenot Waves instrument, the material for which are works created by composers in different years when its creator, Maurice Martenot, modified the instrument's design.

Development of the double bass class at the Paris Conservatoire in 1820-1830s

Development of the double bass class at the Paris Conservatoire in 1820-1830s

Vocal Virtuosity: The Origins of the Coloratura Soprano in Nineteenth-Century Opera by Sean M. Parr

Reviewed by: Vocal Virtuosity: The Origins of the Coloratura Soprano in Nineteenth-Century Opera by Sean M. Parr Andrea Cawelti Vocal Virtuosity: The Origins of the Coloratura Soprano in Nineteenth-Century Opera. By Sean M. Parr. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. [xvii, 301 p. ISBN 978-0-1975-4264-4 (hardcopy). $65. ISBN 978-0-1975-4267-5 (e-book)] At the end of the eighteenth century, several major changes in the opera world made it easier for women to study voice, and then sing professionally. These changes provided fuel for the eventual rise of female opera singers in the nineteenth century, and for the creation and optimisation of a particular voice type, the coloratura soprano. Author Sean M. Parr expands themes from his 2009 Columbia University thesis, Melismatic Madness: Coloratura and Female Vocality in Mid-19th Century French and Italian Opera, and with a judicious balance of original research and secondary resources, explores the historical context of this shift in the opera world. Through case studies, with Caroline Miolan-Carvalho at the centre, and a focus on French and Italian repertoire, Parr reclaims a place in history for this oft-dismissed voice type. The Introduction, Coloratura and Female Vocality provides a brief history of coloratura singing. From opera’s origins, composers used melismatic voice painting, sometimes to highlight a singer’s agility and range, and sometimes to heighten the character’s emotional intensity: this tradition of singing was still prominent during the ‘bel canto’ period of the early nineteenth century when composers employed coloratura vocal writing as part of normal melodic text treatment. In 1798, Pope Pius VI revoked the ban against women appearing on stage, and eight years later, Napoleon forbade castration. The founding of the Paris Conservatoire in 1795 provided an opportunity for female singers with good coloratura: ‘vocal virtuosity was a source of power for women, generating space for female authorship and creativity’ (p. 3). By the end of the nineteenth century, however, as opera moved into the verismo style, coloratura virtually disappeared. In providing a historical context for the study of singing, gender, and nineteenth-century opera, the increasing specificity of coloratura through the century led to its eventual identity with a particular soprano voice type. ‘In mid-century France, sopranos who specialized in coloratura and extreme high notes garnered the largest salaries and greatest acclaim’ (p. 11). The author also provides his own synopses of the six chapters (which I have used extensively in the following chapter outlines) and lays out his thesis: to rescue the nineteenth-century coloratura soprano from scholarly disdain and obscurity. Chapter 1, The New Franco-Italian School of Singing examines vocal treatises in conjunction with music excerpts and the careers of individual singers, and ‘explores the split between melismatic and sustained singing styles and how it manifested itself pedagogically in France’ (p. 29). The author demonstrates that most nineteenth-century coloratura singers’ lineages originated in Paris Conservatoire training. Early Conservatoire leadership devised a vocal programme by merging French and Italian traditions into a new school of singing led by three famous singers turned teachers: Laure Cinti-Damoreau, Gilbert-Louis Duprez, and Manuel Garcia II, whose published treatises are examined in depth. Their light, agile singing style (Cinti-Damoreau), and more declamatory style (Duprez), carried over into their teaching, and to their students’ eventual techniques. These styles foreshadow our modern understanding of vocal categories, including what would become the coloratura soprano. I was delighted to see that Parr used my own voice teacher Richard Miller’s superb vocal treatise to support his discussion of female falsetto. [End Page 69] Chapter 2, Verdi and the End of Italian Coloratura explores Verdi’s part in the history of the coloratura soprano, with works that can justly be labeled ‘French’, due to his use of French literary sources and musical forms. Verdi’s use of coloratura changed over the course of his career, but key examples are still found in his middle-period operas: Rigoletto, La traviata, and Les Vêpres siciliennes. Careful reading of coloratura arias in these operas suggest that Verdi’s use of coloratura serves a psychological purpose: ‘With these three cases, Verdi forced the coloratura to have a...

Colette Gaveau-Małcużyńska – portret pianistki

The article is an attempt to sketch a portrait of the talented French pianist Colette Gaveau (1913–1987), winner of the first prize of the Paris Conservatory in 1932, participant in several international music competitions, including the 3rd Piano Competition Frederic Chopin in Warsaw in 1937 and the Eugène Ysaÿe, which took place in Brussels in 1938. A breakthrough event in the life of young Colette Gaveau was the marriage with the Polish pianist Witold Małcużyński (1914–1977) in October 1939. Due to the warfare of World War II, Gaveau-Małcużyńska left France with her husband, first to Portugal and then to Argentina. The Małcużyński family did not return to Europe until 1945. Colette Gaveau-Małcużyńska was a faithful and patient companion in the life and successes of one of the most outstanding Polish pianists of the second half of the 20th century.

“School” of trombone playing as a means of developing European trombone art of the 19th century

Statement of the problem. The historical context of the influence of trombone players on the performance style of European schools has not yet been studied despite the widespread use of method books “The schools of trombone playing” by all musicians, from amateurs to professionals. However, in the past, leading teachers and methodologists mainly from conservatories presented the performance trends of that time and developed new ones in their works, which guided the further development of the future generations’ performers. Recent research and publications. The issue of method books and their influence on European trombone schools was actively studied at the end of the 20th century (Guion, 1988; Lapie, 1995; Weiner, 1993, 1995, 1999 a, b). In this context, an important place belongs to the article “Slide trombone training and method books in France (1794–1960)” (Sluchin & Lapie, 1997), which contains a lot of information about method books of that period, the evolution of European trombone schools, the contribution of method books authors to the development of trombone playing in the nineteenth century and a detailed analysis of the most influential authors. The most significant recent works are dissertations that examine the history of the Paris Conservatory, the creativity of prominent trombone teachers and their works on methodology (Velázquez, 2019; Carlson, 2015). Ukrainian researchers have not studied this issue yet. The purpose of the article is to study the influence of the method books “The schools of trombone playing” on European trombone art. Research methodology. The focus of the research is to study the most famous and innovative method books of the nineteenth century. The article applies the historical and chronological approach as the leading one in the study and organization of the research material; comparative approach to find the main differences between these “schools”; systematic and analytical approach to identify the most significant differences and their influence on the development of trombone mastery; historical and cultural approach to study the process of formation of national European trombone schools. The novelty of the study is manifested in the chronological classification of all known trombone schools in the nineteenth century and a detailed analysis of the most influential ones. Results and conclusion. Having analyzes the most significant European schools of trombone playing from the very first work by A. Brown, written in 1794, to the work by J. B. Arban, we have traced the process of historical development of the technical skills of musicians and identified the sources of the European method of trombone performance. In this context, the role of France is revealed as outstanding, because the first trombone class opened at the Paris Conservatory led to the emergence of the first original “school of playing”. This was followed by a whole cascade of similar works, first in France and then in other European countries. During the nineteenth century, thanks to the aforementioned method books and the Paris Conservatory, the French had a constellation of trombone players, including: Leo Arnaud, Michel Becquet, Henri Couillaud, Paul Deliss, AntoineDieppo, VincoGlobokar, AndréLafosse, DanielLassalle, JacquesMédecin, Fabrice Millischer, Nicolas Moutier, Jérôme Naulais, Alfred Alexandre Quentin, and many others. After the French success, Germany took the initiative and, thanks to the work of Franz-Josef Fröhlich, created its own school of tromboneplaying with a large number of performers, such as Friedrich August Bellecke, Johannes Culottes, Karl Traugott Queisser, Friedrich Schenker, and Paul Weschke. Thanks to A. Wirth, in the 1870s, a British method of trombone playing emerged, and hence a number of British performers of the XIX–XX centuries, including Byron Fulcher, Lance Green, Gustav Holst, Chris Houlding, Lindsay Schilling, John Kenny, Dave Stewart, and Roger Argente.

Pierre Sancan: “Master of the Masterclass”

The purpose of this study is to explore the life and work of Pierre Sancan (1916–2008), an exemplary piano teacher who, like many masters in the apprenticeship tradition, is chiefly remembered today by his pupils alone. An all-round musician, Sancan had early success as a composer when he won the Prix de Rome in 1943, and enjoyed a flourishing career in solo and ensemble piano performance. His applied studio practices were based on the French school but extended beyond it by drawing on Russian approaches to technique, a study of anatomy, and the influence of jazz improvisation. However, at the height of his creative career, hailed as ‘one of the biggest names in French music today’, Sancan became professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire, increasingly devoting his expertise and energies to the musical lives of his pupils and influencing generations of pianists and piano teachers around the world. In this study, Sancan’s musical career is examined through archival material including institutional documents, interviews and personal memorabilia, alongside an interview and survey study with former pupils including Jean-Philippe Collard and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet.

Reconstructing the Paris Conservatory’sCours d’Harmonie1812–1844: Discipline, Sources, Theory, and Method

A growing body of scholarship on practical music theory traditions, and Italianpartimentopedagogy in particular, has begun to shed light on the nature of harmony pedagogy prior to the development of functional tonal theory. The methods of the Italian schools were not adopted wholesale in Paris, but rather interacted with local pedagogies, resulting in an institutionally-specific approach to teaching harmony. In Paris, the study of written harmony relied on a contrapuntal method for polyphonically realizing and elaborating a series of canonic figures in the form ofcadences(progressions);marches(sequences);modulations;broderies(non-harmonic tones),altérations(chromatic alterations); andpédales(pedals).This article reconstructs the basic catalog of the first four of these elements which served as the cornerstone of the harmony course at the Paris Conservatory across the nineteenth century. In addition, it illustrates how the incorporation of these elements within the institutional confines of the Conservatory resulted in both their distinctive pedagogical treatment and the advancement of a specific compositional method.

The Influence of D. Antoinette Handy—Musician, Scholar, Administrator, Visionary—on the Expansion of Music Education in Richmond, Virginia

American flutist D. Antoinette Handy’s multifaceted career encompassed the roles of music educator, scholar, and arts administrator, as well as soloist and bandleader. Born in New Orleans in 1930 and educated at the New England Conservatory, Northwestern, and the Paris Conservatoire, Handy settled in the Richmond, Virginia, area in 1966 to begin an expansive new phase of her career. She taught at Virginia State College, performed with the Richmond Symphony, was music critic for the Richmond Afro-American, published three books, and hosted two public radio programs including Black Virginia, which featured female jazz masters and discussed the state of jazz education in Richmond at the dawn of its 1980s “renaissance.” Handy was Richmond Public Schools’ first artist-in-residence and brought Eileen Southern, Mary Lou Williams, and Terri Lyne Carrington to lead workshops for the students and their teachers. Through an examination of primary and secondary sources including new oral history interviews, this article examines Handy’s manifold contributions to music education in and around Richmond, with a focus on how she helped construct a more inclusive and interconnected music scene.

Bookshelf

Bookshelf Debra Greschner (bio) Parr, Sean M. Vocal Virtuosity: The Origins of the Coloratura Soprano in Nineteenth Century Opera. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. E-book, xvii, 301 pp., $48.99. ISBN 978-0197542644; Paper, $65.00. ISBN 978-0-1975-4264-4 www.global.oup.com For centuries, audiences have thrilled to the sounds of coloratura. From the earliest appearance of florid passages in medieval liturgy to the roulades of Rossini, melismatic singing has captivated listeners. Over the course of the nineteenth century, however, the use of coloratura changed. The vocal virtuosity that characterized the operas of Bellini and Donizetti is absent from the late operas of Verdi, and composers such as Puccini and Bizet eschewed it completely. Musicologist Sean Parr explores the origins and history of the modern coloratura soprano, including when the Fach was established and how its development was influenced by exponents of French opera. He avers that coloratura was not anachronistic in nineteenth century opera; instead, it was an indicator of new expressive and dramatic directions. Parr also explores the social and cultural significance of coloratura and demonstrates that fioritura had implications well beyond the footlights. The chronicle begins with an overview of changes that occurred at the turn of the nineteenth century. In 1798, Pope Pius VI revoked the ban against women appearing on stage; eight years later, the French emperor forbade castrati. Parr explains that the resulting increase in opportunities for women necessitated changes in voice pedagogy models because the master teacher paradigm that required students to live with their instructors was deemed inappropriate for female singers. This shift solidified the importance of formal music schools, such as the Paris Conservatory. Founded in 1795, the institution was influential in standardizing music education, even publishing a treatise that codified the curriculum of voice pedagogy. The structured approach to technique (which included an emphasis on the whistle register) and the influence of pedagogues Laure Cinti-Damoreau (1801–1863), Gilbert-Louis Duprez (1806–1896), and Manuel Garcia II (1805–1906) enabled sopranos to develop the skills required for melismatic singing. Parr cites pedagogic treatises of the era to demonstrate the widening rift that developed between melismatic and sustained singing styles as evidenced in the writing of Francesco Lamperti (1813–1892) and Julius Stockhausen (1826–1906). There was also a shift along national lines. Parr details how Italian opera began to move away from coloratura, as exemplified in the middle period operas of Giuseppe Verdi. The author postulates that the fioritura serves as an omen of impending doom for the character who sings it; for instance, Gilda's elation in "Caro nome" is artificial and the melismas serve as an ominous warning. The author draws the same parallel for the arias "Sempre libera" (La traviata) and "Merci, jeunes amies" (Les Vêpres siciliennes). The dark subtext of these arias contrasts with the joyful or exuberant mood usually associated with coloratura, and Parr contends the mood reflects Verdi's opinion of melismatic singing. Despite its disappearance from Italian operas, coloratura remained a mainstay in the stage works of French composers. There were several important exponents of the Fach, but the most significant of the era was soprano Caroline Carvalho (1827–1895). Born Marie Félix-Miolan, she created sixteen roles in the span of seventeen years. Five were leading roles in operas by Charles Gounod, including Marguerite in Faust and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette. (She also premiered Gounod's setting of "Ave Maria" based on the first keyboard prelude by J. S. Bach.) Parr proffers a detailed portrait of the noteworthy performer and créatrice. In regard to the latter, Carvalho possessed formidable skills in performing variations as exemplified by her performance of the aria "Carnaval de Venise" (La Reine Topaze) by Massé. Her marriage to Léon Carvalho in 1853 increased her sphere of influence. As an opera director who worked at several theaters, including the Théâtre-Lyrique and Opéra-Comique, Léon exhibited an astute ability to recognize operas with potential. In addition to presenting the premieres of many of Gounod's operas, he oversaw the first performances of Les Pêcheurs de perles by Bizet (1863), Les Troyens by Berlioz...

Female Singers on the French Stage, 1830–1848 by Kimberly White

Reviewed by: Female Singers on the French Stage, 1830–1848 by Kimberly White Lydia Bechtel Female Singers on the French Stage, 1830–1848. By Kimberly White. (Cambridge Studies in Opera.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. [xi, 239 p. ISBN 9781107101234 (hardcover), $99.99; also available as e-book, ISBN and price vary.] Illustrations, tables, appendix, bibliography, index. Recently, musicological scholarship and pedagog y have gradually shifted away from composer-driven narratives to conversations that include the breadth of artists involved in the music-making process. Kimberly White’s Female Singers on the French Stage, 1830–1848 shadows this change and demonstrates the merits of exploring the contributions of performers and their complete artistic journeys as a more thorough examination of music history. While not focusing on any one singer, White chronicles the trajectory of training, rise to fame, and autumnal decline of French female singers through an exploration of primary-source documents, journals, and serial publications. As White explains in the introduction, this focus “restore[s] women to the historical record” and “expand[s] traditional notions of historical significance to acknowledge their lived experiences” (p. 3). Her book concentrates on a seemingly narrow eighteen-year period, but it is one of great change in French opera and society, which she expertly weaves into her analysis of how female singers lived in the changing systems of the time. White’s greatest strength is her ability to draw information from so many resources (serial novels, correspondence, contracts, journals, reviews, memoirs, and biographies) and to artic ulate how female singers moved through the French operatic world of the mid-nineteenth century. She does this by starting at the earliest stages of a singer’s career, following the initial [End Page 79] discovery of talent, through private training and entry into the Paris Conservatoire. While the presentation of so much information can at times be a dry read, on the whole White synthesizes the information in a narrative style that allows one to methodically follow the musical journeys of these women. For example, in chapter 1, which begins with a discussion of a young woman’s initiation into musical studies, White presents the family origins and professions of female Conservatoire students as well as those of Opéra and Opéra-Comique singers (pp. 13–15). White sifted through countless documents to gather this information, and she presents it in tables and elaborates on it in the text. It is because of this painstaking attention to detail and labor-intensive scholarship that readers are able to appreciate the hard work of these female singers as they see them go from young trainee in the Conservatoire to ingénue at the Opéra. In chapter 2, White skillfully chronicles the progression from novice student to professional debut. The focus on how young singers transitioned to the professional stage ultimately “shows how female artists took an active role in constructing their careers” (p. 39). White offers details on the preparations of the singer for her debut and the inner workings of such events at French opera houses. It is, however, the focus on the singers themselves and how they negotiated the terms of their debuts (usually with some degree of aid from a male protector) that best supports White’s thesis. Another important aspect of the debut process White covers is the creation of an artist’s image. As she reveals, singers like Cornélie Falcon and Emilia Goggi embodied an image of morality, humility, and deference to ensure a successful debut, while Louise Lavoye’s audacious ambition put her at risk for scrutiny by critics. Ultimately, what White demonstrates through her exploration of the debutantes in this chapter is that these women understood how to best prepare and present themselves, thus exerting some personal control over their professional situation—something for which music history does not often give women credit. In chapter 3, White presents one of the book’s strongest musical-historical outlines, in which she analyzes the impact of the July Revolution on the operational functions of French opera houses. Her examination of the new system, which made the houses more entrepreneurial and less reliant on government support, allows for a conversation concerning...

Nadia Boulanger and Her World, edited by Jeanice Brooks

<i>Nadia Boulanger and Her World</i>, edited by Jeanice Brooks

The ‘lost’ account book of the Academy of Vocal (later Ancient) Music, 1726–1731): a postscript to my article on the history of the Academy in volume 51 (2020).

AbstractThe account book of the London Academy of Vocal (later Ancient) Music (1726-31) forms the first part of a manuscript acquired by the library of the Paris Conservatoire in 1858. It went missing when, a hundred years later, it was transferred to the Bibliothèque Nationale and the second part catalogued as MS F. Rés. 1507. It did not surface again until the spring of 2020, too late to be included in the author’s long article on the history, repertoire and surviving programmes of this important eighteenth-century institution in Research Chronicle no. 51. As a postscript to that article, it is transcribed here prefaced by a short introductory essay together with such explanatory notes as the document requires.

Парижская консерватория и развитие скрипичного исполнительства

The opening of the Paris Conservatoire in 1795 played a huge role in the 19th century development of French and wider European performing arts. The article discusses the uniqueness of violin education in the 18th century France and identifies the reasons for the emergence of the world's first educational institution that provided free tuition to all its students regardless of their social background. The article is supplemented with the Russian language translation of the law on the establishment of Paris Conservatoire and a list of its first professors. The article provides a detailed analysis of the initial stage in the development of violin training associated with the names of such famous French violinists as Pierre Gaviniès, Rodolphe Kreutzer, Pierre Rode, and Pierre Baillot. Their wellcoordinated methodological efforts and commitment to common aesthetic ideals encouraged the development of a very powerful violin school that left the rest of Europe behind. The Paris Conservatoire concentrated the best of the country’s artistic potential, thus shaping the musical landscape of France. It also served as a role model for other secular educational institutions located in Europe’s major musical centers.

From Xavier Lefèvre to Frédéric Berr: Clarinet instruction at the Paris Conservatory between 1795 and 1838.

Student Number 3258904 Supervisor Bart van Oort Title From Xavier Lefèvre to Frédéric Berr: Clarinet instruction at the Paris Conservatory between 1795 and 1838. Research Question How to describe clarinet instruction at the Paris Conservatory between 1795 and 1838? Summary The Paris Conservatory was founded in 1795. Xavier Lefèvre (1763-1829) was one of the first clarinet professor to teach there, from 1795 to 1824. In 1802 he published an important clarinet tutor intended for study at the Conservatoire: Méthode de clarinette. Frédéric Berr (1794-1838) held the same position from 1832 to 1838. In 1836 he published a Méthode complète de clarinette and a Traité complet de la clarinette. Thanks to these writings, it is possible nowadays to get an idea of the skills needed by a French clarinettist of the early 19th century to play the music of his time. The aim of this research is thus to describe the main aspects of performance practice during the chosen period. Many of these aspects are not limited to the clarinet. Consequently, other methods for singing or for other instruments related to the Conservatory, have been studied to provide a broader perspective of performance practice at that time. As the first decades of the 19th century witnessed important developments in clarinet making and instrumental technique, it has been essential to discuss this point in this research. However the central aspect of this work is musical expression, the ultimate goal of a performance. Phrasing, the variety of articulation and dynamics appear as essential tools for the performer who wants to communicate with the audience. Short biography Théo Couillez is a French clarinetist. He studied in his native country where he received the bachelor degree at the Pôle Supérieur Paris Boulogne-Billancourt in 2017. Eager to discover another approach to interpretation, he decided in 2019 to study for the Master degree in historical clarinet with Eric Hoeprich at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. (Netherlands). Passionate about the symphonic orchestra, he took part to several orchestral academies such as the Youth European Orchestra Hector Belioz led by François-Xavier Roth and the Collegium Vocal Gent Academy led by Philippe Herreweghe.

ИСТОРИОГРАФИЯ ФРАНЦУЗСКОЙ ФЛЕЙТОВОЙ ДИДАКТИКИ ХVIII – ПЕРВОЙ ПОЛОВИНЫ ХIX СТ.

The article is devoted to the historiographic analysis of French flute manuals of the 18th-19th centuries. The author has examined the technological and artistic principles of the formation of French flute didactics at different stages of historical development. The educational books by Jacques Hotteterre, Charles de Lusse, Benoit Tranquille Berbiguier, François Devienne, Antoine Hugot, Johann Wunderlich and other performer-educators have been investigated by using the comparative analyses. Theobald Boehm’s reform has been displayed in terms of its impact on flute playing technology. The author also has focused on the discussion about its use in the educational process at the Paris Conservatory.